Meet The NYC Council District 1 Candidates: Susan Lee
Lee was among several District 1 candidates to share their platform at a forum hosted by NYU College Democrats ahead of the June 22 election.
NYU College Democrats hosted a Zoom forum with City Council District 1 candidates last Thursday, which included seven of those in the running for the district’s soon-to-be-open seat — Susan Lee, Sean Hayes, Gigi Li, Jenny Low, Christopher Marte, Denny Salas, and Tiffany Winbush.
This year’s primary election, which will take place on June 22, is especially noteworthy; 35 out of 51 Council seats are open due to members terming out or not running for reelection. As a result, over 300 candidates are vying for seats across the city.
There are ten candidates in the running for District 1, according to a map by THE CITY, which was last updated March 9. Not in attendance at the forum were Maud Maron — who RSVP’d but cited a family emergency as her reason for cancellation earlier that day, according to an email sent to NYU College Democrats — Jacqueline Gross, and Susan Damplo.
One of the candidates in the running for District 1, which includes most of Lower Manhattan up to Washington Square Park, will take the place of current Democratic incumbent Margaret Chin, who has represented the district since 2010.
“The City Council controls many issues that have a profound impact on New Yorkers’ lives,” said moderator Mikey Lampel, NYU College Democrats’ Policy and Communications Director and a CAS senior studying Environmental Studies and Public Policy.
NYU Democrats members had several questions prepared; some could only be answered with a yes or no and others that allowed for a minute-long response. In Local’s first installment of “Meet The NYC City Council District 1 Candidates,” we will focus on Susan Lee and her stance on the city issues brought up during the forum.
Lee is a lifelong New Yorker, having grown up on the Lower East Side to parents who immigrated from Hong Kong when she was six years old. An alum of Brooklyn Tech and Barnard College, she earned a Master’s degree in Public Policy from NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and while there, she also became the Program Manager for Development for the AAFE Community Development Fund. Having worked in the nonprofit sphere for most of her life — she spearheaded 9/11 recovery efforts at Sullivan and Cromwell LLP — Lee has worked as as a freelance grant writer, and has served on the Board of Directors of Nomi Network and the Board of Trustees of MercyFirst.
Pandemic recovery
Lee said that the city needs to look at COVID-19 economic recovery from a public safety perspective. “Until our streets are safe, I think that people will not venture out to support local small businesses,” she said. “And once that is taken care of, people will start going out, spending money, which will help us with our tax base, that will generate revenue for our for our government, which will then provide the much needed services that our community needs.”
Housing and the SoHo/NoHo proposal
Lee does not support the SoHo/NoHo plan, citing the potential displacement as the cause of concern. Once the plan is approved, “it will encourage developers to come in to tear down these tenement buildings and build higher buildings, which will displace those in subsidized housing,” she claimed.
She supports a rezoning plan for Chinatown and the Lower East Side, called The Chinatown Working Group Plan, which is designed to prevent over-development and displacement.
On her website, Lee says she wants to provide relief for those who’ve experienced income loss during the pandemic. She “proposes the City to adopt a policy to freeze property taxes and waive late payment penalties” and said that “she will hold state elected officials accountable and ensure the Rent Relief Extension Program will benefit tenants of struggling mom-and-pop landlords ahead of real estate or hedge fund developers.”
Criminal justice reform and closing down Rikers Island
Lee wants to keep Rikers open with reform. “Instead of dismantling something, we need to look at why it’s not working,” she said.
Additionally, Lee said that she doesn’t support the current bail reform (she thinks needs to be reexamined), and that she does support community policing. “I think we need more policing that is community based, where they are members of the community and they understand the community, and perhaps we can look at it from an auxiliary police perspective,” Lee said.
Bike routes, bus lanes, and open streets
Lee supports the 25x25 plan from Transportation Alternatives, which proposes turning 25 percent of NYC street space into space for people by 2025. “I think that it’s really important to think of ways to create more protected bike lanes,” she said, noting the lack of safe bike lanes through the center of Manhattan.
NYC schools and desegregation
“Education is one of the most important policy platforms for my campaign,” Lee began her response. She described her experience in NYC public schools, growing up on the Lower East Side in the ’90s, and the then-called “Special Progress” program (now the Gifted & Talented program). During the forum, she didn’t get a chance to describe her thoughts about or plan for NYC schools, but according to her website she “will fight to ensure all of our children have access to quality education regardless of where they live.”
On her website’s blog, Lee said that she does not wish to eliminate the Gifted and Talented (G&T) Program, and instead create more G&T seats across the city. “This would provide quality instruction to high performing students beginning at a young age,” Lee wrote. “It would also reduce the current disparities by preparing more students for success in the SHSAT and entrance into specialized high schools.”
Supports reducing the NYPD’s annual budget and shrinking the scope of its work? No.
Supports the City Council’s use of member deference for land use decisions? (With member deference, a Council member decides whether or not to vote yes or no on a proposal in their district and the rest of City Council follows.): Yes.
Supports staff unionization? Yes.
Supports the establishment of the 10 Wooster Street homeless shelter? Yes.
City Council elections are right around the corner, taking place in just a few months, so make sure to register to vote here. Young people can have an impact on who ends up winning the seat this June, and Lampel stressed the importance of getting involved and voting in local elections like this one.
“You see election after election, young people are the smallest block of voters to turn out, and that’s even more exacerbated with a lot of these weird local issues like Community Boards,” he said. “It is filled with people that aren’t actually representative of the population of an area.”
NYU College Democrats President David Gordon added that hearing where candidates like Lee stand on issues raised at the forum is particularly critical for NYU students. He said, “From the perspective of being future invested residents of New York City, this City Council race, as well as the whole of local elections, is really, really important.”
For more information on Susan Lee and her platform, you can visit her website here.
