Borough president candidate Melinda Katz, center, surrounded by legislators and civic leaders supporting her campaign. Photo Courtesy Melinda Katz’s Campaign
Leaning back in her chair in a campaign office crowded with young volunteers on Queens Boulevard, not far from the Borough Hall she hopes to lead, Democratic borough president candidate Melinda Katz raised a hand to her forehead last Friday morning and declared: “I need coffee.”
Up at 3 a.m. to take care of her two small children after her partner, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, left for work, Katz had a long day of campaigning ahead of her – and more of that to come until the Sept. 10 Democratic primary. Now that the initially crowded field of Democratic candidates has dispersed, Katz will face off against only Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr. (D-Astoria) following state Sen. Tony Avella’s (D-Whitestone) announcement that he was dropping out of the race on Wednesday afternoon.
The campaign, Katz conceded, has been exhausting, with the days being filled with everything from door-to-door campaigning from the Rockaways to Bayside – but the former Forest Hills councilwoman and Assemblymember said, after 20 years in public service, she wouldn’t want it any other way.
“A year ago I had to decide whether to stay in private practice, and I looked at the candidates running and made the decision to run for office again,” said Katz, who has been working as an attorney at Greenberg Traurig – which specializes in land use issues and government affairs – in the three years after she left the City Council and lost her bid as the only female candidate for City Comptroller.
“This is the culmination of my career,” she continued. “I’d like my two children to live in the borough of Queens and raise their children here. I want this borough to be what my parents dreamed of.”
Born and raised in Forest Hills, Katz represented her home neighborhood, Rego Park, Kew Gardens and parts of Maspeth, South Elmhurst and Richmond Hill in the City Council from 2002 to 2009. There, she was the chairwoman of the powerful Land Use Committee. Prior to serving on the Council, Katz was the director of community boards for then Queens Borough President Claire Shulman and represented Forest Hills, Rego Park, Middle Village and Glendale in the Assembly.
Her father, David, was the founder and conductor of the Queens Symphony Orchestra and her mother, Jeanne, was the founder of the Queens Council for the Arts.
As someone who grew up in a musically- and artistically-inclined household, Katz said she is especially sensitive to the fact that Queens routinely gets snubbed when it comes to funding from City Hall for the arts – as well as a host of other categories.
“Part of being borough president is fighting for resources for our communities,” she said. “Can she fight for other resources – arts and culture for our schools, after-school programs, our sewer system because there’s such flooding throughout the entire borough, cleanup for Sandy, preparations for the next storm?”
The former legislator said, should she win, she plans to immediately address storm preparedness and support for individuals still dealing with the mess that Hurricane Sandy left.
“The city seems to be ready for the summer crowd in the Rockaways, but there’s a real concern about the speed and effectiveness of permanent protection there,” she said. “Not protecting the Rockaways means the rest of the borough is in danger.”
Katz also said she’s focusing on education – including fighting co-locations and school closures, bringing additional hospital beds to the borough and improving transportation.
She said she supports mayoral control, which came into being under Mayor Bloomberg, but said the Panel for Educational Policy – which makes decisions on such matters and school closures and which is stacked with representatives from the mayor – “needs to be better balanced.”
Within the first month of being elected, Katz said she would call in “the CEO of every major hospital” to meet about increasing the number of medical facilities in a borough that has experienced the closures of four major hospitals in the past five years – and there has been talk that St. John’s, the only hospital in the Rockaways, could be shuttered.
The candidate also said that “any land use project has to have transportation be part of the process.
“Every discussion of adding housing has to have the discussion of how we’re going to get people in and out of there,” Katz said.
She went on to say she’d like to see the crowded conditions on the A and 7 trains alleviated, as well as increase bus service in a borough that has limited subway service, especially in its southern and northern neighborhoods.
By Anna Gustafson
