If it seems like city council elections were just two years ago, they were. Now, they’re happening again and a wave of somewhat new city council members will now have to convince voters to re-elect them again because of a quirk in the city’s charter that cut their latest terms in half. Those politicians include Jennifer Gutiérrez, the longtime chief of staff for former Bushwick city councilman Antonio Reynoso, and who won a mildly divisive primary in 2021.
So far, according to the campaign finance rolls, she’s only facing competition from Paperboy Prince, who has previously made unsuccessful runs for Congress and then for the Mayor’s office. Nonetheless, Gutiérrez has been keeping busy in her re-election campaign, which kicked off in February, with endorsements from progressive political factions like the New York Working Families Party and the climate advocacy group, Sunrise NYC.
Now, she’s getting endorsed by a handful of labor unions, according to a press release from her campaign.
“She’s doing the work,” reads a press release quoting Bhav Tibrewal, a political director at one those unions, the New York Hotel Trades Council, a wing of the AFL-CIO that represents nearly 40,000 people who work for hotels and casinos in New York and New Jersey. In a similar vein, Gutiérrez also announced the support of the Committee of Interns and Residents, which represents another 27,000 people who work in the industry.
The councilmember also netted a supporting statement from Michael Mulgrew, the long-running president of the United Federation of Teachers, according to the release.
“Gutiérrez knows the essential role of public education in our communities and is committed to strengthening our schools – like expanding daycare. We look forward to continuing this great work upon her re-election,” read the line from Mulgrew, citing her support, back in March, for a bill in city council that would expand preschool programs.
The primary is on June 27, 2023. Find a nearby polling location here.
Images taken by John McCarten for the NYC Council Media Unit.
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It’s interesting how you make no comments on Paperboy and how he has been doing actual work in the community. He gave away over $30,000 worth of food every single week during the entire pandemic. He runs many community outreach programs for the needy and performs free HIV testing from his commercial community space. Voters like me all know this and we take notice when you constantly stack the deck for the establishment. Shame on you Andrew Karpan
If any! Paperboy supporters would like to write an opinion post making the case for their candidacy, hit me up at akarpan@bushwickdaily.com
Andrew did you just say “hit you up” to write an op-Ed about PaperBoy? At the minimum I admire the micron of courage it took to make that offer publicly. But on the same token it shows that you have no principals in journalism as you are afraid of how the political royalty that control what you write in this publication would look at you if you grew a pair and called PaperBoy to give him an interview your self.
we’ve run multiple stories on paperboy’s various political campaigns over the years. if you’d like to make the case that this one is significant in some particular way, I’d love to hear it, lmk!