The primary elections for the New York City Council are around the corner. On June 22, voters throughout the five boroughs will cast their ballots to help decide who will represent their respective districts. 

The race to represent District 30, which spans across the neighborhoods of Ridgewood, Woodside and Woodhaven, is underway.

Here are the candidates.

  

The city’s 30th district stretches from Ridgewood deep into the heart of Queens.

Bob Holden

That incumbent would be Robert Holden, who secured the seat with a surprise win in 2017, after losing that year’s Democratic primary and securing the endorsement of the Queens Republican Party, which is incidentally based in the district.

But Holden is running again as a Democrat and hoping his incumbency will help this time. At the Village Voice, you can read Jake Bittle’s account of ‘Angry Bob’’s first few years in city council. More recently, Holden made an effort to get city council to repeal a decision to criminalize police chokeholds and also asked city council to create a committee dedicated to animal welfare, a campaign that’s been widely promoted by the New York Post. Unlike neighboring Democrat Darma Diaz, Holden voted against efforts earlier this year to expand the number of street vendor permits in the city.


Juan Ardila

(via Juan Ardila’s Instagram)

Running against Holden in the Democratic primary is Juan Ardila, who’s been endorsed by some of Holden’s departing city hall colleagues, as well as the Working Families Party, a local political group that’s also endorsing Maya Wiley and Dianne Morales in the mayoral race, after rescinding its endorsement of the somewhat disgraced Scott Stringer. In a sign of this race’s closeness, Holden’s friends at the Post recently accused Ardila of posting “racist and homophobic slurs” on Facebook in his “teen years.” Ardila has, in turn, has accused Holden of preparing to run for the seat as a Republican again if he loses to Ardila.

Ardila tells us: “It’s the privilege of a lifetime to be the Working Families Democrat for the 30th Council District. My focus will be on supporting tenants and small homeowners, expanding dual language programs, ending overcrowding in classrooms and expanding accessible and reliable public transportation for our communities.”


Cover photo credit: New York City Council/ Juan Ardila

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