Last week, Jennifer Gutiérrez, the next City Council member for Bushwick, Ridgewood and Williamsburg’s District 34, tweeted out a form, which those living in the district can fill out to offer feedback and ideas on what they believe are the community’s biggest issues.

The form is available here

Gutiérrez, who is a big proponent of community participation in all decision making, also tweeted out her team’s email address, [email protected], stating “If you need anything, reach out to us.”

“Together, we are going to make sure our district and city works for everyone — for my friends, my community, my family and for my future children,” she added. 

Gutiérrez, a Queens-born activist and former chief of staff to incoming Brooklyn Borough President-Elect Antonio Reynoso, won November’s election in a landslide victory, racking up 91% of the total vote, all while nine months pregnant. 

In her previous position, Gutiérrez, the daughter of Colombian immigrants, played a big role in pushing forward participatory budgeting, a political idea that seeks to increase transparency and empower residents to determine how public money is spent. Altogether, her efforts resulted in more than $5 million allocated to public schools, community infrastructure, green space and the New York City Housing Authority.

Gutiérrez also worked to redirect a large NYPD budget to community-based solutions, and she played a big role in the expansion on the Nuestros Niños Child Development School, growing the community school model in Brooklyn. 

For more information on Gutiérrez’s policies, check out this article, published last month announcing her victory, and visit her campaign website

And if you want to read an op-ed Gutiérrez wrote on alternatives to big real estate in the community, check out her piece “Zoning is Not Community Planning.”


Featured image: via Jennifer Gutiérrez’s campaign website.

For more news, sign up for Bushwick Daily’s newsletter.

Join the fight to save local journalism by becoming a paid subscriber.