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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC. Now we continue our series 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks, in which we're welcoming every member of the New York City Council. In this year, when most of the council is new because of term limits, the mayor is new and council is majority female for the first time too. We are touching every neighborhood of New York City in this series. Today we arrive in district 24 in Queens and Democratic Councilmember James Gennaro. District 24 includes all the parts of Fresh Meadows, Kew Garden Hills, Hillcrest, Pomonok, Jamaica, Jamaica Hills, and Jamaica estates also Briarwood, including the Parkway village garden apartments, and other areas in that part of Eastern and Central Queens.

Councilman Genaro is in his second term, which makes him a veteran by the standards of the term limits law. Among other things, he is chairman of the environmental protection committee, and he's been in the news recently for urging Governor Hochul to call a special session of the state legislature for September on crime in New York. He says the rollbacks they made to the bail reform law so far don't protect people enough. Council member Gennaro, welcome to WNYC. Thanks for joining our series 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks.

Councilmember James Gennaro: Thank you, Brian. It's really great to be here. I really appreciate this opportunity.

Brian: You want to tell us a little bit about your own story first? Where did you grow up and what first motivated you to get into politics and public service?

Councilmember Gennaro: Yes, sure. I grew up in Long Island. I'm a Belmore kid. I went out to Stony Brook University, which was then called SUNY Stony Brook. I studied geology and environmental sciences and all I ever wanted to do was make environmental public policy. My mentor at the time was-- he wasn't in the state assembly yet, but just Steve Engelbright, who now represents the fourth AD and has for many, many years, and we're very close and we go back 45 years. He was my environmental mentor and then I set my sights on moving to New York City, which I did in '83 to be part of the Koch administration and figure out how I can get some kind of environmental job. In 1990 lightning struck for me.

I got a job with the city council, as part of the essential staff under Speaker Peter Malone. I was the policy analyst for the committee on environmental protection, had a great time, dream job, and then term limits came along, and then I said, "What am I going to do now?" I decided to run for office myself in 2001. I was elected. I took office in 2002, served for three terms. I was chair of the committee on environmental protection for those 12 years. After that, I went to go on to be the deputy commissioner of the state environmental agency, the DEC, I did that for six years and then decided to come back.

I had some unfinished business and I wanted to continue with the environmental agenda of moving certain things forward. I was lucky enough to be elected last year in a special election in February and was just elected to the new term, once again chair of the committee on environmental protection and what is old is new. That's the thumbnail [crosstalk]

Brian: Your deep interest in environmental policy is obvious from the way you describe your background and we'll get into some of the environmental issues the council is grappling with, but let me ask you this first because we're asking all the councilmembers in this series to describe their districts. For example, our last guest was Julie WOn from District 26 in Queens. She noted that people in her district in Western Queens are majority immigrant families and from a pretty big variety of nationalities and native languages. How would you begin to describe your district more in Eastern and Central Queens?

Councilmember Gennaro: Mine would be very similar. I certainly have a majority-minority district with a large concentration of South Asians along Hillside avenue. I was known as a [unintelligible 00:04:41] council member back in-- during my first three terms that South Asian community has grown along with a host of other South Asian communities. I have a lot of Chinese constituents. I have a lot of Bukharian Jews from Uzbekistan. I've got a large Black population as well. Many different constituencies to nurture and to work with.

By virtue of the fact that I was here once upon time, a lot of the same people are still around and it's been a pretty good fit getting back during the special election in February, 2021. In the primary I was elected really overwhelmingly. I was gratified by that support, and I guess they felt that I was representing them in a way that made them comfortable and feel empowered and this is what I continue to try to do.

Brian: Do you have the Pomonok Houses, the three dozen Nycha buildings on Parsons and Casino Boulevards?

Councilmember Gennaro: Yes. Actually, they call it Pomonok. That's a native American word that means land of tribute for people who like little factoids or whatever. I've got a great relationship with the Pomonok Houses. I took the Residents Association President and got her to serve on the local community board. I try to do what I can in various communities to make sure that every community in the district is represented on the community board. I worked very well with Borough President Richards, in that regard. I'm a former member of the local community board myself. It's how I got my start. I was civic president and all that.

Brian: It's quite an economic range if you have the Pomonok Houses and Jamaica estates, and that would mean some competing interests there too. How do you represent everyone in a district like that?

Councilmember Gennaro: You go where the need is. When it comes to the schools in my district, when it comes to the parks in my district, when it comes to the amenities, the money has to flow to where the need is. That's what I try to do for the local schools, to the local communities, and you just have to pay attention, really and just have a common connection with them and make sure that you're doing continuous outreach through people in the office here. We're always calling the civic leaders and saying, "What's going on? What can we do? What's happening?" You've got to stay very close and you hear their needs. Once you know what's going on and what the needs are, it's not terribly difficult to do that.

The whole secret is to stay close, pay attention, and when they need stuff, get it done. In the South Asian community, I continue to work with them and make sure that-- something as easy as making sure that streets are clean. My office, of course, we have the Department of Sanitation and we have the thing in the budget this year. We have extra basket pickups in the overall budget, but I allocate about $500,000 in supplemental cleaning services through these organizations like the Doe Fund, which you probably know about is the George McDonald, the late George McDonald, where you have folks that are part of the Doe Fund that were jammed up in life, and they're getting an opportunity to do this.

We have another entity called Wildcat and they take care of sanitation needs. They take care of getting rid of graffiti, and then the rest is up to me and my relationship with the Adams administration and the commissioners who can be of service and people call me directly. I got a call from the head of the cancer center at the Queens Hospital Center, which is one of my pet projects. I get a call directly from the head of the Cancer Center saying that she can't hang on to staff. She's worried that the Queens Cancer Center, which I put so much money into back in the day, back with Claire Shulman and everything, the former borough president of Queens, the late borough president.

I get calls from people saying like, "I need this," because everybody knows me. I go to the Adams administration, I said, "What are we doing about doctors in the cancer center? We can't let this facility close."

Brian: Why are they having staffing problems at a cancer center?

Councilmember Gennaro: The doctors that they have on staff are getting much better offers in other institutions. This is a famous doctor that runs the cancer center. She tries to recruit the best, but people are always trying to take the best people and give them opportunities elsewhere. She's very concerned about it. That's something we're working on now. This is one of the-- part of the unfinished business is everybody knows-- I'm the longest-serving councilmember in the body, I've got 13 and a half years in overall. I'm dealing with the same people I was dealing with when I left in 2013 and they have needs and I'm able to respond. Like most of the people on the council now, I work it very, very hard. The answer is hard work.

Brian: I guess that's a wrinkle in the term limits law, it's not two terms, lifetime, it's two terms consecutive. Then after a gap, like in your case, you can come back if the people want you to come back. Listeners, if you just--

Councilmember Gennaro: Right. Sure.

Brian: Let me just reset for people just coming in, James Gennaro, city council member from District 24 in Queens with us in our series 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks, in which we're touching every member, every neighborhood of the city. This time, the council member from Fresh Meadows, Kew Gardens Hills, Hillcrest, Pomonok, Jamaica, Jamaica Hills, Jamaica Estates, Briarwood, around there in Eastern and Central Queens. 212-433-WNYC is our phone number. We're asking all the members, what's the number one reason that constituents reach out and contact your office? Since you've got so much experience in the council, I wonder how that has changed over time?

Councilmember Gennaro: People in our neck of the woods here, and I think you're hearing this a lot. When people see me on the street or when I go to civic meetings, what I hear about is number one, crime, number two, crime, number three, overdevelopment. Now in terms of calls that come into my office, these could be anything from someone having a problem with immigration to they can't figure out their cable bill.

Most of the calls that come in are very specific concerns, pretty much right outside their doorstep. They've got a sidewalk where there's a problem or the park down the street has got noisy kids at night or things like that. When people see me, the councilman, the big and what I get at town hall meetings whether virtual or in-person is crime, crime, and overdevelopment, that's what we get.

Brian: Let me go on to your role as chair of the Environmental Protection Committee. Your office sent us some notes about things you might want to touch on in that respect, the difference between climate change versus local air quality, the difference between storm surge and sea level rise, and also environmental justice in general. Do you want to talk about the difference between climate change and on-the-ground air pollution or water surges? Why do you draw that distinction?

Councilmember Gennaro: It's just everybody's coming to the council, many Councilmembers have a climate director as part of their staff or whatever, and everyone is waging a huge war on carbon, which is a great war to wage. New York City certainly can be a model in implementing carbon reduction strategies that can be replicated, but the holy grail is local air quality and sometimes, and there's a--

Brian: That's left behind these days. It used to be the big thing we talk about in New York City, smog, ozone, things like that. [crosstalk]

Councilmember Gennaro: Correct, correct. [crosstalk] air quality.

Brian: Now we're focusing on climate. You think we're leaving air quality behind too much with asthma rates and things in the city?

Councilmember Gennaro: I just think that climate very important, we got local on 97, it was passed 2019, and I'm trying to make sure that that gets implemented in the way that gets all the carbon reductions that we need. Also, I'll mention that it's really a boon to people like me and local government to be able to regulate CO2 because when one regulates CO2 and brings it down by X percent, which is why I did the New York City Climate Protection Act in 2008, which was the most progressive law of its kind at the time in bringing down carbon emissions in New York City government as a whole and the city as a whole by 30%, gave me the ability to regulate through the back door types of air pollutants that I'm not allowed to regulate.

Everyone knows about the Clean Air Act, and the pollutants that are regulated by the Clean Air Act are called the criteria air pollutants. I can name them all, but it would take too long, but smog basically and all of the elements of that. When one brings down CO2, one necessarily brings down the other pollutants by that amount as well, which is really terrific. By regulating CO2, you're regulating that which you're not really allowed to regulate. That's great for local air quality, but, for example, I got a bill on the table now, that there's certain kinds of heating oil. There was, I don't want to get too much in the weeds here, but once upon a time we had number six heating oil, which is almost like tar, which I got rid of many years ago.

That leaves heating oil number four, which is used by some big buildings, and heating oil number two, which most people use in their private homes or whatever. I'm trying to phase out number four oil, which I had set a phase out of 2030 back in the day, now I'm trying to move that forward to 2025, but because it's not really a carbon bill because when people go from number four, which is quite a dirty fuel to number two, which is much, much cleaner, it's like a carbon-neutral bill, but in terms of local air impact, it's going to be enormous. It's also going to have the biggest effect in communities that have been epicenters of environmental injustice for generations.

Brian: Those are great points.

Councilmember Gennaro: It's hard to get witnesses to come to the hearing because it's not a climate bill, it's not a carbon bill. Part of my job is to try to focus on what's really important, certainly, that's climate, but also other things that we have to do and other things that are going on in the environmental realm, with regard to basic things like sewer infrastructure. I'm Southeast Queens, which I don't represent, but there are whole swaths of Southeast Queens that have no storm sewer infrastructure whatsoever. There's not a piece of paper in the city that even says when that build out is going to take place. How long are the people in Southeast Queens supposed to do without storm sewers?

Come on guys, we got to move this forward. I got a bill in that's-- I work very closely with the DEP because I helped to oversee it, but I got a big agenda and I'm talking quickly, I don't know how much time we have, but I'm one of these guys that if you ask me what time it is, I tell you how to build a watch. I'm trying to-- keep me in line here, Brian.

Brian: Yes, sure. You're experienced at getting your thoughts in, in limited time, and all kinds of contacts with people as an elected official, I know. We've got about 10 minutes. Let me get a couple calls in from the district or nearby. Then I definitely want to ask you your position on crime, which is going to sound a little bit more conservative than some of your Democratic colleagues. Robin in Kew Gardens Hills, you're on WNYC with Councilmember James Gennaro. Hi, Robin?

Robin: Hi. How are you? I'm a New York City public school teacher. I had two questions. One, what's your position on supporting teachers? We have almost eight teachers access from my school with the new budget cut, and I know that the city council signed off on it. Then I also am a New York City public school teacher, and I teach on the West Side, and I have to drive to work because if I don't drive, it takes me two hours by public transportation [unintelligible 00:19:14] based on pricing. I just wanted to know your position on both of those things.

Brian: On the budget cost, just let me say for background for our listeners because we did a separate segment on this too recently. I know the mayor's position is they're not cutting the amount of city funding per student. It's just that in schools where there's declining enrollment, the amount of money is going to be less because the per student's formula stays the same, but schools say, "This is still going to mean we have to cut out various programs." Where are you on that?

Councilmember Gennaro: When we were doing the budget, this was an issue, and I'll mention just to mention that I'm a former teacher and I taught at Queens College for eight years, I was a member of PSE CUNY, which is part of the same labor organization, which the UFT is, so it all grows up to, NICET, which is like the top of the pyramid. I come at this from someone who was a teacher, and someone who was strongly supported by the UFT. As a matter of fact, I'm talking to the UFT later on this afternoon.

I thought it was unfortunate, but in the budget process, that's kind of where the finance committee and the Queens delegation, and the mayor's side came down. We were keeping the formula in place regarding students, but that doesn't mean that--

Brian: That people don't get hurt.

Councilmember Gennaro: That they're not-

Brian: Let me ask the caller very quickly.

Councilmember Gennaro: -going to have repercussions.

Brian: Robin, let me ask you if the per-student funding is going to stay the same at your school, how is your school going to suffer in your opinion from the cuts?

Robin: Sure. I've been teaching 30 odd years, and this is the first time we're accessing teachers, and they're not first-year teachers. We're talking about teachers been teaching 8, 10, 12 years, who are then going to be either reassigned to different schools, but it also impacts a community where people have worked together for years. It also will increase class size because we don't have the teachers. We don't have the funding.

We go from class size to 32 from 24, and fewer enrichment programs like our drama teacher or our art teacher would be then put back in the classroom because they're saying we don't have it. I don't agree with them. I don't believe them. There's a bill in front of the governor going to the governor about reducing class size that the mayor and the chancellor do not support about reducing class size for children.

Yet they're so concerned about after the pandemic and impact upon children and the learning that we've lost or supposedly lost, and yet we're reducing funding to support children. I think it's huge.

Brian: Robin, thank you. Let me leave that one there. Well, go ahead and give us just a brief comment since you wanted to say something else, got somebody, one more call in.

Councilmember Gennaro: Now, during the budget process, I certainly did reach out to the UFT and I'm like, "How are you folks looking? This is how it's shaken out." I didn't get a big pushback from the UFT and I think that was part of the dynamic had the UFT really made a goal-line stand. I think things might have been, I'm not laying this on the UFT, but when it comes to various labor unions, they're not shy about getting with the people who they have long relationships in terms of what they need in the budget, this was not the case.

Brian: Just a few minutes left with Queen City Councilmember James Gennaro. I do want to touch before we run out of time on how you've been in the news for asking Governor Hochul to call a special session of the state legislature for September to deal with crime, such as further rolling back the bail reform law. The governor says that they rolled it back significantly, allowing judges to consider the history of gun use by individual defendants.

How serious the crime was. Also, things that had only required a desk appearance ticket in the past can now be subject to arrest again, in some cases, but that still people shouldn't be incarcerated for being poor on charges that people with money free themselves on bail for, so your reaction.

Councilmember Gennaro: Yes, I'm glad you framed it that way because I really haven't approached this from a bail perspective. When I talk to ADAs, when I talk to district attorneys, when I talk to Mayor Adams, and his blueprint and his folks within the PD and also the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police, I'm just looking and notwithstanding what the governor said, I'm looking for exactly the same dangerousness standard that all other 49 states have plus the federal government and we don't have that.

I made a big chart so to speak of everything that was asked for by the Bloomberg administration, everything I was asked for by the Adam administration, everything that was asked for by the New York State, the New York City Association of Chiefs of Police and what they were looking for. Then I laid out what we actually got from Albany, what we got from Albany was very, very little and I'm not like a bail guy.

I don't think there should be disparities, but I think that New York State should have what all 49 other states have, which is a true dangerousness standard and one that's fair, one that a certain judge makes a determination of dangerousness and within X number of days, the defendant can make an appeal to a second judge who has affirm with the first judge because the last thing you want is a judge that has bias enter into her or his determination of the dangerousness. We don't have that and we should have that and that's the drum that I've been beating.

Brian: This issue is already the heart of the campaign for Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin, are you considering supporting him even though you're a Democrat?

Councilmember Gennaro: No, I'm not considering [crosstalk]

Brian: All right. Last thing. As you know we're inviting every member of council in this series to bring a show and tell item from your district that you would like to reason more generally to know about. Yes, what you got?

Councilmember Gennaro: I got you covered, Brian. I got you. I got you on this. Now, speaking as a geologist, now, many of your listeners don't know I'm not going to belabor this because I can talk a long time. All of New York City and the whole metropolitan area was shaped by glaciers once upon a time. This started about 90,000 years ago, but the last glacial epic that really made its mark on the area was the Wisconsin ice sheet that started about 22,000 years ago and left about 12,000 years ago.

It left behind the thing we know as New York City. We were glacially formed, all 303 square miles in New York City are the remnants of this glaciation and in my district, it's called, Captain Tilly park, [unintelligible 00:27:18] Captain Tilly park. We have Goose Pond Park and Goose Pond is what we call a kettle pond, which is a glacial feature. It's just this huge ice chunk that was left behind from the glacier that melted and ultimately became a pond, out in Long island, there's also Lake Ronkonkoma, which is another bigger example of this.

We got our own kettle pond right here in the 24th district, that goes back 12,000 years and I take kids there and talk about the glacial history of New York City, and this is an example that we have this glacial feature. Now, normally these ponds over time will silt up and become bogs, but we keep it dredged and so this is our own living geologic history. Yes, I can get some pond water, I can bring it to you [crosstalk]

Brian: People can go there and see something?

Councilmember Gennaro: Yes, sure. Well, it just looks like a pond, but when you go there with me, I'll tell you the whole story. I'll tell you about the ice sheet that was like-- This ice sheet is like very significant. We're talking 2,000 feet high, bigger than any building anybody could ever imagine, here for thousands of years, and how the whole glaciation process works. Right below that, we have hillside avenue and what is next to hillside avenue is the glacial remain.

Pardon me is the glacial moraine. Everything south of Hillside Avenue is a big outwash plain that doesn't have much in the way of hills or anything like that, but people know that Northern part of Queens has a fair amount of hills, but once you hit Hillside avenue, anything south of that is the outwash plain. Everything was formed by a glacier. We have a true glacial feature here. I'm doing everything I can to preserve the pond. Pond looks great. I'm putting another $2 million into that park. The South Asian community really enjoys that park. I show up from time to time to give people geology lessons. There you have it. That's my show and tell. Glaciers.

Brian: That's great. James Gennaro, city council member.

Councilmember Gennaro: [crosstalk] I don't think they did.

Brian: Nobody else brought glaciers. Absolutely you are the only councilmember out of 24 that we've had so far. Two bring glaciers at glaciers. From District 24 in Queens, the latest guest in our 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks series, James Gennaro. Thank you so much. We really appreciate.

Councilmember Gennaro: Thank you so much. Really appreciate being here, Brian. Great time.

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