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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we continue our yearlong series, 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks, in which we're welcoming every member of New York City Council, touching every neighborhood of the city in this year in which a majority of the Council is new because of term limits and it's majority female for the first time ever.

Today, another one of those freshman female members, Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez from District 34, one of very few in the city that includes parts of two boroughs, Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood, Queens. Prior to being elected to City Council, Gutiérrez worked as a community organizer in Williamsburg mainly on tenants' rights and anti-eviction issues. Councilmember Gutiérrez, welcome to WNYC.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much for having me. What an honor.

Brian Lehrer: To make our segue from the previous segment, anything you want to say about last night's election results of any kind?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: It was panic-inducing, certainly, waiting for some of the results. I think Queens really came up. Really excited to see Kristen Gonzalez going up to Albany. I was a supporter of Carlina, I endorsed her, but also it was very much like hoping for a victory of Yuh-Line once I saw how close it was, and so it's a little disheartening. I think that part of Brooklyn and Manhattan really deserved a really strong, unapologetic female voice in DC.

I'm still kind of grappling with it, but I am really excited about Kristen. We do overlap a little bit in parts of Williamsburg and I think she's going to be really great and I'm super excited for everyone who got reelected too, which is great.

Brian Lehrer: In the City Council, which is majority female for the first time, do you think it's making a difference at the policy level in any way we can identify yet?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: I think so. I think, and not to talk too much about Carlina, but she is a lead sponsor on a lot of the reproductive rights bills. I think something that was really unique was that she really enveloped a lot of the young, new women councilmembers to be a part of that process, to be early co-sponsors. I think, just as the last stated, I was able along with a few of my other female colleagues were able to pass a whole bunch of new bills regarding doula and midwife access and resources, and so I think it is making a difference.

Finally, for the first time, really talking about Black maternal mortality and policies that we need to change and investments we need to make. I made this joke to my senior advisor the other day, I was like, "The amount of men, which we welcome, that are on board with this--" We have legislation from Public Advocate Williams. Borough president Tony Reynoso has been investing a whole bunch borough-wide to maternity wards. I think it's precisely because there is a female majority, that there are no excuses for why some of these broken policies cannot move forward. I think it's happening, absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe you put your finger on one of the ways that it really makes a difference. It's not that most of the other Democrats, at least, maybe from either party, would oppose doing something about maternal mortality and the racial disparities in maternal mortality once it's on the table, but it might take a female majority or at least some strong female individuals to put it on the table as an issue that should go to the head of the class, right?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Absolutely. Again, it's amazing to have the amount of support that this issue was having. We had Councilmember Althea Stevens speak about her experience. I delivered at Woodhull using a midwife and pulling from that experience. I think everyone is impacted by it, but when you have folks, pregnant people being able to speak to those experiences directly and to those solutions, I think that's where the impact is. Jumaane and Antonio have been talking about this for a while, but I don't think to this level and I think a lot of it is because it's women saying, "No more excuses. Let's move ahead."

Brian Lehrer: Want to tell people about your background a little bit? Where did you grow up and what first got you interested in politics or public service?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: I grew up in Queens. My parents immigrated here from Colombia in the '80s. I went to public school my whole life. I think, unbeknownst to my parents, landed, scored big by living in a rent-stabilized unit. It was a one bedroom. We never moved. I grew up there my whole life. I grew up there. We shared a space, at some point, with five other family members. After college, I came back, started to really work with immigration nonprofits.

My parents were undocumented for a while. I was my parents' advocate pretty much. I think this is an immigrant story. It's not unique to me as I've discovered the more I talk about it. My dad navigated the healthcare system when I was around 10. He had cancer and I was his advocate. I was on the phone. He literally had no voice. He had a tumor in his throat and so not only was I interpreting for him, but I was his actual voice.

That never left me. That experience never left me, understanding the disparities between immigrants, working class, non-English speaking families, and those who are making all the decisions for our livelihood, I think really impacted me. After college, I worked for immigration nonprofit. In 2012, I got a really great opportunity to work in Arizona on a couple of state races. This is 2012, Sheriff Arpaio, show me your papers.

I got to work alongside this really awesome dreamers who are doing amazing things now, but that really hit a switch for me. I majored in political science. I was involved on campus. I got to go to SUNY Albany. I think it was until I came back from college that I said, "This is where I want to work. I want to make sure that families like mine have a fighting chance to be able to stay here and to stay together."

Then in 2013, I started working for then Councilmember Diana Reyna and that was her last year. That's really how I was introduced to the community. I was hired as the Williamsburg organizer. I think I've just really fell in love with this community, with the spirit. So much organizing history lives in the Southside of Williamsburg and I'm so grateful.

I stayed. I never left. I brought my family here. My mom lives here with me and I'm raising my daughter here. That's pretty much my background.

I really come from, I think, a background similar to a lot of folks in my district. I just felt like every little step that I took, being a part of educational opportunities program to get into SUNY, that all made the difference for the fight that I have in me, and I just want to make sure that this community that I love is represented by someone that shares those values with them.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, this is our 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks series. We're up to District 34 with Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez. We can take maybe a couple of calls from the district in our remaining time, preference to people in the district, parts of Williamsburg, Bushwick, Ridgewood, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet your question or comment @BrianLehrer.

Councilmember, we're asking all the councilmembers to describe their districts and the people in their districts. I think you were just getting at that a little bit in your last answer, but who lives there these days, demographically, who you represent?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Demographically, the census, I think, really revealed anecdotally what we see all the time, but traditionally District 34 was very densely populated by immigrants from Puerto Rico, from the Dominican Republic, from Poland, from Italy, obviously, and a huge Jewish Yiddish-speaking population. They were drawn there, obviously, in the '50s. That's changed, dramatically.

What we see now in parts of Williamsburg, especially in the Southside, we still have a majority plurality of Latinos there. What I learned is it's a little bit more diverse, so still very much Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, but a lot of newcomers from Mexico, Ecuador, Central America.

I would say the same rings true for Bushwick. So still a Latino majority, but our Black population has been reduced significantly. Latinos were in the late '90s, early 2000s, 70% of the population in District 34, now we're at about 42%, 43% with a huge increase in the white population. Then, of course, I represent the portion of Ridgewood that I would say is more populated. It's about 44% Latino. Again, we're seeing an influx of a lot more diversity of the Latino populations, so folks from Central and South America.

Brian Lehrer: Certainly a lot of change in the neighborhoods you represent and you laid it out really clearly there with some numbers. A lot of gentrifying, I imagine, and there's, of course, been so much discussion of how this summer has been particularly brutal in terms of finding affordable rents everywhere, but certainly with the Williamsburg area as being one of the epicenters of that.

How do you protect, and I know you've been a tenants' rights advocate in the past, even before joining Council, how do you protect or advocate protecting people from being displaced, or to what degree is it acceptable to you because neighborhoods do change and demand to live in different neighborhoods changes over time?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: I think my perspective is not so much about preventing people from coming here, it's about making sure that the people that are already here can stay here. I think a lot of it from the City Council perspective does have to be in partnership with the state, but the city can do so much more. A lot of the enforcement falls within the city, falls within HPD, so strengthening that.

I also think that policies traditionally have been a little disjointed and that the perspective, or the power, the leverage has always come from the perspective of the landlord and protecting the landlord's ability to maintain the property as opposed to the tenants. That shift hasn't happened. What we've seen in instances where tenants are allowed to maintain their building through co-ops, for example, or land trusts, we see that these apartments remain affordable in perpetuity, and that's really where we should be shifting.

I think, obviously, maintaining the policies that work now, making sure that landlords are mandated to repair and upkeep their buildings, making sure that we are ahead of landlords' really creative ability to figure out how to get tenants out. Those are things that we need to be ahead of, but at the same time, I think that there are mechanisms that we can institute to empower tenants and to really shift that power so that tenants can own their spaces.

You have tenants that have lived in their apartments for 40, 50 years, not stabilized and then all of a sudden, at 70 years old, 80 years old, they're vulnerable. Their landlords have sold their buildings to bigger LLCs and now they have no options. That, to me, is just unacceptable, unacceptable that someone can invest so much in their space and their community and be kicked out at the drop of a hat.

I really look forward to working with the Council and really shifting the way that we create protections for tenants at the city level to empowering tenants and making sure that any mechanisms that we're talking about is really about the tenants owning their space and being able to have that power.

Brian Lehrer: Can you do that at the city level or is that housing law state level and you're dependent on them?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Yes. That's a good question. I think a lot of it, we do have to work with the state. Senator Salazar has got the Good Cause Eviction Bill, which is fantastic. Several things need to happen. It is possible. We've seen a choice in the last administration to move to third-party transfers, which were a series of buildings that were in disrepair where the city basically allowed non-profits and housing development corporations to go in and manage the buildings.

What I've heard from tenants is it's mixed. In some instances, it works, but the real goal should be that the non-profits aren't just going in there and maintaining the building for 100 years, it should really be non-profits can go in there, manage the buildings, help empower the tenants, help them understand how to manage and maintain their site and then leave so that the tenants can continue to own their properties. Some of these mechanisms do exist, we just have not been able to make them as robust as they need to be to protect tenants.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey public radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. A few more minutes with City Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez from District 34 and parts of Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood, week 34 in our 51 councilmembers in 52-week series in which we're talking to every member of New York City Council this year, touching every neighborhood of the city. Simona in Williamsburg, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Simona: Thank you. First-time caller, long-time listener. Appreciate you doing this work. I wanted to ask the councilwoman how she feels about open streets, if she supports it or not. My main preoccupation is Barry Street, which is the longest, one-mile open street, and I don't feel it's necessary, and also the rat problem that open streets is causing.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Councilmember?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Thank you, Simona. I do support the concept of open streets. I think in a district like ours, Barry Street is surely like at the edge. It's closer to the waterfront, it's at the edge of my district, but just speaking about equity, District 34 has some of the least amount of park space comparatively to our other 50 council districts. The idea of open streets for me is something that I really do believe in because we have such limited open space.

In the Southside, the majority of our parks are asphalt over the BQE. Open streets are not intended to necessarily emulate parks, but just to create a space for people. During the pandemic, that was so vital in neighborhoods like the Southside, in neighborhoods like Knickerbocker or [unintelligible 00:15:19] and Bushwick, and so I do support it.

I do understand that there was a huge array of issues with open streets that the city did not solve for. Me as a new member, I'm still learning about from folks, and so would love to connect with you, Simona. I hear you on the rat problem, but I do believe that we can get to a place where the open streets exist, but it is not terrible for the folks that live on Barry Street. That's not what I want. I want people to be able to use it, but I think it's important that we go through those points one by one.

The rat issue I don't think is specifically because of open streets. It's because of the way that we handle our food waste and that's why organics expansion is going to be key. I know I have a meeting set up with some folks on Barry Street very soon, but I'd love to connect with you more to go through those issues because I hear you, it is a long stretch. I think it's a positive thing, but I want to work with you all. I don't want it to be so detrimental, but I do support open streets.

Brian Lehrer: Can we take her contact and set her up with your office for a return call?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Yes. I would love that if that's possible.

Brian Lehrer: Simona, we'll take that off-the-air. Related, I think, Ben in Ridgewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ben.

Ben: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much and hello, Councilmember Gutiérrez. Thank you so much for the time to ask a question. My question is, coincidentally, piggybacking off the prior caller. It's about sanitation and specific, not just about specific policies that you support in relation to sanitation, because I think everybody agrees on what the general goal is, which is cleaner streets, but I really want to hear from you how you think of sanitation as a priority.

Because, frankly, as someone who lives in the district who saw the condition of the district really break down over the last, not just post-COVID, but in my personal opinion, over the two terms of former Councilmember Reynoso who was awarded then being elected to Brooklyn Borough President, it feels to me like an issue that that gets lip service, but that just hasn't yet reached this critical mass of-- It's not just among the elected class, it's amongst us as a city, as people that this has not yet become a critical mass of like, "This is an existential problem. We really need to do something about this."

Brian Lehrer: Ben, can I ask you to be descriptive a little bit about the trash problem in Ridgewood as you're experiencing it, like give us an example of a corner, or give us an example of something that exemplifies this? Can you do that?

Ben: Yes. What really exemplifies the trash problem to me is-- what really jumps off the page to a lot of people is the rat issue. The rat issue is really symptomatic of the wider issue of trash being strewn. As councilmember just said, it's an issue with how we dispose of food waste, absolutely, but as far as like the kitchen table feeling of the trash is the problem, in my view, it's like it's just walking down the street and there's rappers and napkins and nonsense.

I urge the councilmember, I'm not sure if this is in her district or just slightly north from the district, take a walk on Seneca Avenue on a Sunday morning, after-- In Seneca Avenue just is a classic Ridgewood street of, is it commercial? Is it residential? It's quasi, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and then I think hurts it from a sanitation standpoint because it's like the Department of Sanitation is not approaching it as a commercial street, okay, maybe it's not getting as much attention.

The property owners might be-- I'm a big believer in that the owner-occupied streets or streets that have a higher percentage of owner-occupied, or streets that have a lower density are often doing a little better from a sanitation standpoint in Seneca.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Now, let me get you a response. Councilmember, I'll add one thing to this, which is, you know we're going to ask you because we ask everybody, what's the number one reason that people have contacted your office since you took office in January? The most common response that we're getting from councilmembers in our 34 weeks of this series is trash.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Ben, thank you so much for that question. I would also love to connect with you. Some of the things that I'm doing on the ground is we did launch a District 34 trash force. During the pandemic, there was massive cuts to sanitation. Not only did we see-- We saw those instant impacts literally the next day. The alternate side parking just got restituted a little over a month ago, so we've started this task force now, coupled with the Council's increase or restoration of $22 million to sanitation.

The task force is intended to do what you just raised, which is like, "Hey, I see Seneca Avenue as a huge issue, I want to raise this to the councilmember's office." Some of the things that we've been doing in those instances is starting volunteer cleanups, which the owners should not be on residents, but oftentimes it's the residents that are able to maintain it better.

The idea is once you raise it to our office, if there's 311 complaints that you can share, that is helpful too, we start paying particular attention to it. We work with DSNY, and Ridgewood has gotten-- I've allocated specific money or funds for the maintenance of Ridgewood to DSNY because of how problematic it is. Then we also start working with other groups that we support, like ACE that can do litter cleanup. They cannot do the physical basket pickup, that's for DSNY, but they can do the cleanup, so the wrappers, the plastic containers, the food that sometimes is just strewn on the street for no reason.

These are groups that I support. You telling me Seneca Avenue is a huge problem, we're going to send DSNY and ACE over there and someone from my team will also be there. The task force is really meant to be an active group, either of volunteers who we are still taking in volunteers for, but really to help us keep an ear to the ground, the district encompasses so much. I do think that things are improving a little bit, but they're not moving quick enough for folks.

The other thing that I just want to mention about Ridgewood, I live in Bushwick actually right next door to Ridgewood. In speaking with the Department of Health, because they are also a part of my task force, Ridgewood and Bushwick are considered pilot areas for rat infestation, meaning that the amount of rats complaints have been so high that now the DOH goes in there proactively to certain corners and certain intersections to not only assess but to also mitigate and treat.

Part of me connecting with you afterwards is to learn a little bit more about where those streets are that you're seeing. It is a priority, like I said, I live in Bushwick, I can't stand the trash, I applaud the volunteer groups that came together during the pandemic to really help clean our streets. I come from the perspective that it's a public health issue. There's no reason why in the richest city in the world, we are not fully supporting DSNY, for example, to do the work that they need to do.

The last piece is also there's a responsibility from a lot of our commercial businesses with the food waste, particularly, and that's what I found in parts of Bushwick, for example, like Knickerbocker with so many restaurants, you'll see more rats than usual because of the way that their trash is being picked up from commercial waste haulers.

That's also a piece that I do have to give credit to the former councilmember that he did through commercial waste zone started to tackle. Unfortunately, it's not a solution from one day to the next, but these things are in motion and they are happening. I think that ultimately we will benefit but the trash force for District 34, I think can help us work together in creating immediate solutions for some of these problem areas, so would love for you to be a part of that.

Brian Lehrer: Ben, thank you. Hang on, we'll take your contact information for the councilmember off the air if you want to give it. Last thing in our last minute, as you know, we're inviting every councilmember in this series to bring a show and tell item, what would you like the rest of the people of our area to know about from your district that they might not know about? What's your thing?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: I would love all of your listeners, Brian, to give Toñita's at 244 Grand Street a shot. It is one of the last existing social clubs in Williamsburg and probably in New York City. It's got 50 years of history. It's named Toñita's after the owner, María Antonia, and I described it earlier as if you ever went to a house party, a Latino house party in the '90s, that's how it feels when you walk in, meaning you're welcomed, meaning there's a ton of stuff on the walls, but there's also food and music and just good vibes.

I think in a community like Williamsburg that has seen so much trauma through displacement and gentrification, continuing to support a small business like this owned by a Latina is key to preserving the character and really elevating our voices and our culture. Give Toñita's a visit. If anyone is a bad bunny fan here, he also did a draft by and that was huge for Toñita's and the community. Give her a visit. It's a beautiful place and really good vibes.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer Gutiérrez, thank you so much for joining our series, 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks. Thank you. Thank you.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Thank you, Brian.

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