Brooklyn Councilman Chi Ossé accused of anti-Italian bias: ‘Reprehensible and disgusting’

Italian-American lawmakers are livid over remarks recently made by Brooklyn Councilman Chi Ossé and are accusing him of anti-Italian bias — an accusation he denies.

The uproar is rooted in a comment that Ossé, a Democrat who heads the Council’s Cultural Affairs Committee, made Monday about Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping, a city contractor that was ordered to cough up more than $1 million in restitution last year after pleading guilty to insurance fraud.

“I just want to say on Dragonetti — that name alone should have been the first red flag in terms of contracting with the city,” he said during a Council hearing in what some are viewing as a reference to the company’s Italian namesake.

Two days later, a video clip of the remark began circulating in city political circles. That has led to a backlash among Council members like Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, and Bob Holden, a Queens Democrat — both of whom are members of the Council’s Italian-American caucus.

“That is a racist statement uttered in the course of official business on the council floor,” Borelli said. “I’ll bet all the salt in the sea that there will be no consequence for it.”

Holden called the remark “disgusting.”

“We must stand together as a city and unequivocally reject hate and bigotry in all its forms. Ossé’s comment at a City Council hearing comparing Italians with organized crime is reprehensible and disgusting and has no place in our society,” he said. “It is disturbing to see him repeatedly display bigotry and racism, and it’s time for him to apologize for his comment, take sensitivity and bias training, and pledge to do better in the future.”

Ossé countered that his intent wasn’t to disparage Italians, but to highlight the company’s criminal record.

“It had nothing to do with Italians,” he said. “It had everything to do with the fact that the company has already been tarnished.”

His remark Monday during the Council hearing followed a question that Councilman Shekar Krishnan had posed to high-ranking Parks Department officials about the number of contracts the agency has with Dragonetti, which was banned from having contracts with the city’s Department of Design and Construction for the next three years as part of the company’s guilty plea.

“Clearly there are others who are qualified to do this work,” Krishnan said after being told the administration would have to circle back with more detail about the Dragonetti contracts.

According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Dragonetti Brothers falsely classified 217 laborers, foremen and heavy-equipment operators as florists, office workers, or sales representatives — and in doing so evaded more than $1.1 million in insurance premiums between 2017 and 2019.

A representative from Dragonetti did not immediately return a call from the Daily News.

Ossé, who represents Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, has hurled racially-fueled invective Mayor Adams’ way as well. In the days after the death of Jordan Neely, a Black man, at the hands of Daniel Penny, a white Marine vet, Ossé criticized Adams for not calling out Penny.

“Failing to condemn the killing is a failure of leadership, both as mayor, and, as he will always be sure to remind us, as a Black man,” Ossé said at the time.

Borelli and Holden contend that Ossé’s comment about Dragonetti isn’t an isolated incident.

They pointed to several racially-tinged remarks he’s made publicly, both as a Councilman and a candidate for his current job.

In one tweet, which is accompanied by a white woman doing a goofy dance, Ossé wrote, “Is this white culture?”

In another, from 2021, he suggests that race and gender should serve as a litmus test for choosing the next council speaker.

“A cis white man should not be the next speaker of the Council,” he wrote.

Borelli also noted how he’s referred to the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group as a “goon squad.”

“There’s clearly a pattern here,” Borelli, who serves as the Council’s Republican Minority Leader, said.

Last year, Ossé used identity to go on the offensive against Republican Councilman Vickie Paladino for remarks she made about the transgender community, comments that were viewed by many as offensive.

Paladino, who represents parts of Queens, had attacked a city-funded program where drag queens read stories to elementary school kids, labeling it as “drag queen degeneracy.”

“Adult drag performers have NO BUSINESS in our schools, and they will not be in my district. Period,” she wrote on social media.

Ossé called Paladino’s remarks “bigoted” at the time, and months later she was stripped of her position on the Council’s Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction.

At the time of the vote to remove Paladino, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams issued a statement critical of her, saying that the vote against her stemmed from “a lack of confidence in her commitment to inclusivity that equitably reflects the needs of all New Yorkers.”