NYC Primary Election 2020: Salmon Pushes Reform
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Brooklyn Democrats in a week will cast their ballots in a spate of local, state and federal primary races — including the state Senate's 25th District where Jabari Brisport, Jason Salmon and Tremaine Wright hope to scoop up a retiring lawmaker's seat.
The seat is currently held by state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, who is stepping down after years of serving the district covering Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Red Hook and other west Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Salmon, who is from Clinton Hill-Fort Greene and worked as a Montgomery staffer, has received several endorsements including the Reverend Anthony L. Trufant of Emmanuel Baptist Church and city Councilmember Carlos Menchaca. His ad called "My Community" details his entry into politics after NYPD officers shot one of his friends.
Brisport, who hails from Prospect Heights, has the endorsement of Brooklyn's Democratic Socialists of America, first-term state Sen. Julia Salazar and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Wright, who currently represents Bed-Stuy and North Crown Heights in the state Assembly, received Montgomery's backing as well as from prominent U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Yvette Clarke and long list of other backers.
The primary election, slated for June 23, is open to registered Democratic voters.
All New York voters may request a mail-in ballot due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ballots must be postmarked by the date of the election for the vote to get counted.
For those who want to head to the polls, click here to find your poll site. Early voting is available from June 13 to June 21.
Patch reached out to all candidates in the primary election to create these profiles. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Age as of Election Day (Nov. 3)
34
NYC neighborhood of residence
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Position Sought
State Senate
Party Affiliation
Democrat
Family
Leslie Salmon – Father (61) Leslie grew up in the 60’s Stuyvesant Town in the East Village
Faren Siminoff – Mother (63)
Maris Gelman – Wife (29)
Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?
My wife works in the New York State legislature
Education
LaGuardia High School - Music Program, Violin
Hart School of Music at the University of Hartford - Major Classical Violin and Music Management
Occupation
Former Community Liaison for Senate Velmanette Montgomery (3 ½ years)
Owner of Treehouse Recording Studio in Greenpoint (8 years?)
Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office
None
Campaign website
www.Salmon4NY.com
Why are you seeking elective office?
Growing up my passion was music. I was a musician and owned a small music studio for a few years, where I worked with many talented Brooklyn-based artists.
Then in the summer of 2014, my life changed completely when my childhood friend was killed at the hands of the police. He was an Air Force veteran who served for 8 years, and when he came back he was killed because of the color of his skin by law enforcement. This is the same summer that Eric Garner was brutally strangled to death by an NYPD officer live on camera for everyone to see.
This tragedy drove my commitment to fighting against police brutality, for equity, and to end mass incarceration.
That is why one of the first platforms that I rolled out was a police reform policy proposal that touched on the need for police accountability and transparency, bias-based policing, protect immigrant New Yorkers, ban deadly force, and require racial impact data.
I want to redefine what community safety looks like. Recently, our community took its fight to the street and I was out on the streets every night protesting, yelling Black Lives Matter, and calling for the police reform that should have been passed decades ago. Today, I am running for State Senate because we need a prominent voice on criminal legal system reform in the State Legislature.
The single most pressing issue facing our nation/state/community is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.
Criminal Legal System Reform
The COVID-19 crisis has provided yet more evidence of the structural racism embedded in our State’s criminal legal system. We see it in state sanctioned policies like “Stop and Frisk” and Broken Windows, and in the enforcement of social distancing. As Senator, I will fight for police accountability and reform, and will fight to implement policies that put an end to police brutality and racial bias in law enforcement. I will champion legislation that strengthens transparency in our law enforcement, and I will be a fierce advocate to end mass incarceration and solitary confinement.
As State Senator, I will fight to:
– Demand Transparency and Accountability: I will demand transparency and accountability for bad actors within law enforcement.
– Ban Deadly Force: We need to reform the standards under which police may use force and prohibit the use of deadly force except when necessary to protect human life and only after all other non-lethal options have been exhausted.
– Require Racial Impact Data: The State must require that all state funding for local law enforcement include minimum standards for racial impact data collection, reporting, and publication.
– Ban Bias-Based Policing: New York should immediately prohibit the profiling and targeting of individuals based on their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, immigration status, HIV status, and/or other marginalized identity and establish rights to allow people who have been profiled to sue the police in court.
–Decriminalize sex work and repleal the “Walking While Trans” Statute.
– Defund the Police and Refund the Community: We should require that every dollar spent on law enforcement is matched with equitable funding for alternatives to policing, restorative justice programs, and community-based institutions that protect and restore our communities.
– Protect Immigrant New Yorkers: The State must prohibit local law enforcement from enforcing federal immigration law. Pass “Protect Our Courts Act” to protect immigrant New Yorkers’ constitutional rights, and ensure they can access the courts without being arrested by I.C.E.
– Legalizing the Adult-Use of Cannabis: Focus on reinvesting in the communities that have been ravaged by the “War On Drugs”.
What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?
I have a dual lens. I was a community organizer for many years and I worked in government for the people of the 25th Senate District. I’ve been on the frontline advocating against socially irresponsible developments like 80 Flatbush and the expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention. I’ve been on the frontline organizing tenants in Smurf Village on Atlantic Ave. I’ve stood up against predatory developers. And I’ve been on the frontline advocating for our public schools system and trying to deliver equity.
I am also the only candidate in this race that is building a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-racial movement that includes formerly incarcerated individuals, healthcare workers, teachers, youth, seniors, and working families. We have garnered support from a broad range of individuals including Reverend Anthony L. Trufant, New York City Councilmember Carlos Menchaca, Stonewall Democrats, Jim Owles Club, LAMBDA, Equality NY, UAW, PEF, and the National Association of Social Workers – amongst others. All these individuals are sitting at the table, building a broad coalition, and when you vote for me you are voting to bring that broad coalition to deliver change in Albany.
If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)
If you didn’t see it before, you have to see it now. The COVID-19 pandemic has put our state and our country in a critical juncture and our government failed us. The wrath of the COVID-19 outbreak has exposed the gaping holes in our social safety nets, but – as many lifelong advocates would attest to – the disparities which it has exposed are nothing new. To the contrary, these are the same affordable housing, healthcare, unemployment, income, and wealth disparities that many of us have been fighting for for years.
The reason I am running for State Senate is to protect our vulnerable and frontline communities. These are the same communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, the same communities that have been left behind by our system for decades, and the same communities of color that I have been fighting for for decades. In the State Senate, I will continue to fight for them.
Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform
In addition to reforming the criminal legal system, my campaign is also prioritizing expanding and improving affordable housing, and fighting for educational equity in our public schools.
Affordable Housing: I grew up in this district, and I have seen its social fabric torn apart by gentrification, causing the displacement of communities of color. Today, our district contains some of the most affluent neighborhoods in Brooklyn and some of the most under-resourced. It is time to make New York affordable for everyday New Yorkers. As your State Senator, I will fight to:
– Provide COVID-19 relief for tenants and small homeowners
– Pass Good Cause Eviction
– Change the affordability formula
– Stop deed theft and predatory foreclosures
– Invest in public housing
– Increase new affordable housing and Mitchell Lama
– Eliminate or restructure tax abatements
– Stabilize commercial rent
– Industry City rezoning
Equity in Education: The quality of the education a student receives should not be based on the zip code in which they are born. All students need to receive an equitable and full education. I will fight for:
– Foundation aid for our public schools
– Civic education in all our schools
– A moratorium on charter schools
– An end high stakes testing
– Desegregated schools
– Increased professional development
– More mental health support for our schools
– An end to out of school suspensions
– An investment in adult education and re-entry programs
– Increased investment in English language programs for adults
What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?
I was an activist for many years. As I’ve mentioned before, after my childhood friend was murdered by the police in 2014 I became a community organizer and advocate for reforming the criminal legal system. I fought alongside so many activists in an attempt to make the police accountable and transparent.
As I worked to build coalitions in my community, I really wanted to see why it was so hard to pass all of these common-sense pieces of legislation. So I joined Sen. Velmanette Montgomery’s office as a community liaison. In that role, I learned so much about how Albany works, and I also was constantly in communication with constituents in this district, talking to them about what they need. I fielded thousands of constituent cases in the district and I realized just how dire the situation was. We have a record high homeless population of 60,000 (most of whom are children and families) and still, we are granting and an exorbitant amount of tax abatements to private real estate developers – to develop affordable housing that is unaffordable to everyday New Yorkers and isn’t even directed to people who are precariously close to being homeless.
Now in the midst of COVID, all of these issues are being highlighted in the most dire way possible and we need to elect leaders who are going to represent our community. I will be that leader.
The best advice ever shared with me was:
Just be yourself!
What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?
I was born and raised in Clinton Hill-Fort Greene Brooklyn to a bi-racial family that has been in the Bed-Stuy area for over 70 years. My father is Black from the Caribbean and my mother is White she’s Jewish.
As I mentioned before, my path into public service wasn’t the traditional one.I was a musician – a violinist – and all of that changed in the summer of 2014 when my childhood friend was shot and killed by the police. These two events pushed me to be part of the change that I wanted to see for my family, my friends, and my community that I grew up with.
So I became a community organizer and advocated for a number of years around police accountability issues, I organized tenants in buildings with predatory landlords, fought in the frontlines for affordable housing in our district, and advocated for criminal legal system reform.
Throughout my life I’ve seen the social fabric of my neighborhood torn apart. I’ve seen a lot of its population displaced. I’ve seen the theft of black generational wealth in Bedford-Stuyvesant through massive foreclosures.
We have a very diverse district here in the 25th from Red Hook to Sunset Park to Downtown Brooklyn to Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill- Fort Greene. And we have a myriad of issues that we have to deal with but I’ve worked for this district for the last three years and have lived here far longer. So I humbly ask for your vote by June 23rd so I can fight for you – my community – in Albany.
This article originally appeared on the Bed-Stuy Patch
