Candidate making a difference

To the editor:

(re: “Council candidates spar, but agree on equity,” Feb. 4)

There is a lot of excitement about ranked-choice voting getting its first shot in Riverdale on March 23 with our special city council election. It’s an often-overlooked fact that we actually had a ranked-choice vote in January 2020 for a position that did not get a televised debate: that of vice president of the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club.

In that race, despite my chance to shine on BronxNet never arriving, I won a ranked-choice position for the role of vice president. I was part of two of the three slates being pitched to club members — the original nominating committee slate, and the Morgan Evers-led slate, but not the slate later revised to exclude myself or anyone aligned with Morgan’s candidacy.

I was fighting for a no-fee club — funded through donations and by cost-cutting — and for a club where we spent time doing communal outreach beyond those actively seeking involvement in politics.

This past January has been different in form, but not in fundamentals. I have been volunteering for Mino Lora’s campaign for city council and talking to voters as safely as possible — brief, masked petitioning outdoors, phone calls from the safety of my home, silly skirmishes on local Facebook groups. Through this process, I continue to be certain that we are not reaching — as a community and society — every voter with information they need.

Quite often, I have been shocked at the questions I get. “Who is our city council person now?” (Answer: No one since the beginning of January, although we still have constituent services). “Wait, Andrew Cuomo is stepping down now?” (Answer: Cohen. C-O-H-E-N. Masks make this harder). “Maybe the election was stolen?” (Answer: Have a nice day, sir).

I am supporting Mino Lora because she represents the values I had not seen realized in our political community before: A vision for creative engagement of people outside the inside-politics bubble I somehow made my way into (Mino, as a performer, understands how to create interest toward otherwise mundane political topics, with an eye toward “legislative theatre” projects), and an openness to anyone without prejudice, political or otherwise (Mino has not been shaking the right hands for years, but instead is educating herself and her campaign with veteran volunteers and newcomers alike).

Mino also does small actions that I hadn’t seen here before, like speaking in Spanish when she makes speeches, as she did at a rally at Buunni Coffee.

Her entire campaign is fully bilingual and accessible beyond language barriers with neighbors in Riverdale, and to the east.

Mino’s campaign is different, not just for the sake of difference, but in ways that clarify to me what has been missing in our local representation. Color. Variety. Energy. Imagination.

Some people know me through the Biaggi, Warren and Bowman campaigns, and my efforts to modernize our local Democratic club. I resigned from the club effective Jan. 31, when my term would have normally ended without the extension approved in December. My next project will likely focus on political education — from how to volunteer on campaigns, to how government at all levels works, and drawing everyday people in by regularly finding them where they are.

There is no person who should feel like they don’t know enough to make a difference in their community and its representation. And the next logical step in cementing that value in our community is to elect Mino Lora to the New York city council.

Aaron Stayman

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