Thanks to redrawn legislative districts in 2022, each of New York’s 51 City Council seats will be up for grabs on June 27. But in the Bronx — long lacking competitive challenges for Democrats — just three councilmembers (Kevin Riley, Pierina Sanchez and Marjorie Velázquez) will face a primary challenge.
This election cycle, however, has also seen intrigue in the Bronx’s oft-invisible Republican Party, as the winner of a three-person primary for Council District 13 could potentially bring the borough’s first Republican elected since 2004.
Across the borough, voters will get a chance to vote on the Democratic nominee for the Bronx District Attorney’s office, which could affect the borough’s handling of crime and public safety in coming years.
Voters will get a chance to punch their ballots as early as this Saturday, when early voting starts, and finding your appropriate poll site can be done with a quick search online. All races, besides the aforementioned Bronx District Attorney’s race, will be determined by ranked-choice voting, which debuted in the 2021 city election cycle.
Ranked-choice voting allows voters to choose multiple candidates, which supporters say encourages more fair and representative elections. Voter turnout in the 2021 primary was far higher than the one eight years earlier, Citizens Union reported.
Yet for the 2021 primary, which included a mayoral race, Bronx turnout was around 19%, by far the lowest in the city.
Bronx District Attorney Democratic Primary:
Incumbent: Darcel Clark
Challenger: Tess Cohen
Who awaits the winner on Nov. 7: Uncontested
For the first time in the position’s 109-year history, two women — incumbent Darcel Clark and challenger Tess Cohen — will vie for the Democratic nomination in this year’s summer primary.
Clark — the first and only Black woman in the state to hold a district attorney post since her election in 2015 — has sought to redefine the role of the Bronx DA as one that is centered on empathetic leadership, despite the office being under-resourced and affected by an exodus of staff in recent years.
Between 2014 and 2020, the Bronx suffered the highest attrition rate among all other New York City DA’s offices – except the much-smaller Richmond County in Staten Island – with nearly 16% of Bronx assistant district attorneys departing over that time span. Clark’s office lost 96 lawyers and 51 professional staffers during the 2021 fiscal year, and up to 104 attorneys and 90 staffers by April 2022.
Clark’s office has secured guilty verdicts in just 60% of murder arrests by law enforcement — the lowest in the city — compared to 62% in Brooklyn, 66% in both Queens and Staten Island, and 76% in Manhattan, according to data from the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Cohen, who spent more than eight years as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, believes that despite the understaffed nature of the DA’s office and the state’s discovery laws, the district attorney position should be one of reform and creativity.
Another unique role of the Bronx DA position is the jurisdictional power over the embattled Rikers Island, which has been cited as a hotbed of human rights abuses by advocates for its closure. More than 80% of the people confined there have not been convicted of a crime and endure horrific conditions as they wait for trial.
The Bronx DA can also advocate for improved conditions at the facility, including better health care, access to mental health services and more humane treatment, as well conduct investigations into allegations of misconduct or abuse by corrections officers or other staff members.
City Council District 12 Democratic Primary:
Neighborhoods: Wakefield, Baychester, Eastchester, Olinville, Edenwald, Williamsbridge and Co-op City
Incumbent: Kevin Riley
Challengers: Aisha Ahmed, Pamela Hamilton-Johnson
Who awaits the winner on Nov. 7: DeWayne Lee (Republican)
At one point, it seemed like the race would include former District 12 councilmember Andy King, whose ouster in 2020, led to the ushering in of incumbent Kevin Riley. But the court’s decision to keep him off the ballot in May, means that Riley will have an easier path to reelection against two challengers in Pamela Hamilton-Johnson, executive director for the Eastchester Heights Community Center, and former King staffer and public relations strategist Aisha Ahmed.
The 35-year-old Riley has been at the forefront of legislative efforts to address housing and mental health. And recently diverted funding to bolster resources and programming in the district, including $10.6 million in City Council capital for the Edenwald library branch’s renovation.
Hamilton-Johnson is a familiar challenger for Riley, and she was able to reach 40% in the third round of ranked-choice voting in 2020.
However, Riley held strong voting totals in all three rounds of the three-person primary — which included Shanequa Moore — with nearly 50% of the vote, compared to 29% and 21% from his challengers.
Ahmed, a first-time candidate, touts herself as a candidate who can build “an inclusive, diverse, and united community” and rejects measures that would defund schools in the district or enforce background checks for housing.
City Council District 13 Democratic Primary:
Neighborhoods: Throggs Neck, Pelham Bay, Van Nest, City Island and Morris Park
Incumbent: Marjorie Velázquez
Challengers: Irene Estrada, Bernadette Ferrera, John Perez
Who awaits the winner on Nov. 7: Winner of the Republican primary
City Council District 13 Republican Primary:
Neighborhoods: Throggs Neck, Pelham Bay, Van Nest, City Island and Morris Park
Challengers: George Havranek, Kristy Marmorato, Samantha Zherka
Who awaits the winner on Nov. 7: Winner of the Democratic primary
The Bronx race with the most intrigue, Marjorie Velázquez’s path to reelection will be tested by a slew of Democratic challengers hoping to unseat her, while using her about-face regarding the controversial Bruckner rezoning project in October 2022 as fuel.
Community Board 11 chair Bernadette Ferrera, former female district leader for the 80th Assembly District Irene Estrada, and perennial candidate John Perez are hoping to unseat the incumbent, who does have the support of the Bronx Dems and numerous unions.
District 13 is one of the more engaged political districts in the Bronx, and a subset of constituents have used issues like the rezoning of Bruckner Boulevard to add 348 units of housing across four sites and the Just Home proposal to house the medically frail and formerly incarcerated on the Jacobi Hospital campus as a rallying cry, while supporters of the projects have viewed the pushback as NIMBY dissent.
Velázquez stood firmly against the Bruckner project dating back to its public unveiling in 2021, but had a sudden change of heart before it was unanimously passed by the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises and Land Use Committee last October.
After coming up short in a bid for the Democratic nomination in 2017, Velázquez won the District 13 seat in 2021, but her GOP opponent Aleksander Mici secured 45% of the vote, showing a competitive avenue for Republicans in the district.
At one point, roughly six people threw their name into consideration for the Republican primary. However, only three candidates — retired telecom specialist George Havranek, radiologist Kristy Marmorato and business owner Samantha Zherka — made the June 27 ballot, with hopes of becoming the first Republican elected in the Bronx since 2004.
Marmorato — the sister of Bronx GOP Chair Michael Rendino and wife of Gino Marmorato, the Republican commissioner for the city Board of Elections — told the Bronx Times she was compelled to run for office after the Just Home proposal surfaced.
Havranek promotes himself as one of the early local members against the Bruckner rezoning, has roots as a union man and was a one-time Democrat. Zherka in 2022, came up short in a bid for the state’s 34th Senatorial District, a seat won by Democratic Assemblymember Nathalia Fernandez.
Though 61.5% of active voters in District 13 were registered Democrats in 2021, the district voted 48.5% in favor of Republican Curtis Sliwa in the mayoral election the same year, a slight edge over Adams’ 47.4%.
City Council District 14 Democratic Primary:
Neighborhoods: Kingsbridge, Fordham, University Heights, Mount Eden and Mount Hope
Incumbent: Pierina Sanchez
Challenger: Rachel Bradshaw
Who awaits the winner on Nov. 7: Amelia Rose (Republican)
Addressing housing, both the creation and preservation of it, figures to be the prominent issue for both Democratic incumbent and challenger of the District 14 primary. According to the latest Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development report on housing risk, the Northwest Bronx — which includes neighborhoods in District 14 — is one of the sectors with the highest threat to affordable housing across New York City.
In the 2021 election cycle, Sanchez, powered by Bronx Dems, beat out five other Democrats in a primary to secure the District 14 seat after then-councilmember Fernando Cabrera ran unsuccessfully for borough president.
As chair of the council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings, Sanchez is also a key voice in the city’s housing landscape, seeking to expand the supply of housing vouchers, increase affordable housing options, and hold neglectful landlords accountable.
Bradshaw is a member of the Friends of Devoe Park and a shareholder of the Fordham Hill Owners Corporation, as well as a Democratic State Committee member and the president of the Northwest Bronx Democrats for Change.
Bradshaw told the Bronx Times she hopes to introduce council legislation to more strictly regulate shelters and spread them out more evenly throughout the city.
— Aliya Schneider and Camille Botello contributed to this report
