It’s hard to express just how grateful I am to have had the privilege of representing you in the City Council for the past 12 years.  

Over this last decade, I have been repeatedly amazed by the creativity, dedication, and fierce generosity of spirit this community has shown – especially in the face of adversity.

I had hoped to be writing this goodbye letter to the district in a moment of optimism about NYC’s recovery and new leadership. Instead, we are facing yet another wave of pandemic stress and anxiety at a time when all of us are so tired of crisis and loss.

It is, however, in these moments of crisis when new possibilities emerge. As Rebecca Solnit (who I can’t count the number of times I’ve cited for inspiration and fortitude in these emails) writes, “shared calamity” makes many of us assess our priorities, becoming “more urgently alive, less attached to the small things in life and more committed to the big ones, often including civil society or the common good.”

That’s what this community has taught me. Every time a crisis hit – Hurricane Sandy, Donald Trump, the Covid-19 pandemic, the killing of George Floyd – you came together to stand up for each other. 

You mobilized to feed and care for elderly New Yorkers displaced by Sandy, marched in the streets for Black lives, organized rallies and text banks, and made call after call for legislative action to protect immigrants, reproductive rights, and our very democracy. The past two pandemic years have been the hardest of all, and you have continued to show up through endless forms of mutual aid and support – to deliver food, support our health-care and frontline workers, help neighbors get vaccinated and fight isolation through Neighbor Network, and so much more. 

Our community solidarity doesn’t just show up in large-scale crises. We’ve marched in vigils for neighbors who were killed in traffic crashes, and fought for laws and infrastructure to prevent more deaths. We created new plazas and open spaces, where community members can gather to play, celebrate, mourn, protest, and share.

Together, we fought to prevent the eviction of seniors from the Prospect Park Residence, and more recently of neighbors facing eviction by the predatory Greenbrook Partners. We welcomed homeless neighbors into Park Slope and Kensington, and created affordable housing in Gowanus. We won miles of new separated bike lanes. We built five new schools and integrated our middle schools to help all our students thrive. 

We pioneered new models of community leadership and participation. Through the direct democracy of participatory budgeting, community members – including young people – proposed, developed, voted on, and implemented capital improvements to our parks, streets, schools, and libraries that will be used for generations. 

We’ve worked together to strengthen our community, care for our neighbors, deliver effective services, make our neighborhoods more inclusive, fight for justice, and deepen our democracy. Read more about our work together over the years in the final newsletter from our office. 

Over the years, our community has benefited from the hard work, dedication, smarts, and compassion of our staff. They have helped thousands of you solve problems, from rats to speed bumps to housing, and so much more. Written hundreds of email newsletters to give you key information and help you rally to action. Worked with community boards, nonprofits, PTAs, students, mutual aid groups, activists, and block associations. Designed and championed legislation to protect tenants, expand workers rights, and combat climate change. I want to give a very special shout-out to Rachel Goodman, our Chief-of-Staff who led our team across three terms and every crisis. And if you’ve enjoyed these emails, Naomi Dann has written the vast majority over the past few years (the cringe-y dad-jokes are mine, the useful suggestions hers, and the love of mutual aid and solidarity about equal). 

But every single person on this list deserves the gratitude of our community for their tireless work. Enormous thanks (in order of start-date in our office) to Rachel Goodman, Michael Freedman-Schnapp, Jessica Turner, Jonah Blumstein, Michael Curtin, Catherine Zinnel, Gabriella Friedlander, Alex Moore, Sigourney Labarre, Emma Ertinger, Vicki Sell, Basi Alonso, Juan Ardila, Hannah Holland, John Schaefer, Ben Smith, Annie Levers, Susie Charlop, Ruby Abdul, Coniqua Johnson, Asher Novek, Shahana Hanif, Whitney Hu, Megan Flynn, Genna Morton, Nasra Gariballa, Julia Ehrman, Lara Lai, Naomi Dann, Stephanie Silkowski, Nicole Krishtul, and Fawziyah Siddiqui.

Now, I couldn’t be more excited to pass the job of representing you on to Shahana Hanif, District 39’s next Council Member. I genuinely believe, building on her lived experience and the inspiring relationships she forms, that she’ll do an even better job representing our community than I have. I know for sure that she will bring her whole heart to the work. If you haven’t had the chance to get to know her yet, you can learn a little about her story and her plans here. 

“Building a Brooklyn that centers care and joy is possible,” Shahana says. Over the past 12 years, in so much work we’ve done together, and now in electing her, you’ve shown me that she’s right. 

With deep gratitude, and profound optimism for the work ahead,

Brad

P.S. As a member of this email list, in the new year you will receive updates from your new Council Member Shahana Hanif (if you don’t want to get future District 39 emails at any point, you can always unsubscribe below).  

And if you want to be sure you continue to keep getting emails from me, you can follow my work in the NYC Comptroller’s office by signing up here. Yes, there will be earnest, nerdy, solidaristic emails about the audits, contracts, and investments in our city’s future. 

The passing of the torch to Council Member Shahana Hanif (Brooklyn PTA Fun Run on October 23, 2021)