Brooklyn activist and carpenter Sandra “Sandy” Nurse, who has emerged as the progressive, anti-establishment hopeful vying to succeed former City Councilmember Rafael Espinal (D-Bushwick, East New York Cypress Hills) in the upcoming April 28 special election has a questionable voting record and has not lived in the district for as long as she maintains, KCP has learned.
Nurse’s voter registration forms from 2018 and 2019 show she first registered to vote as a member of the Black Panther Party in 2008 and only joined the Democrats in April 2018. They also say she voted in only 2012 and 2016 elections.
However, data from the New York State Board of Elections suggests Nurse has only voted once: in November 2018, contradicting the information on her registration forms.
Despite claiming to have lived in Bushwick for 10 years, a DMV e-Notification from 2018 lists her residence at a Bed-Stuy address outside of the district, while her voter registration suggests she only moved to her current address in October 2019.
Yet another issue includes her time on Community Board 4. A well-placed source told KCP that the community board was set to remove her due to poor attendance. Upon finding out, she resigned rather than staying till the end of her appointment, according to the source.
A spokesperson for Nurse’s campaign dismissed the KCP findings, calling them “a clear smear.”
“In the past, Sandy has shared the same feelings of many of the residents of her community: disillusioned and disaffected,” the spokesperson said.
“She [Nurse] has seen how communities of color are overlooked and underserved, and how people who have been in power have not done enough to engage the working-class people who are consistently left out. This dissatisfaction with the government is exactly why Sandy is running for City Council. Sandy is going to change the system from within by standing up to the powers that be on behalf of the powers that should be: the people,” the spokesperson added.
Nurse’s candidacy comes as the gulf is widening between progressives, who are working to reimagine longtime communities of color by supporting younger and newer faces in elections while writing off longtime residents – who sweated it out when these neighborhoods were not so desirable – as the establishment.
Longtime neighborhood residents, on the other hand, tend to see the progressives as the very people taking their hard-earned properties in city-run foreclosures, displacing long-time renters and gentrifying their neighborhood.
This city council race is a textbook example of this clash in that it pits newcomer Nurse against lifelong community activist and female Democratic District Leader Darma Diaz.
Jessica Thurston, Vice President of Political Affairs at the New Kings Democrats, which endorsed Nurse, showed appreciation that KCP contacted her for verification, but also called the records acquired “notoriously inconsistent.”
She then said that even if all of the information in the investigation is correct, Nurse’s uncanny ability to bring various factions in the district together should eclipse it.
“I care much less about how long she’s been in the district or how long she’s been registered as a Democrat than I do about what she demonstrates of her skill set right now and what she is clearly equipped to do, committed to doing, when elected,” said Thurston.
