Sara Lind (D) has announced that she will run to replace Councilmember Helen Rosenthal (D-Upper West Side, Lincoln Square, Central Park) as the 6th District’s representative at City Hall.
An attorney by trade, Lind worked in corporate and immigration law before shifting her career to public service. After obtaining a master’s degree in policy from Columbia, she would join Hillary Clinton’s ultimately unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign.
Lind feels that the Democratic Party’s failure to prioritize state and local races has weakened its ability to win and accomplish beneficial policies.
“We’re losing all over the country congressional seats because of it, because of gerrymandering,” he said. “It really made me realize we need to focus on the local level. And then as I got more engaged on the local level, I really fell in love with some of the urban policy type issues that we deal with.”
Lind then recalled a traffic incident in the neighborhood that motivated her to make the district safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
“When my kids were very little, I remember I was crossing 92nd at West End Avenue with my baby in a stroller and my little toddler on a scooter. And as soon as the light turned green, a cab took that left you know how they do. Sometimes they try to beat the oncoming traffic, and he gets so close to hitting my daughter,” she said.
“It was just terrifying, of course, and then made me really angry, you know, because it did feel like there must be something we can do to make it safer for kids crossing the street. So I got really involved in street issues.”
Joining the local community board, Lind helped shoot down an unnecessary and fiscally wasteful kayak dock while securing funding for NYCHA as well as a bike lane on Central Park West.
She hopes to continue pursuing related policies, as well as accessibility on mass transit and in schools.
If elected, Lind feels that her professional background as a lawyer and nonprofit executive equips her with a lot of knowledge of how to get things done.
“I have an understanding of laws and how they’re drafted, how they work, you know. And it’s one thing to have a vision for the policy outcome you want, but understanding how that happens in a legal sense, like the leverage we can use to make that happen,” she said.
“As someone who’s been involved in the community for a little while now, I’ve developed some really great relationships with advocacy organizations who can be helpful in both advocating for and passing legislation and then building kind of coalitions around the city.”
Still, Lind recognizes that her agenda will only be fulfilled if New Yorkers elect colleagues with which she can build such coalitions.
“It depends on who the mayor is, who the borough presidents are,” she said. “So, I guess there’s that, like with so many seats open this year, we’ll just have to see who gets elected to those other seats and how we can work together and what their priorities are.”
