A crowd of less than a hundred people braced a light drizzle to see and hear the Working Families Party’s (WFP) brightest progressive stars in a get out the vote rally in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park earlier today, June 11.
In attendance were mayoral candidate Maya Wiley, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams whose up for re-election, comptroller candidate Brad Lander, and Brooklyn borough president candidate Antonio Reynoso – all of whom the WFP endorsed.
“The Working Families Party is committed to fighting tooth and nail to elect true progressive champions, leaders who are not afraid to take on big money, leaders who will fight for strong public school, leaders who will forward a response to climate change that actually meets the scale of the crisis in front of us,” said New York WFP Director Sochie Nnaemeka,
Wiley stuck to a theme of bringing recovery to all parts of New York City, but also touched upon her controversial plan to remove $1 billion from the police budget. She argued that more policing doesn’t necessarily mean more safety.
“We have to be bold about calling out lies when we hear them and there’s a lie right now in this race and the lie is that we can have public safety or we can be safe from police violence,” said Wiley. “That ain’t right and it’s a lie.”
Williams shared the same sentiment, stating the focus on policing has overshadowed some of the other progressive issues like education, jobs, and housing.
“We started feeding the fear that have allowed the worst things to happen to the same communities over and over again,” said Williams. “We know that courageous progressive policies work, everybody is a progressive now from Andrew Cuomo on down but who really has the courage to stand up for those policies and ideals?”
Lander spoke to treating the city’s budget as a moral document and making sure the money is going towards investing in communities.
“Change doesn’t happen just by electing officials and hoping they’ll go inside the halls of power and do something, change happens because you build together with folks who do the organizing in the streets, in communities, and in the workplace and build power together and hold elected officials accountable,” said Lander.
Reynoso pointed to his own lived experience as to why he is the best choice for Brooklyn borough president.
“I know what good government can do for people in need. I am a result of that. I’m a statistic on the right side of history because of what government did when it intervened for my family. I want to make sure that I can pay that forward and give Brooklyn everything that it gave me,” said Reynoso.
The WFP also endorsed several candidates for City Council including Tahirah Moore for District 36, Shahana Hanif for District 39, and Lincoln Restler for District 33.
