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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and now we continue our series "51 Council Members in 52 Weeks." We are inviting all the New York City Council Members, roughly in their district number order all across the year, neighborhood by neighborhood touching every neighborhood of the city. We're doing this this year because it's a new era in the New York City Council this year. There are mostly new members because of term limits and women make up the majority of Council Members for the first time ever. Today we will talk to one of the veterans, which means he's in his second term on the Council, District 30's Robert Holden.

District 30 includes the Queen's neighborhoods of Middle Village, Maspeth, Glendale, Ridgewood, Woodside, and Woodhaven. Today's 51 and 52 comes as the Council continues to be mired in what is probably its biggest conflict so far with Mayor Eric Adams. In a way with itself, as it tries to restore funding for the New York City schools that the Council itself voted to cut for the coming school year.

Mayor Adams wants to cut individual schools' budgets if they have declining enrollment on a per-student formula, Council now says that will force schools' to end many needed programs and increase class size. The standoff continues in negotiations and in court, we'll get the latest on that. Council Member Holden, thanks much for joining us, welcome to WNYC today.

Council Member Holden: Thank you, Brian. Great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: By way of background about you for our listeners who aren't familiar with you. When you were first elected to Counsel back in 2017, it was by a pretty unusual path. I know you lost the Democratic primary to the incumbent at that time, Elizabeth Crowley, but then won the general election by a whole 137 votes while running on the Republican and conservative party lines. You won re-election, I think, running on all three ballot lines, but generally, consider yourself a Democrat. Unpack that for us, tell us more about how you see political parties and your place in them today.

Council Member Holden: Very few people understand the background and I think you have to look at it. I'm unusual because I'm not a member of the Republican Party really, never gone to their meetings, neither have I gone to any Democrat. I've been a Democrat all my life, but I haven't gone to any of the clubhouse meetings or anything else. I'm from the civic association from the community board, that is rare, by the way, that somebody comes really not attached to the political parties and that should be celebrated, but some of the reporters were very confused. I had an R after my name in the beginning and a D, I had to keep correcting them.

My mom and dad were Democrats and when I registered way back, I guess it was the early '70s, I chose Democrat. When you're in the civic association, when you're working for the community and volunteering for the community, you learn to work with both elected officials of both parties. I worked with Tom Ognibene as a Republican, and I worked with Walter McCaffrey the Council Member as a Democrat.

Our districts had several Council Members so I worked with both parties and that's where I am now. I don't care what line I get, I've done my time in the neighborhood, volunteering 30 years on the community board, 35 years on the civic association. I think I earned my spot, again, how you classify me, it's really irrelevant to me, I don't really care about that.

Brian Lehrer: I saw your daily news op-ed from last year that was titled "The progressive wave leaves Democrats adrift." You described some of what you just said and you describe the reasons for getting elected in your district and you took shots at the progressives. For one thing, do you think with the current makeup of Council that you are a fish out of water now or in a relatively conservative, very small minority in Council, and what's your biggest criticism of your progressive Democratic colleagues?

Council Member Holden: Again, I think you grew up at the same time I did. I think you were a little younger than I am, but you remember the bad old days. You remember New York City out of control, you remember the high crime, I had my car broken into several times parked on the street, everybody did. We all had the club. We remember the high crime. I remember purse snatchings in my district on one street. We had 30 in one month in the early '90s. Again, I come from an area that we want to preserve our quality of life and if you look at New York City now nobody can say, and this is under the progressives, that nobody can tell us that the quality of life is great in New York City, nobody.

If you're going to say that, you're really oblivious to people afraid to take the subway. My wife is an Asian American, she will not, will not get on the subways. Can you blame her? This is the progressive policies that have taken over the city, and again I'm a moderate Democrat if you want to call me that, I'm a moderate Republican if you want to call me that, I don't care. What you should know is that I care about the quality of life in New York City. I want to be able to walk the streets, I want to have my kids be able to walk the streets at night in a safe neighborhood.

I think everybody wants that, I don't care what party you come from. I want to be able to feel that my wife on the subway is safe. You don't have that anymore in New York City, again, it's the revolving door. There's a personal responsibility that has to come if you're going to be a citizen in New York City, that means you have to abide by the law and if you break the law, again there should be some punishment. Now, whatever that is we could debate that, but there has to be some punishment, and the hate crimes that we're seeing and I just had one committed in my district, the hate crimes that we're seeing is because there is very little punishment if anything, for hate crimes.

Brian Lehrer: One pushback on this that the progressives were probably offering, then will go onto some other things. They would probably point out that after Bloomberg's style stop and frisk policing was declared unconstitutional and Mayor de Blasio was elected, the murder rate in the city, the overall crime rate, certainly the murder rate plunged to record lows until the pandemic. You tweeted out a New York Post editorial this weekend, that claim de Blasio's crime policies led to the current crime spike. Is it too simplistic to say progressive is doing this if de Blasio's reform led to the safest city in modern memory before the pandemic?

Council Member Holden: I think you started to see a change when there was this disrespect for authority, the police essentially. Remember, that when they first started there was videos of mostly young people throwing water on the cops. At the time, my fellow conservatives on the council or moderates spoke out against that saying there has to be a level of respect for authority, for law and order. When you're going to respect the symbol of that and a police officer, everything starts to unravel.

I think when de Blasio looked the other way and you have obviously with the DEA saying, [unintelligible 00:08:08] I'm not going to prosecute fair beaters or people that resist arrest or things like that that he considers minor infractions and you saw everything started to unravel. That's why people now can go into a drug store, a CVS, and just start stealing things, because you could be arrested a 100 times like we saw it was a cover of the New York Post today where they finally have that person incarcerated after a 100 arrests for just stealing from stores. [unintelligible 00:08:47]

[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: What would you do then, if anything, from your point of view about mass incarceration over the, let's say past 30 years as a side effect if you want to call it that of the crackdown on crime that started at that time, there's also a public good in trying to reverse that too. Young people, mostly Black and Latino, young people getting criminal records that derail their lives for very small things fair beating. Do you have a way to thread that needle?

Council Member Holden: Yes and again, I believe in broken windows, I believe that you handle the smaller crimes, that'll stop the larger ones. In today's article in the post, it says, "The smaller crimes, fair beating and forth, lead to other things." Again, robberies and so forth, yes, but there's a balance and I think what happened under the de Blasio administration, and especially during the pandemic, he started to artificially empty the jails, including Rikers.

I think at one point it was 6,000, 7,000 under his administration. He came up with this magic number of 3,500, that's what he wants to get it down to and. They're just letting people out and then, of course, bail reform and other things that the state push through and then this disrespect for the police. I think you can see where we are now. It's not one thing, but I'd say a number of things have happened, but I believe in personal responsibility. Again, you commit a crime, there should be some punishment whatever that is, again, we can debate that, but if you're going to continually not pay your subway fare. You should be arrested if you're going to jump the turnstiles or you should at least get a court appearance. Make it a little bit more difficult on people to break the law.

I think most New Yorkers by the way would agree with me. Even though we're the silent majority, most people would say just let's get ordered back on our streets, and it's mayhem out in the streets by the way now. Again, you see everything, you see people riding. I have a big problem with some of these mopeds that people are riding that are illegal actually and there's a day of no license, no registration, no insurance.

I had a child in a stroller that was hit while the grandmother had the green walk sign and the young child, the toddler was hit in a stroller because somebody on a moped unregistered, unlicensed went through a red light and we're seeing a lot of that in New York City. They're riding on sidewalks. There is this general lawlessness, and that's what I really feel we have to get under control a number of issues but that started under the Blasio and nobody can say it didn't.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, this is 51 council members and 52-week series, we're up to District 30 with councilmember Robert Holden, who says he doesn't really identify as a Democrat or a Republican. He was elected kind of on both lines, and he represents District 30 as I say, born and raised in Maspeth, it's Maspeth, it's Glendale, it's Woodside, it's Woodhaven, it's Ridgewood. We could take maybe a couple of calls from the district in our remaining time, preference to people in the district, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet your question or comment @Brianlehrer.

Councilmember Holden, I asked the various council members for a rough demographic breakdown of their districts. You know our city that is always evolving, so how would you describe yours demographically and how it's changed over your lifetime since you were born and raised in the district?

Council Member Holden: I was born and raised in Maspeth. My mother was born in the house across the street from us where we lived. My mom was born in 1924. She just passed this year, but in those days, they were born in the house. In those days, in 1924, the area was mostly farms, and my grandfather had a farm, a flower farm because we have a lot of cemeteries in the district. Because of the Cemetery Act, I guess it was 1851 when outlawed new burials in Manhattan so this neighborhood grew up middle village Maspeth around cemeteries.

In the beginning, we had Irish, Italian, German, Polish, and in recent years, we saw a vibrant Polish population first generation coming here. Now we have Asians and Hispanic population growing. We have a very diverse population which is great. Again, we live in a small town in a big city I like to say. Maspeth still has that small-town flavor so does Middle Village, Glendale, and Ridgewood. It's a really nice district to live.

Of course, we're fighting to keep that so most of its middle-class, working-class neighborhoods. I would say 90% of the district is one and two-family homes. People like living in a low-rise community. They want to have the sun in their backyard. They wanna feel the sun through coming through their windows. The problem we have is the area is basically transportation desert with some exceptions, but we rely on the bus and a lot of this rely on our cars to get around.

My main focus when I came into when I got elected to the City Council was preserving the one and two-family zones, the homes. Right now there's nothing to protect our one-family attached row houses, and I'm trying to create a zone for that. Although I did get pushback from the de Blasio administration.

Brian Lehrer: Have you seen the district change demographically in your lifetime or even in your, I guess, five years on council?

Council Member Holden: My wife, like I said, was the first Asian American. She was born in Japan. She came here in the early '60s. Her father was a career soldier in the US army, and he was stationed in Japan, met a young woman and married and had two children. They lived in Germany for a while on army bases and then my wife came to the United States. In those days, there were no Asians in the neighborhood, and she said, there's not a single time that she didn't go out with her mother or just out that she wouldn't be harassed or somebody wouldn't say something to her and it affected her.

There was an article in a reporter interviewed her a few years ago and I found out something. She said I still can't walk past a group of men or teens because I always feel they're going to say something to me like go back to your country. She was obviously the daughter of a highly decorated U.S. Army soldier but a mother was Japanese and again she looked different. Obviously, after World War II and growing up in '50s and '60s Queens, there was still that racism existed from the war against the Japanese.

Brian Lehrer: But just in terms of the district, right? The demographics of Maspeth would be pretty different from the demographics of Woodside at this point, so I'm just curious the overall picture of the people you represent.

Council Member Holden: I would say it's shifting slightly, but we still have people coming, again, from the same they're still Italians coming here and Irish. We have a good vibrant Irish population. Like I said, we have a more vibrant Asian and Hispanic population, so it's really pretty much the same except they are different. We have more Asian and Hispanic actually adding a great flavor to the neighborhoods

Brian Lehrer: Ann, in Glendale, in the district, you're on WNYC with your council member Robert Holden. Hi, Ann.

Ann: Hi, Brian, thank you so much for letting me speak. I'd like to speak to Councilmember Holden about the fight to preserve Medicare and senior care benefits for 250,000 New York City civil service retirees. Hi, Councilman Holden.

Council Member Holden: Hi.

Ann: New York City public servants don't get paid high salaries. We don't often get choice or opportunity to work in the safest, cleanest, prettiest pots in New York City. Sometimes we receive assignments which require hours of transportation back and forth. I loved your mentioning transportation desert because I have myself zigzags across all of those cemeteries to my schools, to go to my schools in middle village and Ridgewood.

Brian Lehrer: Let Just for time and forgive me get the Councilman to the main point of view question which is about shifting New York City public employee retirees from traditional Medicare into Medicare managed care. That plan may be dying politically, and they're even I read some of the providers that are walking away from it now. Do you have a resolution on that briefly?

Council Member Holden: Well, I'm in the same boat, by the way. My age, I think Brian you're the same, I don't know if you're in that same boat, but [crosstalk] what I think we're seeing is, again, you're like what you just mentioned that there seems to be the air is out of the sales on that one, I think, I'm hoping because there was a vast unknown. My union which was PSC-CUNY under I was a college professor couldn't tell me what the impact of this and yes, some providers, some doctors wouldn't take the plans and that's what we're starting to see, so I think it might be dead in the water at this point.

Brian Lehrer: Rachel in Ridgewood you on WNYC with your council member Robert Holden. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel: Hi, Ryan, thanks for having me on. Hi, Council Member.

Council Member Holden: Hi, Rachel.

Rachel: I had a quick question for you. I'm a Ridgewood resident. I've lived here for over six years, and recently I've moved into your district. Before I was in district 34. I'm a bike rider, I'm an advocate, and I'm wondering city bike is super important for Ridgewood, and now that I live over on Fresh Pond Road, I've been out of the district, so I'm wondering why you're holding up the plans to [unintelligible 00:19:51] expansion.

It's really important that we have safe bicycle infrastructure and safe ways to get around you, just said your self that Ridgewood is a transit desert and people rely on taking the bus. City bikes would provide better ways for people to more quickly get to transportation hubs and to get to the bus. I'm just wondering how are we getting the city bike expansion. Why are you not letting it come to Ridgewood and to Maspeth?

Council Member Holden: No, I just wanted some input on it. The Queens DOT didn't notify me about the plan. They only went to the transportation committee of community board five. In fact, that transportation committee didn't even share it with the full board. I worked with some civic association residents who came up one person, Christina Wilkinson came up with this great plan to actually put the bike stations on the sidewalk and not take up valuable parking.

Ridgewood is so bad in parking, by the way, that where people parking on the corners blocking crosswalks, blocking hydrants that our local firehouse said, "When we go to a fire, we can't find the fire hydrant because people are parked there." I came up with a bill to put a stencil of a hydrant in the middle of the street, so they could find it.

That's how bad it's gotten. If we're going to take up and again, I'm not against obviously city bike, although many people can't ride it. People that obviously are older or disabled or families, somebody's not gonna take their kids to school on four bicycles city bikes. It's for a certain segment of the population, but we have to balance it. That's all I'm asking.

Let's balance this, put the stations on the sidewalk, where you could not take up valuable parking, because if you're just going to say, if you're going t have a war on cars where people need them in a transportation desert, we have no other options. Again, nobody's going to take two or three kids to school on a bicycle and certainly see people that are older or disabled. They can't take it. They can't ride a bike. Again, why are we taking valuable parking, which they may need in front of their house with a bike station? Let's put it on the sidewalk. That's all I'm saying.

Brian Lehrer: We have two minutes left. We're going to get at the very end to your show and tell item that you brought us from the district, but I want to get your quick take on the mess regarding the New York City public school's funding. Were you one of the 40 council members who signed a letter to the mayor, opposing the cuts that were come from the funding formula-based

[crosstalk]

Council Member Holden: Oh, Brian, I did my own letter because I felt that we voted on it. Many of us didn't understand the impact, like some of my schools lost 2 million. It wasn't a-- I said, let's take some more of the stimulus money, which we heard again, I heard from the UFT there's 4.6 billion left. I came up with a-- I drafted a letter. I didn't want to sign on to the other letter the council was putting out because I said, 'Let's just ask for smaller class sizes because the students who suffered under the pandemic for the last couple of years missed out on a lot of education."

If we come up with a plan, smaller class sizes and fund it with the $275 million maybe from the stimulus, which is still a lot there I think that would be a kind of a better balance. I wrote a letter obviously to do that. I think that's a good solution where let's use it for specific for these students who have again, gone through the pandemic and missed out on so many days of teaching.

Brian Lehrer: Have you heard from principals in your district?

Council Member Holden: Oh, yes. I heard from the superintendent who said, "Yes, it's going to hurt us." A lot of principals say, "Well, we're going to have to move teachers around to other schools. We're going to lose-- One school's losing a dozen teachers who have to find other schools to teach in. We are losing some of the veteran teachers who know the district and know the school.

That's why I think my plan of smaller class sizes because I taught Connie for years and I taught classes with 35 students. It was difficult when I taught students with 18, I could get to everyone. I think that would be a good compromise. Again, we didn't know of the impacts. We certainly didn't when you're dealing with this huge budget. You don't know all the impact. When we do the impact on individual schools, then we try to come up with a solution.

Brian Lehrer: Well, it may be settled in court with the hearing coming up on Thursday. What did you bring us for show and tell from your district?

Council Member Holden: Well, it's really something that, again, it's near and dear to me and I have a seat from the old Yankee stadium, even though I'm not a Yankee fan. That was part of my past, baseball. My dad worked at Ebbets Field. He took me to Ebbets Field in 1957 and last year the Dodgers were there. Again, I'm a baby boomer and was brought up to hate the Yankees, love the Dodgers.

I still do. I am still a Dodger fan but I have a Yankee stadium seat behind my desk from the old one, the original Yankee Stadium and I collect things. Then, obviously, that meant a lot because I did attend some world series at Yankee stadium because my dad did work there. He worked at Ebbets Field. He worked at Shea Stadium, worked at the Polo grounds.

Brian Lehrer: As a long-time Queen's official. You couldn't get one from Shay when they took that one down?

Council Member Holden: No, again, I would go to garage sales for years and tag sales and I found one. I wouldn't pay top dollar even though I know it's worth a lot. I certainly love anything baseball. Just remember just walking into Ebbets Field as a six-year-old. My dad actually let me walk around the stadium alone. I went out to the-- I was sitting on the first base line by first base.

Then I was allowed to walk out to left field and center field at Ebbets Field, which is one of the greatest thrills. Then the Polo Grounds was a wonderful place. By the way, I was at the game on September 30th, 1963, when all three of Lou brothers got up, Mattie, Felipe and Jesus, they batted in the same ending against I think it was Colton Willy in the Mets. I attend a lot of games.

Brian Lehrer: Where I live in upper Manhattan, they've designated a street Mattia Lou Way. We will leave there.

Council Member Holden: Really? Wow.

Brian Lehrer: With Robert Holden, City Council Member from District 30, including the Queens neighborhoods of middle village, Maspeth, Glendale, Ridgewood, Woodside, and Woodhaven, latest guest in our 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks series touching every neighborhood of New York City in this year when most of the council members are new. Council Member Holden, thank you so much.

Council Member Holden: Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much.

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