Rebecca Ibarra: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, I'm Rebecca Ibarra, the local host and producer for NPR and WNYC's Consider This, filling in for Brian. The latest count from the board of elections, give Vanessa Gibson a majority of votes to be the Democratic nominee for Bronx Borough president. Since Democrats enjoy over a 10 to 1 advantage over Republicans in that borough, she's the overwhelming favorite to succeed Ruben Diaz Jr in that office. She'll be the first woman to do so. Thanks for joining us today and congratulations on your victory. Councilwoman Gibson.

Councilwoman Gibson: Thank you so much for Rebecca. It's great to be here with you. Thank you.

Rebecca Ibarra: Great to have you. You've been on the show before, particularly when you chaired the public safety committee on the city council. Do you want to tell the listeners a little about who you are and what led you to seek this office? The Bronx Borough president office?

Councilwoman Gibson: Sure. For the past eight years, I've had the honor and privilege of being a New York city council member representing district 16 in the West Bronx. I serve as deputy speaker, one of the co-chairs of the women's caucus, I'm on the budget and negotiating team. I've chaired the committees on public safety, the city council subcommittee on capital. Now I chair the committee on oversight and investigations. As I look back on my career, I knew that it was coming to an end at the end of 2021. I wanted to find a way to serve my community in a larger way.

With the ascension of so many other elected officials that are running for offices, we knew that the office of Bronx Borough president would be vacant, after 12 years of leadership by Ruben Diaz Jr. I decided over a year ago before the pandemic hit that I wanted to put my hat in the ring for Bronx Borough president, because I wanted to take my city experience working on a $98 billion budget. All of the work we've done in the city council on legislation, on gender parity, and pay equity, as well as my previous experience as a state assembly member, and really apply all of that to borough hall.

It has not been an easy time. It's been a long journey. We had the COVID-19 pandemic right in the middle of a campaign, but I'm really grateful that so many voters came out and supported our Forward Together Bronx Campaign. It's really exciting when you think about the historical nature of the selection, being the first woman means so much for me and many others across the Bronx and the City of New York. It reminds us that women are still defying the odds. We're still running for offices, never designed for us. We're still shattering the glass ceiling every year. I do this for so many young people that dare to dream, that are our next generation of leaders, because I really want them to that leadership can look like them and they can be anything that they truly want to be.

Rebecca Ibarra: You're saying that you feel like you can do more for your borough as borough president than in the city council. Because I have to be honest, sometimes I do think what power does the borough president have to actually affect change and how is this not more of a political move? It looks good. We have the Brooklyn Borough president now, possibly the next mayor. How is it that you have more power in this office than in the city council?

Councilwoman Gibson: The good thing about moving to the office of Bronx Borough president is I have a lot of experience at the city level. I will be able to have a relationship with the city council's Bronx delegation, making sure that we invest in capital and infrastructure and programs and resources. It's also ripe for reform. I plan to work with my fellow borough presidents and the other four boroughs and find ways to really incentivize the Borough president's office. Where we can either introduce legislation, where we can get a discretionary budget, where we can embark on programs like participatory budgeting. Where we set aside a certain amount of capital for the residents of our borough to vote on capital projects that they want to see funded.

I think there's a lot of leverage as Borough president. You establish the blueprint for your borough. You have public and private relationships and partnerships with the federal state and local government. You really decide on a lot of land use and ERAP applications that really will make a fundamental impact on your borough.

Rebecca Ibarra: Our guest is the winner of the Democratic primary for Bronx Borough president, Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson. We can take some questions for her listeners, especially from residents of the Bronx. If you're in the Bronx, please call 646-435-7280, or you can tweet us @Brian Lehrer. Again, the number is 646-435-7280. Councilwoman Gibson, the Bronx has the lowest median income among the Boroughs. It has the highest rate of violent crime, and it was the hardest hit by the pandemic in terms of rates of hospitalizations and deaths from the disease. You would really have your work cut out for you. What would be your first point of order?

Councilwoman Gibson: I think about this Rebecca every day, as the outgoing council member of D16, during the campaign my top priorities continue to be jobs and economic development. I want to invest in worker cooperatives and community land trust. I want to build economic wealth and power in the Borough. I want to create a pathway to the middle class. We want sustainable and green jobs that provide prevailing wage and union wages, so people can be uplifted out of poverty. COVID-19 has been a reminder for us in the Bronx of a lot of inequities that we faced pre-pandemic, as well as exacerbated during the pandemic. We have soaring unemployment.

We have health disparities, highest rates of asthma, heart disease, obesity, and high blood pressure, to name a few. We don't have access to healthy food. We need to make sure that we address a lot of these things in a real transformative way. We need green markets and farmer's markets all year round. We need to invest in community gardens and open spaces. We need to deal with our transportation infrastructure so that residents can travel around the Bronx using multiple modes of transportation. We need to work with the Hunts Point Terminal Market to make sure that food remains in the Bronx.

We really need to deal with the scorch of gun violence that is plaguing the Bronx every single day. It is alarming. It's painful. It's heartbreaking. When you hear a 13-year-old as an intended target of a gang involved shooting, that is not normal. We need to continue to invest in the anti-gun violence movement in New York city crisis management program. We have to get to the root causes of why youth engage in violence in the first place, we have to offer them something different. Take them off the corner, take the guns out of their hands and give them jobs and programs and access and opportunity.

Get them into trades and apprenticeship programs, so they feel that there's better options that being involved in gangs and crews and violence and the proliferation of guns, we need national attention. This is a state of emergency. We need our partners at every level of government to join us because we cannot do this by ourselves. The NYPD can not do this by themselves. We need everyone to be involved. The health disparities we have to address, we need access to universal, affordable, and quality healthcare. More school-based health clinics. That students have access to medical, dental, and vision services in their schools.

We need every school to be a community school with a full-time nurse, a social worker, and guidance counselor. Rebecca, we need it all, and I'm reminded, as I talked to residents throughout the borough, that many of them are very fearful. This is a hot summer. They're seeing crime all over the place. Innocent victims over crime. They're very worried about the quality of life. They're dealing with the race cars and the speeding up and down the street. The late night parties, the double triple parked cars. They're very worried about what their quality of life is for themselves and their families.

On day one, we will be working with our new administration, working with all stakeholders to really provide a lot of opportunity so we can create those jobs that provides stability for many of our families.

Rebecca Ibarra: What role would the NYPD play in your plan to curb violence in the Bronx?

Councilwoman Gibson: The NYPD plays a crucial role. We work with Patrol Borough Bronx and all of our 12 precincts. We represent three precincts as well as PSA 7 today, which is housing in Transit District 11. We need to make sure that we have partnerships. We have programs like the neighborhood coordination officer. We have youth coordination officers. We have the police academy, the citizens academy. We have to find ways to continue to engage residents at a local level. We want to see the cops on the street, out of their patrol cars and walking the beat just as they used to do years ago. When many of our elders remember those cops and knew them by first name, they are a part of our community.

While many of them may not live in our community. They work in this community and they are a part of the solution, but residents are also a part of the solution. We know who those people are that are habitual offenders of crime, that are selling drugs, that have guns, but residents are very fearful to come forward. They're fearful of retaliation. They don't want to come forward. Many of them maybe immigrant residents, undocumented. They don't want to come forward. We have to provide them with the safety, the confidentiality in coming forward, because at the end of the day, there are more good people in the Bronx than there are those that want to engage in violence and terrorize our neighborhoods.

We cannot live a life in our own borough where we can't walk down the street and be safe, where we can't go to the local park with our children and teenagers. I remind everyone that you don't need a title in front of your name to help and care about your community, about your block, about your neighborhood. We need tenants to organize around issues. Adopt your block, adopt your local playground, your park. Get young people involved to keep our streets clean, right? Making sure that we do our part because we all have a role to play, including the NYPD. We will be working with the NCOs the YCOs, the community affairs officers. This new incoming administration under the leadership of our new mayor and his team. We want to make sure that we are a part of those conversations.

Rebecca Ibarra: Let's go to a caller, Councilwoman Gibson. We have Omar in the Bronx. Omar, thank you for calling WNYC. What's your question or comment?

Omar: Thank you for having me, and hello, Vanessa. This is Imam Omar from Masjid al-Haram, on 206 in Jerome Avenue. I just wanted to say, I don't have a question, I just have a comment about Vanessa. I'm so excited that you're projected to win this race. I'm not sure if it's finalized yet, but super proud of you. I've watched you over the years, your humbleness, humility, willing to work with the community, and just to share information that you have. I could bet right now, she's speaking, she's probably don't have any bullets, she's speaking from the heart. That's how much she has thought about it.

I've been with her on the same panel where we have discussions about how COVID it's affecting African communities. The information she had without looking at any paper tells me that this is someone who will spend the night thinking about how COVID is affecting us. To have someone like this as our president, I'm just super excited. I just wanted to shout you out.

Rebecca Ibarra: Omar, go ahead Councilwoman.

Councilwoman Gibson: Right Rebecca, I don't have any notes in front of me [laughs] because I live this work every day. I am just really adamant about getting things done. I feel like I have a directive. I have so much to prove to the residents of the Bronx that many of whom have lost hope and lost optimism. Small businesses have closed. Many tenants have fallen behind in rent. They're facing eviction or harassment by a landlord, and they've lost income. We have to give them hope, but we have to have more importantly a plan. We have to work together. We have to collaborate. We have to partner because we have to realize that we're all in this together.

Rebecca Ibarra: Omar, thank you for calling. Councilwoman Gibson, I'm going to guess that wasn't a plant from your camp to just sing your praises, but we have another caller. We have Heather in Mount Kisco. Heather, thank you so much for calling WNYC. What is your question or comment for Councilwoman Gibson?

Heather: Okay, hi. I want to congratulate the Councilwoman. First of all, and to say I'm a middle school ELA teacher at PS/218 at the Rafael Hernandez Dual-Language Magnet School. My question has to do with the proposed project to cap the Cross Bronx Expressway, which I know is something in the order of a $725 million project. I'm wondering what your strategies are for forwarding that project in light of the very high asthma rates, of course as you know, in the West Bronx. Further than that, with the promise of the Jerome Avenue Redevelopment project in the area as well. How can you ensure that the tenants, the people who I serve now, whose families I serve now will be able to stay where they live as the community I believe will inevitably see improvements in the future? I'll take your answer off there. Thank you very much.

Rebecca Ibarra: Thank you so much for calling Heather.

Councilwoman Gibson: Thank you, Heather. Excellent question, and thank you for your service. 218 is one of our amazing schools and district nine, and I'm very proud to work with your principal and all of the teachers and educators at 218. A couple of things, we have put in provisions at a local city and state level to provide rent stability as a permanent fixture to reduce the number of MCIs and IEI's and vacancy bonuses that normally happen when apartments became vacant. With new construction in the Jerome Inwood area, we are going to make sure that there are set aside units for formerly homeless families.

There are units for those that are aging out of foster care, as well as seniors and veterans, as well as supportive housing. We have three projects now on River Avenue and Jerome Avenue that will garner about 1,000 units of affordable housing for low-income families, mixed-income, incomes as low as 27%, all the way up to 70% AMI. We also need to make sure that we provide eviction prevention services for those families that may fall behind in rent. The eviction moratorium is due to expire this summer, but we know that there will be a lot of families facing eviction.

We instituted the universal right to council back in 2017, we passed a bill earlier this year that makes it permanent and across all five boroughs, no matter where you live, you can get a free lawyer in housing court facing eviction. We also need to make sure that we provide the retail and commercial diversity that we need, because we know as you build more housing, you have to provide neighborhood infrastructure. The schools, the parks, and the playgrounds all are overburdened when you have more families and school school-age children coming in. I am very supportive of the CAP, the Cross Bronx Expressway plan.

I think there's a lot of momentum from elected officials at the state and a federal levels, specifically the New York delegation, Ritchie Torres, and representative Ocasio-Cortez and Adriano Espaillat, and Jamaal Bowman are very supportive. What we are asking for is an allocation in the Transportation Act that the President Biden Administration will be passing shortly. We need transportation money. That is a very expensive project, but I think for all the reasons that we know of, the high asthma rates, the pollution. I mean, we are living in the shadows of Robert Moses, surrounded by highways in the Bronx.

The Cross Bronx Expressway as an interchange to Jersey has caused a lot of congestion, a lot of pollution every day. It's our children, your students that are in jeopardy as well as their parents. I will do my part and use my voice as borough president working with all of my colleagues to get money for the CAP across Bronx, but I also want to do a lot of education as well. I think it's important for those neighborhoods that surround the Cross Bronx to get incentives so we can even build better. We can have more energy efficiency, projects, more green technology. We have to look at things a little bit differently. We have to look at investing in our infrastructure in a creative and innovative way, micro-wind turbines. We have water resiliency projects.

We have so much opportunity, but we need the support of the federal and state government. As the incoming borough president, I will be working with all of my stakeholders. Certainly, as an educator, I applaud your work. I know it has not been easy, and I'm so grateful for all of our teachers and educators, and as just one school in district 9, I will continue to fund through the resume process. A lot of capital projects and technology and capital upgrades to all of our schools, not just in district 9, but all of our schools in the Bronx.

Rebecca Ibarra: We are joined by Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, who is projected to be the next Bronx Borough president . Councilwoman Gibson, let's try to get in a couple more callers. We have Danny in Wakefield, Danny, I believe you want to talk about nightlife. Thank you for calling WNYC.

Danny: Hello, thank you for taking my call. My question for the honorable Councilwoman is, what she can do now for the next six months. When she becomes our borough president, what she can do to help us? The problem here it is the enormous is debilitating. How can anyone sleep at night if the neighbor, especially in apartment buildings, the noise is so much with the amplified noise. The reason I'm asking for your help is before the defunding the police, we'll go to the precinct and ask the police for help. The police will be very glad to come here and tell the people to stop the noise.

Sometimes they will even threaten to issue summons but they will not. Now that the defund the police issue is on, we'll go to the precinct. I don't blame them, they say, "You want to define the police and ask them to come and help you to keep the neighbors quiet? We have more important things to do." There are shooting, people are dying. You talking about noise, you have to live with the noise. Now, how can we study? How can somebody study to be a nurse, a teacher, a doctor anything. It's in the apartment building, the people next like below or booth are just making noise and drinking and smoking. You go there to ask them to stop, they threaten to beat the person. You go to the super, the super say, "Oh, they can make noise during the day, maybe at night till ten o'clock at night."

Rebecca Ibarra: Danny, thank you so much for calling, Councilwoman Gibson, noise. I assume he's talking about businesses and also maybe apartments. Any plans to deal with those concerns for Bronx residents?

Councilwoman Gibson: Absolutely. Rebecca, I hear this complaint every single day during the week, as well as weekends for many residents and homeowners that live near large parks. I represent Claremont Park and I'm right next to Crotona, and Mullay, and Fran Sigel, and we get a lot of noise complaints. It is an important issue. I don't ever want any Bronx residents to think that quality of life is not important to all of us, as well as the NYPD. Yes, they were priorities that we have to deal with when you talk about violent crime, and yes, that does get a lot of attention, but quality of life issues are also important.

The 311 system is set up to receive all of those calls, and those calls are transferred to the local precinct. The gentleman that called lives in Wakefield, which is in the 47 precinct. I first want to encourage you to be a part of the 47th Precinct Council, which meets once every month, except July and August. You will get to speak to the commanding officer as Osvaldo Nunez, and you will get to talk to the community affairs officers and meet your NCOs. Each of the precincts that we've been working with is now starting to establish a quality of life unit.

I can speak very personally to one of my own precincts, the 44. They started a quality of life unit this summer, that deals with all 311 calls. Whether it's noise, double-parked cars, loud music, sound systems, and speakers, and things of that nature, the drag racing. These officers assigned to this unit only handle quality of life issues. A lot of residents will complain and say, they called 311 at twelve o'clock and the officers showed up at eight o'clock, eight hours later. We understand that some precincts are busier than others, but I encourage you to please continue to call 311.

Get to know your NCO officers who also will deal with quality of life issues, so you can have a relationship with them because these are issues that we have to address. Everyone needs to be considerate of their neighbors. We have a lot of working-class residents and homeowners and small children, and people need to get rest. I understand we all love to have a good time, we love to go to parties, but there should be a common respect when it comes to late-night parties, especially in residential communities. These quality of life units at our local precincts are going to be responsible for working with 311 on fielding a lot of these calls.

I would love to talk more about it and see it coming more into fruition. I do know that this is something fairly new, just because of the volume of calls that are coming to the priests and from 311 around quality of life issues.

Rebecca Ibarra: One more question. We have about 30 seconds left. How successful do you think ranked-choice voting was? You are the likely winner, so I'm guessing you thought it was awesome, but did you get the sense that the voters took advantage of the opportunity to rank candidates?

Councilwoman Gibson: Rebecca, it was a lot of work. I was very concerned at the beginning because the city only had $2 million allocated for education and outreach and we had a very small window. The very first election on the ranked-choice voting was in February, out in Queens. I think many residents didn't remember voting for it in November 2019. It was a learning lesson for a lot of us. It was a huge learning curve to get many traditional voters on board with voting differently. Many people are used to voting for one candidate. When you explain to them that you can vote for up to five, they didn't understand.

During our campaign, as we were knocking on doors and doing the digital and the mailers, we encourage people to vote for our campaign as number one. We also knew that many residents had already made up their mind with the candidate. We asked them, if you already have a candidate, please consider us for numero dos, numero tres, number two, or number three. Because we knew that in order to get to the 50% threshold, we needed people to vote for us as a second or third choice. It wasn't easy. It was hard. I think this is a learning lesson for us on things we can do better.

There's still a lot of concern about just the outreach itself. Did we get to communities of color, immigrant communities, and those communities that typically don't always come out during primary elections. I'm very grateful that the voters did come out, they voted for us as number one, number two, and number three. Now that the votes are counted and we're waiting for the certification. We're really, really grateful that ranked-choice voting was in place for this Democratic primary.

Rebecca Ibarra: We'll have to leave it there with Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, the projected winner of the Bronx borough president Democratic primary, and as such the likely winner of the general election in November. Thank you so much.

Councilwoman Gibson: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me today. Thank you.

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