In the next Dessert with Andrew & Yvonne Zoom Seminar, the dynamic duo will discuss ways you can help those in need this holiday season. The seminar is titled, “Holiday Edition: Community Service.” From soup kitchens to nursing homes; learn about the various ways one can volunteer, and hear from organizations that are making a positive impact in our community.
In the next Dessert with Andrew & Yvonne Zoom Seminar, the dynamic duo will discuss ways you can help those in need this holiday season. The seminar is titled, “Holiday Edition: Community Service.” From soup kitchens to nursing homes; learn about the various ways one can volunteer, and hear from organizations that are making a positive impact in our community.
By Matthew Fischetti
mfischetti@queensledger.com
Kevin and Regina McCormack on their wedding day 34 years ago
He wanted to be a priest since he was in middle school. She wanted to be a nun since she was in college. But it turns out, God had a different plan.
Over 35 years ago, Kevin and Regina McCormack traded their respective robes and veils and their vow of celibacy to serve Him in a greater way: through each other.
She was in her second year at the Sisters of St Joseph when the novice nuns had classes with the priests in the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception. They quickly became friends.
It wasn’t until they attended the same wedding, Kevin being the best man and Regina the maid of honor, that Regina felt like there was something more than friendship.
“I was still in the convent at that time, and I guess the wedding triggered something,” Regina said in a recent interview. “And I knew then that maybe the life I thought I wanted to live was not the one that was intended for me.”
One night after the wedding, Kevin was stationed in Glen Cove, when he heard a knock on the door. A nun was waiting for him.
“You can get to Flatbush by accident, but there’s no freaking way you’re getting to Glen Cove by accident,” Kevin said.
They braved the bad weather to go to a bar two miles away called the Barefoot Peddler. Over a few beers and mozzarella sticks, they started talking. They couldn’t deny it any longer.
Kevin left the seminary in January of 1985 and Regina left St. Joseph that following June. Two years later they got married at Queen of All Saints in Fort Greene.
As you may imagine, Kevin and Regina were more focused on their mass than their wedding party. They had about 15 priests at their altar and fretted on choosing the perfect music and readings for the ceremony.
They went with a passage from Corinthians: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
And persevere it has. This July, Kevin and Regina will be married 35 years. They have four adult kids, two dogs, a grandchild and another on the way, and one remarkable lifetime of memories together.
Today, Kevin is the principal of Xaverian High School, a private catholic school in Bay Ridge. Regina teaches religion to 8th graders at the same school.
“If you come to my house, I yell and scream at my kids,” Kevin said. “I like a cocktail on the weekend, I have to mow the lawn. I live like everybody else does, but that’s the way I think God needed me to live.”
Their secret to making it work? Not an act of God, but pretty mundane stuff like communication, listening and work.
But they still consider themselves incredibly blessed.
“We were being called to something that we had no idea many years prior to that,” Regina said. “We both thought our lives were set.”
“I still think she’s the cutest thing in the world,” Kevin said. “So that kind of works out for me.”
By Matthew Fischetti
mfischetti@queensledger.com
Kristen Gonzalez is running in the the Senate district that covers Greenpoint and parts of Queens
As a working-class girl from Elmhurst who commuted to middle school on the Upper East Side, Kristen Gonzalez developed an early political consciousness.
Even though she was in the same city, she realized she lived in two different worlds. At her Roosevelt Avenue station in Queens, she saw lines of immigrants waiting to get free breakfast from a Catholic charity.
When she got off the subway at 86th Street in Manhattan, she saw lines of businessmen in fancy suits and coats grabbing their morning Starbucks.
Even though Gonzalez is only 26 years old, she already has an impressive background in politics. At Columbia University, she was president of the local College Democrats chapter where she got involved in Get Out The Vote campaigns.
From there she worked at the City Council writing policy recommendations through the Young Women’s Initiative, but felt like she didn’t see the needle moving. So during what would have been her senior year, she dropped out to work in Washington as a Latino Engagement intern for the Obama administration and then in Senator Chuck Schumer’s office.
While she says the experience was informative, it also made her realize the change she wanted to make wouldn’t be found in the confines of City Hall or in the Capitol Rotunda, but rather, “it was in the working-class communities that raised me back in Queens.”
Less than 24 hours after the new State Senate district maps were released, Gonzalez declared as a candidate for District 17, which includes areas of Woodhaven, Maspeth, Long Island City, Glendale, Ridgewood and Greenpoint.
She was first approached by the Democratic Socialists of America to run for office in December. Gonzalez thought it was a real opportunity to build a larger socialist movement in Albany.
“Next week, the strategy is to start down in southern parts of the district and, and really try to build on the movements we’ve seen with campaigns like Felicia Singh to turn up more folks in the Punjabi, Bangladeshi, and Guyanese communities,” she said. “Then coming back up to really engage and build a base of more Latino working-class families, as well.”
Gonzalez has assembled over 20 veteran progressive politicos who worked on campaigns for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán.
Gonzalez’s top three priorities are passing single-payer health care, building publicly owned renewable energy, and passing good cause eviction and ending subsidies for luxury developments.
She first got involved with DSA in 2018, organizing their tech action working group, rallying support for privacy bills like the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act to force the NYPD to be more transparent about the types of surveillance technology the department uses.
When asked about Mayor Eric Adams’s push to make New York City a hub for cryptocurrency, Gonzalez rolled her eyes.
“It’s a replication of the issue where the city moves forward in a way that benefits the very wealthy who are invested in things like crypto, but without thinking about those who are behind who just don’t have basic access to the internet,” Gonzalez said.
A recent report from the state comptroller’s office found that over one million New Yorkers lack access to quality broadband services. As a member of the tech action working group, Gonzalez helped create the Internet For All campaign, a 46-page blueprint on how to achieve municipal ownership of broadband utilities.
Gonzalez has already raised over $23,000, and her Twitter account had such a quick influx of support and followers, the social media service put her account under review for “suspicious activity”.
“I could not be more grateful and just humbled by the support that we saw in this last week,” Gonzalez said. “We believe this is the best campaign for the district because we are representative of it.”
By Matthew Fischetti
mfischetti@queensledger.com
Members of the nonprofit New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) members last week shared how their immigration status prevents them from being able to get steady work.
Around two dozen members waited an hour outside NICE headquarters in Jackson Heights wearing masks that said “Citizenship for All” as Senator Chuck Schumer listened to testimonials about how undocumented status affects immigrants’ lives.
Araceli Cerrano is an undocumented immigrant who spoke at the meeting about how her immigration status is literally threatening her life. Cerrano has kidney issues and is on dialysis three days a week.
“Without being able to be admitted to a transplant list, her time is literally running out,” said Diana Moreno, interim executive director of NICE. “This is a truly life-or-death situation for so many of our members, not just because they might be dealing with a health issue, but in the labor we do, during the pandemic, we have sometimes risked our very lives.”
Cerrano said it felt good to have Schumer listen to her issues.
“I really hope they are helping us because we all really need it,” she said. “Especially in my case. I need to get on the list for a transplant, so I really need papers.”
Democrats in Washington have failed multiple times to pass immigration reform since President Joe Biden took office. Schumer said talks are resuming with one Democratic holdout, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and is “confident they will be able to set aside the parliamentarian”.
The parliamentarian is a nonpartisan position that makes decisions about procedures in both the House and Senate. The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, has previously ruled that immigration reform could not be tacked onto Biden’s spending bill, a crucial decision as spending bills only need 50 votes to pass and cannot be filibustered.
“As you know, Joe Manchin couldn’t come to an agreement with the president on this,” said Schumer. “And we need all 50 Democrats because we have no Republicans. But talks are resuming and we’re going to try to get as much of the BBB bill done as we can. Once we have a BBB bill on the floor, then we can move for a path to citizenship for immigrants to be added to it.”
Schumer emphasized how grassroots organizations like NICE need to get every Democratic senator to support the measures.
“I wish I could get all of my senators to hear you, but I will be your voice,” Schumer said. “You’re hard-working and want the best for yourselves and your families. We have to do everything we can to make that happen.”
Lincoln Restler is one of the newly elected NYC council members. Can he pull off his progressive agenda in an Adams administration?
By Matthew Fischetti
mfischetti@queensledger.com
Lincoln Restler has big dreams for North Brooklyn.
The freshman councilman for the 33rd District won a crowded Democratic Primary on an ambitious agenda of making the district the first to be carbon neutral in the city, reallocating part of the NYPD budget to create a new public safety agency of social workers and mental health care providers, and preventing the overdevelopment of the Brooklyn waterfront.
But can he pull it off?
The 37-year-old councilman may be a freshman in the City Council, but he is far from new to New York City politics.
Restler first got involved in politics during the 2008 primary for Barack Obama. Inspired by the success of Obama, Restler looked to make the movement more than a moment but a real coalition.
He helped found, and served for one year as vice president, of the New Kings Democrats, a progressive reform-minded organization that has challenged the Brooklyn Democratic machine.
At only 26 years old, Restler won his first election in 2010 as a district leader in a successful rebuke against disgraced Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman Vito Lopez’s preferred candidate, Warren Cohn.
Even though district leaders are unpaid positions with very limited powers, Restler’s upset generated buzzy media coverage.
After nearly 12 years, a few stints in city government and working for former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Restler still sees himself as the same outsider trying to reform New York City politics.
Restler may have his work cut out for him under Mayor Eric Adams, a fellow native son of Brooklyn but also a product of the old school machine politics Restler has fought against.
“I’m committed to pushing for ethical government, for our city to be as ethical as it can possibly be,” Restler said in a recent interview. “And my experience challenging the Brooklyn machine molded me to feel like you have to speak truth to power, you have to call out corruption directly to affect change, and you never have a hard time sleeping when you do the right thing.”
More recently, Adams has made waves for two controversial appointments: Philip Banks, a former NYPD Chief and un-indicted co-conspirator in a federal police corruption case, as Deputy Mayor of Public Safety, and appointing his younger brother, Bernard Adams, as Deputy Commissioner of the NYPD.
When asked about the appointments, Restler chose his words carefully.
“I’m concerned any time a family member is appointed to a senior position or a position of power,” said Restler. “I look forward to understanding how they plan to structure the appointment of the mayor’s brother. I’m concerned about the appointment.”
In regards to Banks’ appointment, Restler said “there are a series of open questions that still need to be answered regarding the investigations relating to Mr. Banks.”
While Restler’s progressive bonafides and ambitious agenda may be in contrast with the person now sitting in Gracie Mansion, Restler sees opportunities to work with the Mayor to deliver for the residents of North Brooklyn.
“My goal is to work with the mayor and his team, to work with the speaker and her team, to work with my colleagues in the council to get sh*t done and solve problems and make sure that the most pressing issues in our community are being addressed,” he said. “But I was elected by the people of the 33rd Council District, and it’s my job to faithfully represent their values and their priorities.
“Sometimes that’s going to be in agreement with the mayor, sometimes that’s going to be a disagreement with the Mayor,” he added. “And that’s okay. We can disagree without getting into a nuclear war. I’m not going to shy away from my beliefs.”
Specifically, Restler referenced Adams’ intent to reinstate solitary confinement as his public statements about how council members have no right to question the 22-year veteran of the NYPD.
“Solitary confinement is torture, and we cannot allow it in New York City jails,” Restler said. “No matter what the mayor’s perspective on that is, I’m going to rally my colleagues in the council to push that legislation forward with a veto-proof majority.”
Restler said the three biggest problems he wants to address are tackling the affordability crisis in his district, protecting the Brooklyn waterfront from the effects of climate change, and “making our community safer through intelligent, compassionate policies that don’t rely on the police to solve every problem.”
Even though Restler has just been a Councilman for a little over a week, he has been busy on those issues.
On December 27, the city announced $75 million for Bushwick Inlet Park, a project Restler has been working with local officials behind the scenes months before his inauguration.
After a recent anti-Semitic assault in Bay Ridge, Restler canvassed Brooklyn neighborhoods with Councilman Chi Ossé, providing information on how to defuse and
intervene in hate crimes as a bystander.
Restler told the Star the first bill he is going to introduce will be repealing Option C of the 421(A) Program, a tax break that developers can qualify for providing affordably housing in new projects.
Under Option C, affordable housing is defined at up to 130 percent of the average median income for the area.
“The 421(A) program allows for developers in New York City to get massive tax breaks for building, quote unquote, affordable housing for a single adult making $108,000 a year,” Restler said. “Why are we possibly subsidizing, quote unquote, affordable housing for single adults earning triple digits? It doesn’t make sense.”
When asked how he would define success when his first term is up, Restler said it would be “if neighbors in our district have more confidence that government can help them solve real problems.”
“About 15 years ago, there were two massive rezonings in the 33rd Council District, on the waterfront and in downtown Brooklyn, and they have led to massive new developments,” Restler said. “They have contributed to significant displacement of longtime residents and amounted to a set of broken promises.
“Fifteen years later, I am angry about the promised park spaces, the promised schools, the investments that were supposed to come to accommodate a growing community,” he added. “And I am laser focused on making sure that those broken promises get remedied and that we hold the city accountable.”
In the next Dessert with Andrew & Yvonne Zoom Seminar, the dynamic duo will discuss ways you can help those in need this holiday season. The seminar is titled, “Holiday Edition: Community Service.” From soup kitchens to nursing homes; learn about the various ways one can volunteer, and hear from organizations that are making a positive impact in our community.
Known for their long legs, high kicks and insane precision, the Rockettes are a national treasure and probably the top response among young dancers when asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
His bid for mayor fell short, but that doesn’t mean Curtis Sliwa is going to sit on the sidelines in 2022.
Sliwa announced this week that he is forming the “Save the Senate” Super PAC aimed explicitly at defeating Senator Chuck Schumer. First elected to the Senate in 1998, Schumer is seeking a fifth term.
“I am more committed than ever to advancing our Republican values and priorities and holding liberal elitists accountable for failing New York and America,” Sliwa says on the website’s mission statement. “Next up: Senator Chuck Schumer.”
Sliwa says he plans to raise millions of dollars through the political action committee, which will in turn be used to promote and help elect a Republican challenger to the Senator Majority Leader. Schumer has not faced a serious challenger in the last three elections.
“As senator, Schumer has delivered nothing more than Sunday press conferences with empty promises,” the website continued. “Between the rising cost of living, a broken healthcare system, struggling public schools, and lack of affordable housing, it is clear that Senator Schumer’s primary concern is keeping himself and his cronies in power.”
Bronx attorney and Albanian immigrant, Aleksander Mici, announced recently that he would seek to challenge Schumer on the Republican line. And Sliwa hasn’t totally ruled out throwing his red beret into the ring, but said he would only run as a last resort.
When Schumer was elected in 1998, he defeated Republican Al D’Amato. D’Amato is now a lobbyist, and recently told the Post that Schumer is virtually unbeatable. The senator visits every county in the state every year, and is a fundraising powerhouse.
Heck, D’Amato even endorsed the man who replaced him during the 2016 election.
As for the aforementioned Siena College poll, voters were also asked how they feel about Schumer. Among Democrats, 70 percent said they had a favorable view of the job Schumer was doing, while only 20 percent of Republicans polled could say the same.
