Carlos Menchaca Talks Election Win, His Future, District Priorities

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — City Councilman Carlos Menchaca won the Democratic nomination for his seat on Tuesday night, all but ensuring he'll represent the district, which includes Sunset Park and Red Hook, for another four years.

Menchaca defeated a crowded field that included state Assemblyman Felix Ortiz and former City Councilwoman Sara Gonzalez, whom Menchaca defeated four years ago. Local attorneys Chris Miao and Delvis Valdes were also in the race.

Patch caught up with Menchaca on Wednesday afternoon — after a hearing Menchaca chaired as the head of the council's immigration committee — to talk about the victory along with what's next for the district and himself.

Our conversation was lightly edited for clarity and length.

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Now that you’ve had a few hours to digest it, what were your thoughts on your primary win?

I’m still digesting it. We started out in this campaign to continue to do the work that we started four years ago, which was to build an insanely diverse coalition of people who are franchised by the possibility of voting and those who are not franchised for whatever reasons, including immigration status, that cannot vote, and allow them all to be part of the conversation about who will lead them as their voice in the city council.

At a time when we are in deep fears form the federal government and gentrification and displacement, we were able to communicate a message about actual power that we have in the council to stand up and fight back. And that’s what this campaign was about.

It was an affirmation. It was what I needed to hear from the neighborhood — that we’re on the right track and the old school politics, the machine-style campaigning doesn’t work. Negativity will never prevail over real connections through love, hope, courage and real civic engagement for every single person.

Take us into your head after the polls closed at 9 p.m. How did you feel? Were you nervous?

If you go by my Instagram, I was dancing from 6 a.m. through 9 p.m. We walked into this election day confident because we did the work. We created, I think, one of the best-run campaigns in this whole city by just doing the work. Talking directly to people. I spoke to almost every voter directly that was coming out for us to confirm their commitment.

We unleashed hundreds of people on election day. I knew we were going to pull the vote out. That’s how elections work. That’s how they’re supposed to be designed. By engaging voters directly about the issues that matter to them and giving them a sense about how we’ve not only accomplished that, but how we’ll need another term to accomplish it further.

That’s what we did. So I woke up on election day knowing that we were going to win and that we were going to pull our vote out. That’s the kind of relationships we developed with folks over the course of the campaign.

How is your relationship with Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, one of your challengers, coming out of this campaign? You all will obviously have to continue to work together on a lot of issues in the neighborhood.

He and every one of those candidates really represent a natural force of wanting to represent the neighborhood. My call out to him and everyone else is let’s work together. Let’s figure out how we can be united when a community is asking us to fight together. I hope that he can answer that call, and work with us to push this agenda about a diverse, civically engaged group of people.

It’s a hope, and what I do know is that this community is ready to continue to demand the best leadership, not just at the city council level but at the state level.

Did you speak with your opponents last night or this morning?

Chris called me pretty early in the night and congratulated me. Delvis walked into my party. That was nice. But I received no calls from anyone else.

Looking ahead, assuming things go your way in November, when you think about the next four years of your City Council career, what are you looking to push, and what do you want it to be defined by?

Well, number one we have more schools to build. Education is going to remain a centerpiece of my full eight-year administration. And not just building the schools but really designing the best educational opportunities for an immigrant and multi-lingual community. Making sure we have dual-language and highly resourced curriculums and be incredibly innovative.

Second, I continue and I will maintain my commitment to the working waterfront. We’re going to see a real activation of the work we’ve been doing over the last three and a half years, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment in our city property, but also make sure that we unlock our private partners, like Industry City and others, to maintain their commitment to our immigrant and multilingual population. So you’re going to see us come up with some things that have probably never been come up with before because that’s what I’m demanding. I’m demanding new and innovative ways to get our community the jobs that they deserve.

And there’s the transportation question that the district provides through bigger projects like the BQX, the shiny vision projects, and things that we can do now, I will be focusing on bringing things that we can do now. And the Fourth Avenue bike lane is a perfect example of infrastructure and how we need to re-think all infrastructure projects. I was able to get DOT to stop their current design and add new features like the protected bike lanes.

And what I want to do is continue to ensure that every dollar of capital investment that comes from the city of New York must have a climate change component to allow us to have climate adaptation infrastructure for the future of our neighborhood. I will be demanding that at every corner of investment that we make in the district.

Have you put any thought into what might be next for you in four years?

(laughs) Well, I am highly committed to ensuring that this position continue to be represented by someone who has the values and were affirmed in last night’s election. Someone that is inclusive, someone who can represent the district directly from the feet of our most vulnerable and our representative population.

So I’m going to be spending some time investing in the future of this community. That’s what you’re going to see me doing and focusing on today and in four years.

Now, whether I’m going to run for anything, I think I’ll look at it. I do think that being a council member is one of the best damn jobs in the city of New York. I just don’t see — nothing compares. I just have to say I think I have the best damn job in the world. And that will sadly end in four years.

So I don’t know. I don’t think anything can beat it. But I will say that my fight against Trump and the work that happens at the federal level is incredibly important and any way that I can support that movement, to move Congress, I will do that.

Anything else you want to say or add before I let you go?

I’m just so thankful for all of the support that everyone gave, and people are really putting themselves out there in this election and standing up, and standing up with me. And I will be standing up with them as we continue to fight for the issues that matter to us.

Image: Carlos Menchaca at his official campaign launch in May