false choice<\/a>.\u201d He said to close a $5.4 billion budget gap either the state needed to increase taxes on millionaires and corporations or the city would be forced to levy higher property taxes, calling it a \u201ctool of last resort.\u201d<\/p>\nCity Councilmember Ty Hankerson, who previously served as former Council Speaker Adrienne Adams\u2019s chief of staff and now represents her old Southeast Queens district, said his phone exploded with texts and calls as word got out about Mamdani\u2019s dueling proposals.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWhen there are only two options, the last resort isn’t far off, right? So that is very frightening,\u201d Hankerson said.<\/p>\n
While he supports the increased taxes on the rich, he worries about what message Mamdani\u2019s proposal sends to Black New Yorkers whose population has dropped by some 200,000 in the last census.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 31 years old and a lot of folks I went to school with have moved to Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and that doesn\u2019t make me happy, but I understand why,\u201d Hankerson said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how we can attract Black families back to New York with a proposal like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
He objected to his constituents being used as \u201cpolitical pawns on a political chess board.\u201d Several of his constituents voiced added frustration that Speaker Adams, his Council predecessor, was now Hochul\u2019s lieutenant governor running mate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdrienne is right there. She\u2019s from here,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cYou know, be honest and talk about it because Adrienne lives in the neighborhood, too, so\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the people who reached out to Hankerson was Aracelia Cook, the president of the 149th South Ozone Park Civic Association. Cook was frustrated about Mamdani\u2019s tax hike proposal. She said he needed to think about how it was landing with \u201cpeople of color, people who are struggling.\u201d But then, as with many of her neighbors, her thoughts turned to the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it was a scare tactic to make the governor realize that she has to do something because, really, in hindsight, he can\u2019t,\u201d Cook said. \u201cThe state has to step in. Gov. Hochul has to step in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that she feels she\u2019s in a safe place and she doesn\u2019t have to make the hard decisions about the one percenters and she\u2019s leaving him out there by himself,\u201d Pat Burrell, 78, said, suggesting that Hochul might be taking votes from her community for granted since she no longer faces a Democratic primary.<\/p>\n
Afi Phobe, 77, with Councilmember Ty Hankerson in the living room of the home she’s lived in since 1957.<\/p>\n
Brigid Bergin<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI think that we need to send a very strong message to her that it’s not a done deal that she’s going to be reelected, and she has to know that we count too,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s not just big business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burrell\u2019s family bought a home in the neighborhood in 1959. After she graduated and got a job, she moved to New Jersey and begged her mother to come and live with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou couldn\u2019t get her out of this neighborhood with a stick of dynamite,\u201d Burrell said. After she died, Burrell said she came back to the neighborhood with plans to sell the house. But she never left. \u201cSomething about this neighborhood is so special,\u201d she said. \u201cI call it the \u2018sweet spot.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Afi Phobe, 77, said her parents bought their four-bedroom Cape Cod in 1957. In the years that followed, the family watched as a neighborhood of Black middle and working-class families sprang up around them. Now that it\u2019s her house, she shares it with a brood of rescue cats.<\/p>\n
For her, the home is \u201ceverything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phobe said she had no intention of leaving her home or the city. \u201cI\u2019m going to be here until it\u2019s time to close my eyes, you know.\u201d But she warned that a property tax increase would put many on the cusp of losing their homes after decades of investing in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has to not be afraid to be a Robin Hood,\u201d Phobe said of Hochul. \u201cIt will haunt her if it winds up being like this. The 9.5 is too high to begin with, much too high.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Philda Barnes heard Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s threat to raise property taxes to plug a budget gap, she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-143669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}