The newly convened Yonkers City Council faced discord during its first meeting this week as two veteran members were denied a committee chairmanship. The specific exclusion of Corazón Pineda-Isaac raised concerns with her about the representation of the Latino community in the third-largest city in New York.
A customary meeting
Traditionally, the first week of January sees the City Council coming together to establish rules of proceedings and elect leaders. However, this year’s meeting took an unexpected turn when Corazón Pineda-Isaac and Anthony Merante did not receive the title of Chair for any committee. Leading a committee helps guide legislation through the process and shape the direction of the city. These committees thusly range in subject-matter like education, mental health, and real estate.
This additional responsibility is awarded with a supplemental annual stipend. Relatedly, the Council’s final meeting of 2023 saw the body vote to increase this stipend from five-thousand to fifteen-thousand-dollars per year.
The rejected members respond
Both Pineda-Isaac and Merante responded negatively to their exclusion with public comments during the meeting. The reason, according to both, was political retaliation. Not only did Pineda-Isaac and Merante each seek to prevent incumbent Mayor Mike Spano from assuming a newly-possible fourth term, but they supported electoral challenges to the Majority and Minority Leaders as well. While clearly perturbed, they likewise stated that the denial of a committee chairmanship would not deter them from actively participating in committees and advocating for their constituents.
You may watch the full City Council meeting in the video below.
An underrepresented plurality
In an email to her supporters and constituents a day later, Pineda-Isaac explained the further implications of this ostracism.
As a result, there are no Latino voices chairing committees in Yonkers, which is an outrage given the growth and representing 42.4% of the Yonkers population.
The Council Member proceeded to then chide her politically-minded colleagues. She stated that leaders should move on from campaign conflicts and work together in government. She defined the recent actions by the Council as “a recipe for dysfunction that benefits no one on the council, and actively harms the people of Yonkers.”
The current Council Member from the second district is not the first to raise the issue of Latino representation. Former representative of the same district, Fernando Fuentes, has also penned numerous musings on this topic. By his count, while over 40% of the citizenry of Yonkers is Latino, only 15% of the City workforce is that same ethnicity. What’s more, there is only one Latino member of the Mayor’s 18-person leadership team.
While the reality of Pineda-Isaac’s committee rebuke may be purely a personal attack, it amplifies voices that perceive an attempt to stifle the representation of an historically overlooked community. But, regardless of the motivations and effects of this rejection, some may simply wonder, are the tax-paying citizens of Yonkers going to get back that $30,000 in stipends?
