Poor and powerless District has no reps after ex-councilman’s staff axed
The last two staffers for former Brooklyn City Councilman Rafael Espinal have been fired, leaving one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods with no Council representation during the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Daily News has learned.
They got the boot Thursday.
“The pandemic happening after Rafael left and then this? It’s too much to process,” said Lorenzo Brea, 21, an Espinal aide who handled constituent services. “These people in the district are not gonna get s—t. They’re not gonna get a damn thing. That is the only thing I think about.”
“I have absolutely no idea why I got fired,” he added.
In total, three former Espinal aides were fired last week — two in constituent services in a district that covers parts of East New York and Bushwick, and one who had been moved to another part of the Council after Espinal resigned in January.
Brea was paid $28,000 a year to help people in East New York, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, get access to food pantries and housing during the pandemic. The most common constituent service there is for affordable housing, according to 2018 Council data.
“These people stuck it out and did very tough work under very tough circumstances,” said Sarah Crean, a member of the organizing committee for the staff union effort at the Council. “And this is how they’re treated? To be let go in the middle of an economic crisis? It defies reason.”
“When a Council seat is vacated, it is customary for the staff to leave after two weeks. That period was extended in this case until the end of the fiscal year and after the election for the replacement. That period ended this month,” said Juan Soto, a spokesman for Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan).
The Council’s Community Engagement Division is helping with constituent services until a new Council member takes over in January, Soto said.
“There was an agreement I struck with the speaker’s office that we would be able to hold them on until a new Council member comes in,” Espinal told The News.
“We agreed to keep staff on at least until the special election in April.”
That special election was pushed back to June and ultimately canceled, leaving the district without Council representation until the November election.
“As far as staff, they’ve received an unprecedented amount of support to stay on,” added Espinal, who now heads the Freelancers Union.
Brea said that even before the firing, two staffers for constituent services wasn’t enough.
A third former Espinal staffer, Maricela Cano, was fired Tuesday, although she had been transferred to the Council’s general counsel’s office after Espinal resigned.
Cano got a call saying she was going have an exit interview before she was informed that she was losing her job.
“They were like, ‘Oh they haven’t told you? Your contract has been terminated,’ ” Cano said.