[Ed. Note: In 2013, AGM’s co-founding Pastor Rick Del Rio ran to represent the NY City Council 2nd District. This was his platform, reprinted here as a framework for Pastor Rick’s leadership in his new role as Community Outreach Pastor.]
A VISIONARY YOU CAN TRUST
Richard Del Rio envisions a Manhattan Community District 2 that embraces its extraordinary economic, racial, cultural, and religious diversity while uniting around the core issues listed below. As your City Councilmember, Richard Del Rio will represent the entire district while pursuing an agenda of opportunity and justice for all.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND RESPONSIBLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Richard Del Rio believes in economic development that grows and strengthens community, not displaces it. As your City Councilmember, Richard Del Rio will fight to create and ensure affordable housing for our families, and protect our community from developments that destroy the character of our neighborhoods and threaten our public spaces.
Under Richard Del Rio’s leadership, District 2 will celebrate economic development and housing initiatives that:
- Preserve and expand essential businesses and community organizations such as locally owned grocers and vendors, non-profits, and houses of worship.
- Balance market rate and affordable housing options.
- Create living-wage jobs and economic opportunities for the underemployed.
- Eliminates excessive vacancies and backlogged maintenance issues in NYCHA operated public housing developments.
- Redevelops the abandoned, city-owned Baruch Bath House as a holistic community and recreation center.
INTENTIONAL YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
Richard Del Rio believes empowered youth can and will change the world. As your City Councilmember, Richard Del Rio will mobilize community assets through public-private partnerships that respond to our students’ needs and empower them as change agents in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods.
Richard Del Rio will invest in outcomes-based, community youth development initiatives that:
- Promote educational enrichment, art, and athletic opportunities for all of our students, regardless of economic status.
- Prioritize student leadership development and activism.
- Foster meaningful adult relationships as mentors, coaches, councilors, and tutors.
- Empower so-called “disconnected youth” – those not in school or employed – with vocational and life-skills training and apprenticeships.
SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION REFORM
Richard Del Rio believes that the moral test of a society is how we treat our children, and that New York City has failed the same test year after year for decades by failing to educate the urban poor despite promising equal access to quality education for all. The promise of public education can be realized in our most distressed communities and sustained for generations when students and community stakeholders join educators to address the challenges holistically. As your City Councilmember, Richard Del Rio will inspire and mobilize such partnerships.
Richard Del Rio’s Community District 2 will pioneer and expand school and community partnerships that:
- Unleash the potential of 1.1 million public school students to change the culture of their classrooms through positive peer pressure.
- Fill gaps for our neediest students so that they can focus on academics in the classroom and not the stresses of poverty.
- Promote educational enrichment, art, and athletic opportunities for all of our students, regardless of economic status.
COMMUNITY SAFETY
Richard Del Rio believes that the safest neighborhoods combine effective policing with community responsibility. As your City Councilmember, Richard Del Rio will work to foster peace and prosperity of our streets through partnerships with the NYPD, government agencies, after school and summer programs, local businesses and community stakeholders, and jobs and business incubators. He will promote compassion and justice through homeless outreach, social service referrals, community policing, and greater transitional supports and job opportunities for ex-offenders.
Richard Del Rio’s Community District 2 will support public safety policies and programs that:
- Increase transparency for CompStat and various NYPD tactics including Stop-and-Frisk.
- Expand the NYPD Clergy Liaison program to empower grassroots peacemakers.
- Reduce recidivism by expanding transitional programs and job options for ex-offenders.
- Reduce illegal guns on the streets through expanded gun buy-back programs.
- Empower gang intervention specialists and programs to create viable gang alternatives for disconnected youth.
INTER-GENERATIONAL COMMUNITY
Richard Del Rio believes that healthy communities embrace generational distinctions, and create safe spaces for all ages to thrive. As your City Councilmember, Richard Del Rio will create an environment in which children, seniors, and everyone in between can coexist peacefully in mutually enriching relationships.
Richard Del Rio’s Community District 2 will nurture programs and services that:
- Provide safe spaces for children, families, and senior populations to gather and thrive.
- Protect community centers and heritage centers, and foster operational and programmatic efficiencies among them.
- Strengthen the social safety net for children, seniors, and other vulnerable populations by combating fraud and waste in Medicare, Medicaid, and other social entitlement programs.
- Provide opportunities for inter-generational transfers of wisdom through mentoring, cross-cultural communication, and shared mission.
- Celebrate community milestones and cultural achievements.
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND MODERNIZED INFRASTRUCTURE
Richard Del Rio believes that mitigating the effects of natural and man-made disasters requires deepening our emergency preparedness, expanding grassroots partnerships where people actually live and work everyday, and modernizing our City’s infrastructure to reflect changing demographic, economic, and environmental realities. As your City Councilmember, Richard Del Rio will reinvest in our City’s future by replacing inefficient technologies, rebuilding degraded systems, and nurturing networks of grassroots compassion providers.
Richard Del Rio’s Community District 2 will improve our City’s emergency responsiveness and create community partnerships that:
- Improve the infrastructure in lower Manhattan to protect against future flooding and power outages.
- Ensure that our residents are connected with jobs improving their own communities.
- Mobilize communities to lead rebuilding efforts on their own behalf with supports from governmental and non-governmental aid partners.
- Expedite disaster relief and rebuilding assistance.
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