Assemblywoman Roxanne Persaud (D–Canarsie) was officially sworn in as the 59th District’s new representation at a ceremony at PS 272 on Jan. 11, filling a seat that had been vacant since the former assemblyman Alan Maisel left the Assembly at the end of 2013 to serve on the Council. We checked in with Persaud, who was the president of the 69th Precinct Community Council and a member of Community Board 18 before running for office, to find out what she hopes to do for the district in Albany.
Vanessa Ogle: What are your top priorities for the district?
Roxanne Persaud: Getting some funding for after school programs, getting a community center, working with the senior centers to enable them to have more access to services. I’m trying to pull together the members of the Bayview and Glenwood tenants associations to talk about the issues that are plaguing them, particularly the violent crimes.
VO: Do you think any of the programs in your district suffered when the seat was vacant?
RP: It did suffer. But for the most part, the elected officials who were in place — especially on the City Council level — they took up the slack for what was not provided by the Assembly. They really went above and beyond and they were really taking care of ensuring that nothing and no one fell through the cracks. So yeah, we should have had an office open, we should have had services offered — in some areas we were worse off than others — but we were really fortunate that the City Council member [Alan Maisel] stepped up and his staff stepped up and took on that burden.
VO: What do you hope to change in your district — short-term and long-term?
RP: Short-term and long-term — the mindset of the people. They have to become actively involved. We have a population of youth that are falling by the wayside. People tend to say there are no programs for them — well, let’s find programs. We have to create programs where these youth, we are forcing these youth to attend so that they become productive members of society. Not just saying, “Oh well. The police will take care of them.” And then we argue that “Oh — the police are too heavy-handed.”
VO: What inspired you to run?
RP: The needs of the community — the needs of the people. It’s just always trying to work within the best efforts of the community, saying, “Okay, how can we bring the people together to advance the community? How can we make our community stronger? How can we continue to make it so that everyone who lives there wants to live there and is proud to say, this is my home?”
VO: Anything else you want to add?
RP: I’m setting up these meetings and focus groups with civic leaders, clergy, the NYPD, and asking them what is it they think that we need to do to come back from what’s happening. I don’t have the perfect answer but I have a list of things that, I think, if we look at them, we’ll find a solution out of one of them.
