We watched BP Antonio Reynoso’s ‘State of the Borough’ speech so you didn’t have to

By Nick Youssef

New York City comprises of five unique, beautiful boroughs, which are listed below in order of awesomeness:

1. Brooklyn
2. The Other Ones

Some may see this as “magazine bias.” I call it “a fact.”

Here’s another fact: Each New York City borough has its own president, a job that is a combination of chief executive officer and chief cheerleader. Borough presidents are responsible for distributing portions of the city budget, helping to determine use of land and appointing community board members. But apart from that, it can be seen as largely a ceremonial job — albeit a handy launch pad: The last Brooklyn borough president, after all, is the current New York City mayor.

Brooklyn born and bred, current Borough President Antonio Reynoso resides in Williamsburg with his wife and two kids. At 38, he is the youngest BP ever elected, as well as the first Latino and the first Dominican. On Tuesday night, this energetic and charismatic local pol gave Brooklyn its first “State of the Borough” speech in over a decade. The event was held at The New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn.

We watched it so you didn’t have to. Here are some highlights and takeaways.

First things first, Reynoso is telegenic. He’s young, handsome and was wearing a sharp dark suit when he stepped on stage to the strains of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy,” and declared “Brooklyn is in the house tonight!”

He joked about Mayor Eric Adams having taken all of Brooklyn Borough Hall’s staff into “a borough that will go nameless,” then gave him a shoutout and thanks him for being in attendance. Also in attendance was Sen. Chuck Schumer, who introduced Reynoso.

In classic politician form, Reynoso trudged through an exhaustive list of professional thanks that read like a who’s-who of local wonks. His final thank you was saved for his college advisor, Mr. Thomas, who told him: ”People like you and me, poor people, kids from the block, we don’t get the luxury of not having a plan. If you don’t want to end up in the same place you started, then you have to go out and start planning now.”

The main thrust of his speech and indeed the central promise of his campaign was the goal of reversing the maternal mortality rate in Brooklyn.

“One in every three pregnancy related deaths in our city happen here in our borough. Black women are dying at 9.4 times the rate of their white counterparts because of pregnancy related complications,” he said.

Toward that end, Reynoso vowed to make Brooklyn the safest place to have a baby in this city by the time his first four years are up.

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep so I allocated the entirety of my fiscal year ’23 funding to our borough’s three public hospitals: $45 million for maternal health care.”

(I’m no fiscal year budget expert, but that feels like that tense scene in a movie where the protagonist bets it all and pushes a mountain of money and chips into the center of the blackjack table. But I also don’t know anything about blackjack, so maybe this is the exact right move!)

“Allocating an entire fiscal year funds to one cause has never been done before, but anyone that knows me knows I don’t like to do 100 things halfway,” he said. “I want to do four or five things all the way.”

Which won’t come without costs.

“I called organizations that normally receive money from the BP office; schools, cultural institutions and said I know you were hoping for some funding,” Reynoso continued. “I know you need it, but I can’t give it this year because Black and brown women, Caribbean women, poor women… they’re dying. I have to put this money towards changing that. Every single organization, every person said go. Because that’s what Brooklynites do. We back each other. We see the common good.”

To get there, Reynoso assembled a task force made up of “brilliant Black women working across all fields to improve maternal health.”

The rest of Reynoso’s to-do list is an ambitious one, including closing Rikers Island, standing with nurses unions and Amazon workers against injustices, fighting for clean air, expanding Summer Streets, implementing a more sustainable method of trash disposal.

“We’ll continue to think boldly, reject incrementalism and never stop pushing the envelope,” he said.

Reynoso’s stage presence and passion for his work made his ambitious goals for the borough and its 2.6 million residents sound like a small town mayor announcing the addition of a third stop sign.

He turned to discuss the future.

“The key to comprehensive planning is to have a clear objective and our focus is to set squarely on the intersection of housing and public health,” he said. “Decades of racist city planning and a long legacy of segregation, our communities of color are clustered in areas with the poorest housing conditions and the least access to resources.”

The plan is to build more affordable housing across the borough, not just neighborhoods like Bushwick and Williamsburg that are already experiencing growth.

“This plan is about sharing the love,” he said. Which is really as much as he can do in that department anyway.

Reynoso emphasized community input. His office established an advisory committee made up of around 25 non-profit government and academic institutions from across the borough, many of which are forced to spend untold hours and dollars just to make sure they have a base of operations to get their work done.

His solution: “I’m committing a portion of my capital budget to assist Brooklyn nonprofits in purchasing permanent spaces so they can spend less time negotiating with landlords and more time serving our communities.”

One of the more exciting ideas comes here near the end where Reynoso offers solutions for Brooklynites and the barriers to launching a business.

“Often to do so they need to leave their local neighborhoods depriving them of economic development and services,” he said. “We need to do more to ensure our local talent is being nurtured.”

He is working on an initiative with the Central Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation and Jobs First to incubate a group of Black owned businesses and provide them with free space in under-utilized corridors in Brownsville where unemployment is currently at 11 percent.

Reynoso appeared to offer a lot of answers to problems plaguing the borough. But how does the borough hold him and his office accountable? Well, he had an answer for that too.

“This isn’t about me. It’s all about you. I’m going to be pushing for serious changes to our community boards. We need boards that are truly representative who are working on behalf of local residents,” he said, before concluding with one of his favorite lines: “We’re going to take back this borough and show everyone what the people of Brooklyn can do and we’re going to do it all while spreading love. That’s the Brooklyn way.”