Deputy Director of NYC Census Effort Launches Metropolis Council Marketing campaign in Queens

Amit Bagga (photograph: Elizabeth Olguin)

After having helped lead a profitable New York Metropolis 2020 Census outreach marketing campaign confronted with daunting and unprecedented challenges, Amit Singh Bagga is popping his eye towards the Metropolis Council.

Bagga, the deputy director of the New York Metropolis Census workplace, introduced on Saturday that he’ll run for Metropolis Council in District 26 in Queens, at the moment represented by term-limited Demoratic Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer.

As with many “open” seats within the 2021 election, District 26, which covers Sunnyside, Woodside, Lengthy Island Metropolis, Astoria, and Dutch Kills, has attracted a crowded area of candidates, with 16 folks having already jumped into the race. Like most others within the metropolis, the race is all however sure to be determined within the Democratic major, which is able to happen in June and have ranked-choice voting, which begins within the metropolis in 2021 for particular and social gathering major elections.

Bagga believes his file of public service eclipses the remainder of the sphere. “I’m the one candidate on this extremely crowded area that has an actual file of understanding the way to take large difficult concepts and…push and pull each single lever of presidency to show them into actuality to elevate the ground for working folks,” he mentioned in a telephone interview previous to his Saturday kickoff occasion, occurring at Lt. Cpl. Noonan Park in Sunnyside.

In his most up-to-date function as second-in-command of the town’s Census program, underneath Director Julie Menin, Bagga helped coordinate a significant $40 million effort to make sure that New Yorkers had been precisely counted within the decennial Census. The marketing campaign carried out nicely, regardless of being hampered by the coronavirus pandemic and several other efforts made by the Trump administration to undermine the depend.

“I am operating for Metropolis Council as a result of I primarily imagine that New York Metropolis as soon as once more must be a spot of alternative so that each one New Yorkers can stay with dignity, whereas constructing energy collectively,” Bagga mentioned.

[Read: New York City Overcomes Obstacles to Outperform 2020 Census Projections]

Previous to engaged on the Census, Bagga served as a deputy commissioner on the Division of Social Companies for one 12 months and on the Division of Shopper and Employee Safety for 3 years. He was a undertaking director within the mayor’s Workplace of Appointments and a area director for Mayor de Blasio’s first mayoral marketing campaign, a task he took on after initially working for former U.S. Rep Anthony Weiner’s mayoral marketing campaign. Bagga was a congressional aide for almost 4 years in Weiner’s workplace.

Bagga additionally led the town’s crew that negotiated with the U.S. Division of Treasury to permit IDNYC, the town’s municipal identification, for use for organising financial institution accounts. He labored to assist move profitable laws together with new freelancer and fast-food employee protections (which he additionally helped write, he mentioned) which were authorised in recent times.

Because the youngster of South Asian immigrants who individually constructed profitable lives in New York Metropolis, Bagga mentioned he’s dismayed by the unequal progress and the declining financial stability and alternative that the town now affords, regardless of the very best efforts of successive administrations. “Even earlier than COVID, I believe that chance was falling out of attain for much too many New Yorkers,” he mentioned. “And much too many New Yorkers, I believe, have additionally for too lengthy, actually been affected by the ills of systemic and structural racism, and xenophobia.”

The inequity that Bagga spoke of has by no means been extra obvious than within the wake of the pandemic. Low-income communities in Queens, with massive immigrant populations, had been among the many hardest hit by the virus and the prevailing disparities in entry to well being care, meals, housing, and employment have solely been additional exacerbated. District 26 borders the dense and overcrowded neighborhood of Corona, which was the epicenter of the virus within the borough. “What we noticed is that the very difficult financial circumstances that individuals had been simply surviving in, ended up having a really direct influence on their skill to truly struggle and stay via this horrible illness,” Bagga mentioned.

“These are communities that for very lengthy in New York Metropolis have been shut out of the decision-making equipment,” Bagga mentioned. Although he did reward the de Blasio administration for lifting the ground for working New Yorkers and immigrants, he mentioned, “It is not sufficient.”

If elected, Bagga could be the primary queer South Asian member of the Metropolis Council. He mentioned it’s an “absolute tragedy and a disgrace” that regardless of there being greater than 300,000 South Asians within the metropolis, no member of the group has been elected to characterize the town in any workplace within the state till this 12 months. That “lived expertise,” he mentioned, is invaluable and sorely missing in authorities.

“Folks, each single day, significantly folks of shade, significantly queer folks, stay in margins always and are always having to struggle these battles,” he mentioned, “and somebody who understands what combating these battles efficiently, what that actually means, I believe having an individual like that or folks like that in elected workplace is basically important to having a authorities that features nicely and actually serves the wants of individuals.”

Amongst his prime priorities, he mentioned, is addressing the a number of crises affecting the various undocumented immigrants that stay within the district, who can’t entry public advantages and have been largely ignored through the pandemic, and the working poor, like taxi drivers and gig employees, who make simply sufficient to not qualify for public help however are teetering on the sting of monetary instability.

Bagga cited former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to create funds for public well being and public schooling for example of the kind of coverage for which he would advocate. “We have to do the identical for our employees, our small enterprise house owners and immigrants,” he mentioned, proposing a fund that, with simply 0.1% of the town price range or between $80-85 million, might be used to assist taxi drivers cope with debt, present authorized and assist providers to undocumented immigrants, and assist nonprofit group organizations broaden their employees and providers.

“We’re coming into a really, very difficult section of our historical past right here in New York Metropolis…and we’d like management that does not simply have good concepts, and would not know simply the way to have a superb press convention, however truly is aware of the way to work with each single stakeholder to get the job finished,” Bagga mentioned. “And I’ve some opponents who’re very good folks, who’re very well-intentioned folks, however none of them have that historical past.”

Be aware – this text has been up to date to notice that Bagga proposed a fund value 0.1% of the town price range, not 1%.