In the race to replace Francisco Moya, everyone has a candidate

The race to succeed term-limited New York City Council Member Francisco Moya in Queens is beginning to take shape. Four Democratic candidates have officially filed to run for the seat so far. At least three are currently in Puerto Rico for this year’s Somos conference – and two are already backed by prominent lawmakers in the borough. 

State Sen. Jessica Ramos’ district director Sandro Stefano Navarro is running. As is Erycka Montoya, who works in intergovernmental affairs with the City Council speaker’s office, and has the support of progressive Assembly Members Catalina Cruz and Jessica González-Rojas. Also running is embattled former lawmaker and Moya rival Hiram Monserrate, who has been trying to mount a comeback since he pleaded guilty to corruption charges related to his previous tenure in the City Council. Nonprofit worker and district leader Yanna Henriquez rounds out the group of candidates with open campaign accounts. All hope to be the next person to represent Council District 21, which encompasses East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, LeFrak City and Corona.

It’s unclear who Moya will end up backing for the seat. Asked by City & State Friday, he said “everyone who is running now, I will not be supporting.” Instead, he explained, he’ll endorse someone who has yet to enter the race. “That candidate will win,” Moya said, declining to specify who that person is. Several Queens operatives guessed that person might be Henriquez – chief program officer at Dominico-American Society of Queens. While she’s yet to formally launch a campaign, Henriquez recently opened an account with the campaign finance board. Like Moya, she’s a district leader for the Queens County Democratic Party and the two have known each other for years. Henriquez did not respond to a request for comment. 

Navarro, who currently lives in Jackson Heights, is an Army National Guard veteran who moved to New York from Peru as a teenager. Before he became Ramos’ district director, he worked for several years in the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Navarro credited his time in Ramos’ office and under the de Blasio administration for imbuing him with the ability to support the district’s heavily immigrant community – especially in wake of former President Donald Trump’s election. As Ramos’ district director, he helped around 600 constituents access the Excluded Workers Fund, which provided unemployment benefits for workers who’ve historically been excluded from labor protections. With the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, he helped the city implement Covid-19 vaccination plans in the district. 

“I am very invested in my community and I think this is a great opportunity for me to tap into some of the resources that have been neglected to them,” Navarro told City & State of his decision to run. He described himself as a progressive. “That’s my politics – to be of service to the people that need the most resources at this moment,” he said. 

Also in the running – and also at Somos – is Monserrate. This is far from the first time he has looked to mount a political comeback after he was booted from the state Senate in 2010 when he was charged with assault. (Later, he’d separately pled guilty to felony mail fraud charges.) While Monserrate most recently lost this summer in the Democratic primary for the 35th state Assembly district, he told City & State that he feels good about his chances. “The Council district compared to the Assembly district is apples and oranges in neighborhoods and makeup and landscape,” Monserrate said. 

It’s his old seat  – he’d represented the district in the City Council from 2002 to 2008. And despite his recent string of losses, Monserrate, who currently lives in East Elmhurst, has remained entrenched in city politics. He was elected as a district leader in 2018, holding the seat in the years since, and has been heavily involved in an ongoing campaign to fight crime on the Roosevelt Avenue Corridor. “I want to bring us back to a place where we have a safe community that everyone can enjoy. That’s kind of my main focus,” Monserrate said. 

Montoya, associate deputy director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the City Council speaker’s office, was born and raised in Corona by a single mother who migrated to the city from Colombia. While she too only recently launched her campaign, Montoya seems likely to mount a competitive race. Cruz and González-Rojas joined her kickoff event in early October and both have donated to her campaign.  With about $11,000 in the bank, Montoya has raised the most so far, according to recent campaign finance filings. (Monserrate has raised nearly $8,000. Sandro and Henriquez are just getting started.) 

“We are seeing now the ramifications of decades of disinvestment in our community – a community that was already struggling but then devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Montoya said. “We have long been ignored, long been overlooked, long been stolen from and underrepresented. That ends with me.”