High Hopes for City Council's First Haitian

The telephones at Radyo Pa Nou started ringing as soon as word got out that Mathieu Eugene, a medical doctor born in Haiti, won the District 40 City Council seat in a special election Tuesday, becoming the first Haitian voted onto the council.

The flood of calls to the Haitian radio station, one of several in Brooklyn, was so great that the station organized a special show to broadcast comments celebrating the historic win, a radio host and assistant administrator at the station, Herold Laurent, said.

"They called to say, ‘Now we are happy. We are happy that we have one of our own as City Council member. We know things will get better,'" Mr. Laurent said.

Dr. Eugene will be sworn in at 2 p.m. today in the council chambers at City Hall along with Vincent Ignizio, who is resigning his state Assembly seat today before the ceremony, his campaign manager, Joseph Borelli, said. Mr. Ignizio will represent southern Staten Island as one of three Republicans on the council.

Dr. Eugene said yesterday he has not made any final decisions about who will work for him and does not know where he will set up his district office. Rep. Yvette Clarke endorsed Dr. Eugene in the 10-member race to fill her council seat, which covers parts of Flatbush and Crown Heights, and the council member-elect said he would work closely with her and other state and national elected officials.

He said his first priority as a council member is to promote better access to quality health care.

"I will be supporting and fighting very hard for universal health coverage," he said. "I think it is a basic human right."

Dr. Eugene, 54, is the 14th of 17 children, a brother, Maxi Eugene, said. When the Eugene family began leaving Haiti, it split along gender lines — the women moved to Montreal and the men moved to Brooklyn. After attending medical school in Belgium, Dr. Eugene joined Maxi in New York in 1978, his brother said. Dr. Eugene's wife is a nurse; they have a 17-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter.

Dr. Eugene realized his passion for working with children as the founder and executive director of Youth for Education and Sports, based in Brooklyn. Maxi Eugene said his brother never planned to run for office, but was recruited to represent the community.

Haiti's ambassador to America, Raymond Joseph, who is also a contributing editor of The New York Sun, said the election of Dr. Eugene signals a departure from the past, when infighting plagued Haitian political candidates.

"You should see Haitians getting together more and more," Mr. Joseph, the co-founder and former publisher of Haiti Observateur, a French-and-English language newspaper published in Brooklyn, said. "They will find out when they get together they can have victory."

The executive director of the Erasmus Neighborhood Federation in Brooklyn, Yves Vilus, said he has known Dr. Eugene for more than 15 years and that the two often lamented the lack of Haitian leaders in central Brooklyn. Mr. Vilus said affordable housing and immigration issues are the top challenges that await Dr. Eugene. He said the soon-to-be council member has a difficult road ahead because hopes are so high for what he can do for the district.

"He is going to have a tough time," Mr. Vilus said. "People will expect a lot from him. It is not going to be easy."