Brooklyn Community Leaders Call for New York City Democratic Socialist Chairman Ouster

The front door of the ultramodern rowhouse belonging to local Democratic Socialists of America co-chair Gustavo Gordillo still showed the residue of a recent stop-work order Tuesday when local community organizers covered it with their own letter calling for him to resign.Mr. Gordillo, 38, has held himself out publicly as a “union electrician” and the son of immigrants who “had nothing” when they arrived in the U.S. He was hailed as an “American success story” by The New York Times this summer before his privileged upbringing as the son of a multimillionaire telecoms entrepreneur who was booted from the electrician’s union for failing to show up to his internship came to light. For local activist Reverend Kevin McCall and tenant advocates assembled outside Mr. Gordillo’s home Tuesday, his townhouse in Brooklyn’s rapidly gentrifying Bed-Stuy neighborhood is symbolic of the disrespect for the leader of the party that claims to be “building working class power” has shown for those less privileged than himself.“ He didn’t listen to the residents of this community board when they didn’t want this to begin with,” Rev. McCall said, referring to ongoing renovations at the property, which is located in a historic preservation district. Bed-Stuy became a hub of black homeownership after World War II, an outlier of minority middle-class ascendency amid pervasive policies, such as redlining, aimed at preventing black Americans from buying homes in desirable areas. Mr. Gordillo’s home, purchased through a holding company registered to his parents for just under $1 million in 2019, has undergone extensive renovations since work started in 2023, after facing initial pushback from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, where one commissioner said the plans for the remodel would change the more than century-old structure into a “Hampton’s beach house,” according to The New York Post. Though the work is ongoing, those plans have now materialized, from the “millennial gray” siding and black window frames to the beach grass waving from a bed on the roof.But while the remodel was underway, Mr. Gordillo portrayed himself as a renter, showing the Times reporter who profiled him mail he received at a Crown Heights address.“Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with a person of means advocating for working-class New Yorkers, tenants, union members, or communities of color,” Rev. McCall wrote in the letter he affixed to Mr. Gordillo’s door, which was co-signed by three other church leaders and two NYCHA tenant groups. “What is unacceptable is to build political credibility to gain influence in communities of color by presenting oneself as something one is not.”Along with calling for Mr. Gordillo to resign, the letter also demands that the party address the scandal, outline steps “to ensure that its leaders accurately represent” their circumstances “when those matters bear on their public advocacy” and commit to transparency.Rev. McCall told The New York Sun that, to him, DSA stands for Double Standards of America. Activist and former DSA member Ramona Ferreyra, joined Rev. McCall in calling for Mr. Gordillo’s resignation. Ms. Ferreyra is the founder of Save Section 9, which organizes tenants to fight for better public housing. She told reporters that she joined the DSA during Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign, but resigned her membership after New York State Senator Julia Salazar, another Democratic Socialist, introduced legislation to create the New York City Public Housing Preservation Trust, which replaces Section 9 public housing with Section 8 rent vouchers. “ I thought that it was the right place for me to find folks that had my values and that shared my concerns for public education, public healthcare, and public housing, where my family has been for 35 years,” Ms. Ferreyra said. To her, Mr. Gordillo’s debacle is symptomatic of a more pervasive problem in the New York DSA. “ You cannot study your way into the movement and power for the people,” she said. “You can’t simply go to an Ivy League school and read The Little Red Book and turn around and think that you can deliver then policies that truly serve working class people.”

Brooklyn Community Leaders Call for New York City Democratic Socialist Chairman Ouster

Brooklyn Community Leaders Call for New York City Democratic Socialist Chairman Ouster

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