NY Times Spotlights NY State Assembly Candidate Gus Christensen In Roosevelt Island Affordable Housing Article Today - RIRA Hosting 76 Assembly District Candidate's Forum June 25 With Hartzog, Menegon, Seawright & Christensen - Update 6/24, The Candidate Forum Has Been Postponed To A Later Date

Affordable housing was the subject of a NY Times article today headlined:

Affordable Island in the Sun
Roosevelt Island Maintains Its Mix

The Big City column focused its first two paragraphs of a Roosevelt Island affordable housing story on one of the NY State Democratic Party 76th Assembly District candidates - Gus Christensen. According to the NY Times:

Gus Christensen was, until six months ago, a managing director at Evercore Partners, the boutique investment bank, a position preceded by stints at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and an education at Wharton. Some years ago, befitting that profile, he was a Republican; but eventually the religion of the free market lost its hold on him, so much so that his politics migrated aggressively to the left. Last week he posted on Twitter a link to a tabloid piece about a billionaire who was buying a $70 million pied-à-terre for his children at 740 Park Avenue, with the hashtag #Signoftheapocalypse.

Mr. Christensen is running for the State Assembly in the 76th District, which runs east of Third Avenue on the Upper East Side and includes Roosevelt Island, a community that might be seen as a template for the kind of equitable and more economically integrated city that he and other progressives, fearing the eclipse of all but the wealthiest faction of the plutocratic class, want to see achieved....

The article continues here to discuss Roosevelt Island affordable housing.

The Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) will be hosting a meet the 76 Assembly District Democratic candidates. According to RIRA:

There will be a Town Meeting on Wednesday, June 25 at the Good Shepherd Community Center (543 Main St.) with RIRA hosting the four 76th Assembly District candidates at a Q&A. The event will begin at 8pm and end by 10pm.

We encourage members of the community to attend this event to find out who they’re choices will be in the September Democratic primary and in the November election for our Assembly representative, replacing Micah Kellner.

Jeff Escobar
President, RIRA

Sherie Helstien
Vice President, RIRA

Sharon Pope
Chair, Government Relations Committee of RIRA

Here's more information on the candidates:

• Gus Christensen
• Ed Hartzog
• David Menegon and
• Rebecca Seawright

as well as this previous post.

David Garland is the only announced Republican candidate for the Roosevelt Island/Upper East Side 76th NY State Assembly seat.

UPDATE 6/24 - The Assembly Candidate Forum has been postponed to a later date.

UPDATE 6/25 - RIRA's Sherrie Helstien reports that the Assembly Candidate's Forum has been rescheduled to Tuesday August 5.