Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large

Saying, “Brooklyn has two tiers. You have the Haves and the Have-Nots,” career community advocate Khari Edwards told Our Time Press that he is asking folks to vote for him to be the next Brooklyn Borough President. “You have to make sure that the Have-Nots have someone representing them enough to give equal standing, and equal money, and give them an opportunity to improve their schools and healthcare.”
Current BP Antonio Reynoso is vying to keep his incumbent position in the June 24th primary election.

Edwards says that he is the most authentic possibility.
“I am a husband, a father of three, a child of Caribbean immigrants. My dad is from Guyana, my mom is from Trinidad. I have lived in this borough for half a century plus one, I have served 27 years in public service, working in government service and not-for-profits, and 8 years at Brookdale Hospital.”

He ran against BP Reynoso back in 2021, but he thinks he can do better this time than fifth place out of 12 in ranked-choice voting.
Edwards said he is running now “because the borough is missing equity, inclusion, and engagement. It’s time for someone who has been in the streets and has done the work. We’ve worked in health care, to save people’s homes, and in food pantries. These are the things that have affected people every day.”

Edwards heads corporate responsibility at Ayr Wellness, a cannabis dispensary firm. Previously, he worked as Brookdale Hospital’s vice president of external affairs, spearheading initiatives that “enhanced access to healthcare for over 1.3 million residents.”
He said that as BP, he would give $500K annually to safety-net Brooklyn hospitals to “build up their infrastructure to give healthcare access to our communities, especially our seniors and our children.”

Edwards said he would expand his ‘Something to Do’ plan, which would keep schools open after hours and partner with nonprofits for skill-building activities to “Give them opportunities to be engineers, to learn how to do banking, something that will create a place of hope for them.”

He said he would “create safety zones and cease fire districts throughout the borough,” as his “It Starts Here” program, “connects students with victims of gun violence and has mobilized hundreds of union members, healthcare professionals, and community leaders to tackle disparities in East Brooklyn.”

Edwards said the Brooklyn BP has “$45 million annually to influence capital projects. That means hospitals, schools, parks, churches, and infrastructure, where we are supposed to build up the community.”

Edward’s plan for police and community issues?
“The Borough President can introduce legislation in partnership with City Councilmembers,” he surmised. “They also have a bully pulpit [to promote] their advocacy. They are supposed to have a relationship with City Hall, to talk about the needs of the borough. So, if we have an issue over policing in certain communities, the Borough President can say, ‘Enough is enough. The community needs more resources.’ You’re truly an advocate, and you have a substantial budget to truly impact things.”

Targeting food insecurity
Edwards told Our Time Press, “We only have 152 registered food pantries. I want to triple that. We have 250,000 people who go to bed hungry every night. Some of these food pantries don’t have refrigerators, and some of them don’t get fresh food. How do you bridge that gap? That’s what a Borough President should do…be there for the entire borough.”

A native-born Brooklyn ombudsman
“I started my career answering a call from a lady whose lights were cut off,” Edward recalled. “I answered that call, and I intend to answer that call for everyone who calls our office. We expect to be obsessed with constituent services. I am ready to do this and represent our people, specifically our Caribbean diaspora as well, because there are a lot of our folks who are being left behind. No one’s really talking about this ICE thing. No one is talking about representation and protection.”

On the campaign trail, he said he hears things like, “We hate Democrats. You guys aren’t doing anything. I’m not coming out to vote because nothing changes. You get elected, and we don’t see you for three years. One lady spoke to me for 45 minutes about the fact that nobody has ever shown up at her door, and she said, ‘I’m not voting.’ I just listened to her complaints. We made some phone calls. It took me 46 minutes to finally get her to agree to vote.”

Edwards said that many seniors just feel forgotten and neglected. “We did a press conference in front of my mom’s house – my mom was murdered in July 2022, and I said, if she didn’t die, she would have lost her house – either to property tax, tax liens, or deed theft. We have not put safeguards in place, specifically for seniors. They either sign or they don’t get to read their mail; they need support. The Attorney General [Letitia James] and New York City have a housing and homeowners hotline that nobody talks about.

The tax liens–you get a water bill– some people pay the estimate, and not the actual bill, and so the bill rises and rises, and you are sitting in a house that is worth maybe a million dollars, and somebody buys your tax lien for $10,000, and you lose your home. We have to do a better job of communicating with our community.”

There are 18 community boards, and Edwards said he “intends to be at these community boards during constituent hours so that seniors don’t have to jump on Access-A-Ride and come all the way to Borough Hall. We will have a housing expert, an immigration expert, and folks to help navigate the bigger issues for folks.”

Creating a “space of comfort and information so they are not getting bamboozled,” Edwards told Our Time Press, that “seniors need personal interaction. We have gotten so busy with our lives that we have forgotten the people who raised us.”

His mom, Elenora Bernard, 77, a career public servant, was murdered in her home in Flatbush in July 2022 by a man she had once assisted. Edwards said, “I have a guilt that if I had just visited her more…that is something personal to me.”

He noted, “I am the person I am today because she loved me fiercely and believed that service through leadership wasn’t optional — it was necessary to improve the lives of others.”
Early voting begins on June 14th.

“I am feeling really good. My only fear is that we as a community do not come out and vote. City politics is so much different than federal politics. Every vote counts. I could beat this guy by one vote if that one person shows up. People really have to understand how important their power is. You can make a choice in the landscape that you see.”