The Brooklyn borough president wants to move the next Democratic debate to a neighborhood ‘in crisis’

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders speak simultaneously during a debate in Flint, Mich. (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters)

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is not satisfied with the setup for the Democratic presidential primary debate that is scheduled to take place on his home turf on April 14. Adams wants the debate moved from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to a recreational center in the borough’s troubled Brownsville neighborhood.

Adams is a Democrat, and he is one of the highest ranking New York City elected officials who has not made an endorsement in the party’s primary. In a conversation with Yahoo News late Monday evening, shortly after the debate was announced, Adams said he believes the debate should take place in Brownsville because it is one of “the last areas where gentrification has not settled in.”

“It’s surrounded by a community that’s really in crisis,” Adams said of the neighborhood.

Brownsville has one of the highest murder rates in New York City, and it ranks as one of the poorest neighborhoods in Brooklyn. According to the most recent census data, just 1 percent of Brownsville’s residents are white, over three-quarters of the neighborhood’s population is African American, and about 20 percent is Hispanic. In contrast, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is in the midst of a massive expansion, with hundreds of businesses opening in the area in recent years, including a coffee-roasting company, film studio, and multiple artists’ spaces. Census data shows nearly half of the residents in the neighborhood where the Navy Yard is located are white and the white population there climbed over 35 percent in the decade between 2000 and 2010.

“I think the Navy Yard is a success story that is at the top of its game,” Adams said. “We need to go create more success stories, and no place in New York personifies the need to start a success story more than Brownsville.”

Adams told Yahoo News he planned to contact the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) about his call for a venue change on Tuesday morning. The debate will be aired on CNN and the local news channel NY1. An official for one of the campaigns told Yahoo News that CNN chose the debate venue.

Spokespeople for CNN and the Sanders campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News about Adams’ proposal. Harrell Kirstein, the Clinton campaign’s New York communications director sent a statement on Tuesday emphasizing her travel throughout the state.

“We are excited to be debating in Brooklyn on April 14, but that is far from the only campaigning Hillary Clinton is doing there. During the course of this campaign, Hillary is visiting all different parts of the city and state, including holding an event today at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood,“ Kirstein said.

New York’s primary is scheduled to take place five days after the debate on April 19. The details of the debate were announced Monday evening after extensive negotiations between the two campaigns about where and when to hold the event.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in front of New York City Hall. (Photo: Andy Katz/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Adams compared the prospect of a presidential debate in Brownsville to President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 visit to the Bronx. He said it could have a dramatic impact on the neighborhood by raising awareness of its problems.

“All that we’re doing to attempt to turn around Brownsville, this would give it a great shot in the arm. It’s almost like what Carter did years ago when he walked in the South Bronx and saw the devastation,” said Adams. “We can’t continue to just drive by these communities in our motorcades. We have to pull over, roll down our windows, get out, and see and speak directly to the people. Trust me when I tell you this, at the Navy Yard, you’re not going to have any Brownsville residents.”

Adams said a debate could highlight how people in Brownsville have not “benefitted from government.” He pointed to the fact that New York’s bike share program does not extend to the neighborhood as one example of how it does not enjoy the same resources that are given to more prosperous areas.

“Brownsville deserves the city services. It deserves the quality of life that the gentrified communities are now receiving because they were gentrified,” Adams said, adding, “You don’t see Citi Bike in Brownsville. … All of the nice things that are the signatures of gentrification, you don’t see in Brownsville, and you darn sure don’t see presidential debates in Brownsville.”

Adams said he isn’t concerned about whether the venue he proposed, the Brownsville Recreation Center, is ideally suited for the debate organizers’ needs.

“We don’t want a pristine beautiful location. We don’t want Carnegie Hall. We don’t want some luxurious place. … It’s time for us to leave our comfort zones,” Adams said. “I think that if while they’re there they hear police sirens going by, if while they’re there they hear some tragedy, this is the real America. The real America is not some sterilized environment. It’s the dirty reality that people are being left behind, and they’re giving up on government.”

Adams plans to hold an alternate event and straw poll at the recreation center on April 14 whether or not the candidates participate.

“If they don’t change the location, I am not going to the debate in the Navy Yard. I am going to go to the debate in the projects and sit in the community center with residents from the housing development, and we’re going to do our own straw poll and a discussion after the debate,” Adams explained. “We’re going to do those things that are done in other affluent communities to let Brownsville residents know they too can do a straw poll. Their votes matter.”

Along with trying to move the debate to Brownsville, Adams said he would happily take any willing candidate, Democrat or Republican, on a walking tour of the neighborhood.

“I will go through Brownsville with whoever is running for office,” said Adams. “The only skin I have in this game is representing Brooklyn. And that’s important. Everyone has said on this campaign trail … ‘Black Lives Matter,’ but look, I’m going to tell them something else: Black votes matter as well.”

This story was updated at 4:44 p.m. with the statement from the Clinton campaign.