{"id":181364,"date":"2021-02-18T08:01:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T05:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/bronx-democrat-mark-gjonaj-wont-seek-re-election\/"},"modified":"2021-02-18T08:01:01","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T05:01:01","slug":"bronx-democrat-mark-gjonaj-wont-seek-re-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bronx-democrat-mark-gjonaj-wont-seek-re-election\/","title":{"rendered":"#Bronx Democrat Mark Gjonaj won’t seek re-election"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Bronx Democrat Mark Gjonaj won’t seek re-election<\/strong>”
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A moderate Bronx Democratic lawmaker announced Wednesday he won\u2019t seek re-election this fall, partly due to the city\u2019s hard-left politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current political climate is not favorable to a centrist ideology that my constituency, community and I embrace,\u201d Councilman Mark Gjonaj, the first Albanian-American elected to the City Council, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Gjonaj championed providing aid to struggling city merchants during the coronavirus pandemic as chairman of the small business committee. <\/p>\n

He fought to impose caps on what delivery app<\/a>s Grubhub and Uber Eats could charge restaurants for food deliveries. <\/p>\n

He represents the Bronx\u2019s more conservative, homeowner neighborhoods in the 13th District including City Island, Morris Park, Pelham Bay and Throggs Neck.<\/p>\n

But politics have swung left in the Bronx. His district overlaps with that of Democratic Social<\/a>ist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.<\/p>\n

And he faces another primary challenge from Marjorie Velazquez, a Democratic district leader he defeated by just a few hundred votes in 2017. The district has a growing Latino population and Velazquez has racked up key endorsements. <\/p>\n

Gjonaj found himself out of step with the leftward shift in the Council.<\/p>\n

He voted against the city budget last year to protest cuts to the police department\u2019s budget amid the George Floyd protests.<\/p>\n

Gjonaj is not without baggage.<\/p>\n

The Post reported that the Bronx District Attorney\u2019s office was probing whether Gjonaj was misusing campaign funds for his personal benefit \u2014 by commingling money between his campaign and a non-profit group serving Albanian-Americans that he was closely affiliated with. Nothing has come of it.<\/p>\n

Another Post report found the Conflict of Interest Board was looking into whether Gjonaj steered government contracts to campaign donors. No charges or discipline were filed.<\/p>\n

Gjonaj, a real estate broker who previously served in the state Assembly, complained he was a victim of anti-Albanian smears.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a proud Albanian-American and son of immigrant parents, I am not a stranger to being the subject of ethnic stereotypes and tropes,\u201d the councilman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a minority ethnicity that has been subjected to ethnic cleansing, communist tyranny, foreign influence and occupation, and continued discrimination and prejudice. I have been genuinely surprised at the pervasiveness in which ethnic smears have been used as tools in an attempt to damage both myself and my community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gjonaj continued, \u201cInstead of genuine debates on ideas and public policy, all too often public discourse has devolved into the `politics of personal destruction.\u2019 I will not allow myself to be used as a weapon to divide the district or be used to tarnish a community or ethnicity.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic service should never be about identity politics which divides us and pits one against another to determine a winner and loser. At its best, good public service and policy takes the harder path of finding common ground solutions that elevates us together as one united New York community.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Bronx Democrat Mark Gjonaj won’t seek re-election” A moderate Bronx Democratic lawmaker announced Wednesday he won\u2019t seek re-election this fall, partly due to the city\u2019s hard-left politics. \u201cThe current political climate is not favorable to a centrist ideology that my constituency, community and I embrace,\u201d Councilman Mark Gjonaj, the first Albanian-American elected to the City…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/02\/9BC4AD5B-067D-4F0A-BF98-11CB58D555D9.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[93894,4997,30242],"class_list":["post-181364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2-18-21","tag-alexandria-ocasio-cortez","tag-city-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}