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Julia Harrison: Marching to A Different Drummer

The biggest public works project in the City in decades — a billion dollar proposed elevated train from JFK Airport to downtown Jamaica — was coming in to its moment of truth. The proposal had been working its way through the City’s complex land use review process for months and, finally on June 7 the fate of ‘AirTrain’ came before the final stop on its way either to be on track or be derailed forever. When the time came for the City Council to cast its vote, only one of the 14 council members from Queens rose to cast her vote against the controversial project. In the entire 51 member body, she was joined by only two other councilmembers in voting against AirTrain, and they were from Brooklyn. Who is this grandmother politician who bucked the power elite of high spending lobbyists, the mighty Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, her colleagues and the speaker of the Council? Julia Harrison, who has represented Flushing’s 20th District since 1986 was that lone voice last Monday, but this is a lady who is no strangeer to the role of a maverick public official. ‘It’s strange but over the years I have always seemed to be about five years ahead on the various issues I have dealt with,’ Harrison told The Queens Courier this week as she sat in the empty Council chamber at City Hall, reflecting on last week’s AirTrain vote.
‘It was very odd in this chamber on the day we voted,’ Harrison recalls. Normally the place is abuzz with people conferring on legislation and other matters. But on this day there was an eerie quiet to the room. It was like you could sense that all those members who were about to vote in favor of this ill-conceived, ridiculous boondoggle were deep-down unhappy with what they were doing.’ Harrison noted how just about every councilmember would begin their remarks on their vote on the project by saying ‘this project is flawed,’ ‘this is a bad plan,’ ‘there are problems with it,’ or ‘it’s not a great plan. It began with Council Speaker Peter Vallone who said ‘While it’s clear that this project is not perfect, modern and improved access to our airports is vital to our city. Therefore, the AirTrain should proceed. We cannot allow New York City’s airports to fall any further behind other cities as we enter the new millennium.’ Karen Koslowtiz of Forest Hills said ‘Maybe it’s not the best thing. However we have to move ahead. It’s time to move on.’ Harrison said she was puzzled how her colleagues could see the flaws in this plan, yet go ahead anyway. ‘
So what if we have waited 30 years for this train. If it won’t get the real job done, what good is it?’, she said. The ‘real job”she — and the critics of the project mean is a one-seat ride from the airport to Manhattan. The Councils own committee report ripped apart the plan, questioning how few people would actually use the train and what the el on the Van Wyck Expwy. will do to traffic and neighborhood conditions. They even labeled the report Train to the Plane or Money Down the Drain. Harrison said she doubted most of the councilmembers even bothered to read the report. One of the other two councilman who voted no was Herbert Berman, who chaired the committee that wrote the blistering report. What some observers suggest is that many of the councilmembers did hear the pressure from the unions who saw plenty of jobs from the AirTrain project and a whole series of Port Authority goodies being doled out to the communities along the AirTrains route. Another thing Harrison was puzzled by, Other councilmembers would justify spending the money on this by saying well, it’s not the city’s money paying for it. Well, its the money collected from every traveller at JFK and ther’s no justification to just throwing it away, Harrison said. Harrison has been backed by the Democratic Party of Queens but she regularly speaks her mind and marches to a different drummer. She spent thirty years as a volunteer civic and community worker in the Greater Flushing area.
Her activities were wide-ranging, encompassing the trade union movement, parent associations in primary and high schools, housing cooperative leadership positions, and membership on community advisory boards of local hospitals and other health related organizations. A pioneer in the women’s movement in Queens County, Harrison was elected to represent the 26th Assembly District as its first woman member to the New York State Assembly in May 1983. She again set precedent by becoming the first New York City Councilwoman from the Borough of Queens when she assumed that office in January of 1986. Her District 20 encompasses most of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Flushing. Harrison is a proven vote getter, consistently winning primary and general re-election campaigns by impressively high votes. Harrison conducted ground-breaking hearings in the City Council as Chair of the Health Sub-Committee on Medical Alternatives, when she explored the use of Acupuncture as the treatment of choice in treating crack addiction, AIDS, and other health-threatening ailments. As a result of those hearings and her active advocacy of this treatment, Queens General Hospital opened the first acupuncture drug detoxification clinic in the Borough of Queens.
This clinic subsequently cooperated with the first Drug court in New York, which used the clinic as an alternative to incarceration. Other legislation Harrison has introduced include bills to install condom dispensing machines in all public sleeping facilities, and license prostitution, each bill with a focus on preventing the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. As Chair of the Councils Committee on Aging, she has successfully led the campaign to provide partial tax abatement to elderly qualifying homeowners and to exempt from rent increases seniors over age 62 who qualify. A few years back Harrison set off a Citywide controversy when she was quoted in the New York Times about the growing Asian population in Flushing. Local politicians led by Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin launched a campaign to repudiate her remarks which many felt were anti-Asian. Harrison said her remarks were taken out of context. She not only weathered that controversy but won re-election in a landslide with the support of Brian McLaughlin  and she works closely with Asian groups in her district. Harrison’s early advocacy of acupuncture initially brought ridicule and the nickname "the needle lady." But now that acupuncture is fully recognized as a mainstream, and ancient, medical treatment, no one is laughing anymore. Being a needle in the side of the body politic has also made Harrison at times a prophet in her own community.