By Rich Bockmann
When Borough President Helen Marshall steps down at the end of the month, she will cap off a career in public service spanning decades.
“I’ve held office before, but not this big,” said Marshall, 84, who was first elected to the state Assembly in 1983 and spent a decade on the City Council before her 12-year run as the chief executive of the nation’s most diverse county.
Marshall, Queens’ first black borough president, will be term-limited out of office Dec. 31.
“I never thought I’d end up being here, being the borough president, ” she said recently during an interview at her offices in Borough Hall.
During her years as a lawmaker, Marshall said she enjoyed getting her hands into the work of crafting legislation, but under the limited powers of the borough president’s office she took a more aggressive approach to getting things done.
“When Helen was coming into office, she had a list of priorities, and we lovingly dubbed it the Marshall Plan for Queens,” Chief of Staff Alexandra Rosa said.
Her top staffers spoke about Marshall’s legacy at a roundtable discussion organized for TimesLedger Newspapers in November.
Rosa said Marshall set up the War Room, a hold-over from the administration of previous Borough President Claire Shulman, where she and her staff developed strategy on how to address overcrowded schools, and the Green Room for working on issues involving parks and open space.
There were also the Queens General Assembly and Borough Hall’s Immigration Task Force, two bodies Marshall established so that representatives from Queens’ immigrant communities would have outlets where they could hash out their issues.
“I made a list of what I thought I ought to do when I first came here,” Marshall said. “And first thing, this is the most ethnic county in the whole United States of America, and so I said we got to bring these people together.”
Those in Marshall’s inner circle said her office faced challenges right away with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. On top of coping with the loss of lives, the borough entered an era when the city was slashing budgets.
“Many of the investments that were on the table and included in the budget from the previous administration both in the mayor’s office and allocations from Claire Shulman— the capital budget was decimated. Those projects disappeared,” said Carol Ricci, director of administration and expense budget.
Projects such as the reclamation of downtown Jamaica’s First Reformed Dutch Church building as the new home of the Jamaica Center for the Performing Arts and the construction of an 110,000-square-foot indoor pool at Flushing Meadows Corona Park came to a halt when the funding dried up.
“So what happened is we had to wind up filling a number of the voids that weren’t anticipated,” she added.
Marshall’s team said that beyond funding projects the borough president did a lot behind the scenes to shape how they came out.
The Willets Point project was the first to include a participation program for minority- and women-owned businesses in its request for proposal, and she worked to get the affordable housing that is nearly complete at the Macedonia Church while developers are still waiting to break ground on the Flushing Commons project at Municipal Lot 1.
“What’s interesting, it’s one of the few developments you’ll see where the benefits for the community came before the actual development itself,” Deputy Borough President Barry Grodenchik observed.
Before her life in public office, Marshall was a school teacher, and the woman who heads her education and library initiatives said the borough president took advantage of growth at the city School Construction Authority.
“We found schools. We built … a lot of schools,” RoseAnne Darsche said. “It was really amazing. So that was a challenge that Helen — her reference was as a teacher and as a librarian — and those became her passions.”
A report earlier this year by the Center for an Urban Future lauded Marshall for her commitment to the borough’s libraries, pointing out that during her term she has allocated more money for libraries than the city’s other four borough presidents combined.
It is often noted that Marshall’s term was bookended by the tragedies of 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy.
“When Sandy hit, the borough president was very concerned about the capacity to help those in need and bringing together human service organizations,” her chief of staff said.
Dan Andrews, Marshall’s press secretary, said the office of the borough president is sometimes criticized, repeating the refrain that all borough presidents do is cut ribbons.
“My answer on behalf of the borough president is she has every right to cut that ribbon,” he said of the recent opening at the Queens Museum to mark a $69 million renovation. “She put multimillions of dollars into that project.”
Former Councilwoman Melinda Katz Jan. 1 will become borough president Jan. 1, when Marshall will be free to do some traveling.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
