On Oct. 17, City Comptroller Brad Lander will be in Ridgewood for an early voting rally and down-ballot information session hosted by the Ridgewood Democratic Club and Ridgewood Queens Indivisible.
Early voting begins on Oct. 25, and the event is on a first-come-first-serve basis and all interested parties are asked to RSVP before the event starts at 7 p.m. next Friday.
“Lander’s achievements include advocating for workers’ rights, creating affordable housing initiatives, implementing participatory budgeting, and supporting police reform,” Ridgewood Queens Indivisible wrote in the announcement post on Instagram.
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Lander served on the City Council for District 39 in Brooklyn from 2009 to 2021, and co-founded the Progressive Caucus with then Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, before becoming city comptroller in 2022. Lander came in third in the New York democratic primary election over the summer, where he co-endorsed the current frontrunner for the mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani.
Most notably, Lander was arrested by ICE agents on two separate occasions: first in protest of ICE intervention during federal immigration proceedings at the courthouse and second at a protest at an ICE detention facility in Manhattan, along with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and nine other elected officials.
The Ridgewood Democratic Club hosts all kinds of debates, forums and rallies for local representatives and has since it was first formed in 1908. The club most recently hosted a meet and greet for the district’s City Council candidate, Phil Wong, in September, and President Janet Westcott plans on hosting even more events in the future to drum up more members and revamp the 100 year old institution’s admittedly old building.
“He’s out there on the frontline,” Westcott said. “The event is completely free… and it’s really exciting to get new faces into the building. It’s the exact kind of event I wanted: bringing interesting speakers, people who can educate us about the issues, and people who have really been doing things to stand up to Trump and his administration.”
