SIPA Alumna Joins Race for City Council in Queens

By: Steven Lazickas

Cat Gioino (MPA ‘20) has joined the race to represent District 22 in New York’s City Council.  The Queens district’s current Council Member, Costa Constantinides, cannot seek re-election due to term limits. This leaves an open seat with several contenders vying to represent the district. District 22 covers the Queens neighborhoods Astoria, East Elmhurst, Woodside, parts of Jackson Heights, as well as Rikers Island. 

Gioino grew up in Astoria, where she still lives. While at SIPA, Gioino often cajoled her friends and classmates to visit Queens. “I have no personality outside of Astoria,” Gioino joked during our conversation in mid-February. 

We talked about her life in Astoria, her SIPA experience, and her ideas for the district she calls home. Gioino’s parents arrived from Italy in the 1990s and she grew up speaking only Italian until she attended preschool at four years old. The City Council hopeful said she grew up like any other first-generation child to immigrant parents. “I grew up translating documents for my parents, grew up translating documents for every single neighbor,” Gioino said.

As a teenager, Gioino worked for the Queens Gazette, where she says she had her own column: “Meet Astoria.” In her column, Gioino interviewed Astorians about their lives. While the column is no longer in circulation, her journalistic curiosity stayed with her. Until recently, she worked as a breaking news reporter for the Daily News and still works as a freelance journalist. 

Gioino reported for the Daily News while a student at Columbia University and then SIPA. She participated in the 4+1 program. She studied Political Science and English as an undergraduate and at SIPA she concentrated in Urban and Social Policy. 

Her SIPA education complemented her undergraduate studies well. She said her graduate school experience gave her the tools necessary to solve problems with policy. “It was, wow, forget my political science undergrad,” Gioino said. “This is more concrete.”  

Gioino took classes on housing policy, the interplay between cities and the federal government, and campaign management. She also found former Philadelphia Mayor and current professor, Michael A. Nutter, to be a wealth of information and advice on urban policy and her current campaign. 

“Her fellow students looked up to her as a leader,” Nutter said of her time in his class. Nutter says he is excited about Gioino’s candidacy and that she is enthusiastic, energetic, and a dynamic thinker. 

“She really thinks about tough issues in a most exciting way. I think she’s quite innovative and creative,” Nutter said. “She’s not about trying to maintain the status quo.” 

Others are also excited by Gioino’s candidacy. 

"It's incredible to see young people running for office. The New York City Council is overwhelmingly older, and lacks the perspective of younger residents," said Lawrence Ciulla, a political strategist for the consulting firm Borough Strategies and former staffer on Costa Constantinides' Queens Borough President campaign.

Gioino’s plans for Astoria include increasing people-friendly streets by moving trash off of sidewalks and into community dumpsters, improving the district’s bike lane protections, and increasing the district’s environmental and climate resiliency. 

“I firmly believe any candidate who is running, if they’re not mentioning anything about resilience or sustainable causes, they should not be elected,” Gioino said on environmental policies. Gioino is running to replace Councilmember Constantinides, who has long been an advocate for environmental policy and currently chairs the Committee for Environmental Protection. Gioino seeks to follow in Constantinides’ footsteps there as well. “I will be on the committee,”  Gioino said. “And I will try to chair it.” 

The SIPA alumna also seeks to give the large immigrant community in her district more of a voice in municipal elections: if she wins, she will advocate to expand voting rights in municipal elections to immigrants. 

“If you’re gonna live here, you should have a say in what's going on around your city,” Gioino said. She noted that immigrants are often active in their communities, “but because of where they’re from they don’t have the power to vote.”

Gioino sees LaGuardia Airport as an opportunity to encourage travelers to visit the district and support small businesses while on layover. She aims to improve pedestrian access from the airport to the community. Gioino says this idea came from her own layover experience in Munich, Germany. 

“I was bored, and I saw that there was a movie theatre a few blocks away,” Gioino recalled. “My walking and spending the nine euros to watch that movie was nine euros into Munich’s economy.” Gioino says that little work is needed to safely connect LaGuardia to the district. 

Gioino has public works projects in mind for the district as well, including beautifying the streets by planting trees on the sidewalks and a multi-block highline with green space and a bike lane. Gioino envisions an elevated park with welcoming furniture and plenty of plants. Gioino says this project will have to wait though, as New York City needs to address the fiscal challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic. 

“We need to think about the future,” Gioino said.

Gioino’s campaign website lists her policies here. She is currently working to meet the city’s matching funds threshold. The deadline for matching funds is March 11. 

We’ll see what the future holds for Cat Gioino.