Councilmember Chin, left, Jan. 5, a few days before Melissa Mark-Viverito was elected to be Council speaker.
Days after starting her second term, Councilmember Margaret Chin on Jan. 22 was appointed chairperson of the City Council’s Committee on Aging.
On the same day, the Council’s Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee — which was established in 2002, to help revitalize the area following the 9/11 attacks, and which Chin had chaired ever since taking office in 2010 — was officially dissolved.
She told Downtown Express last year she would ask the new speaker to close the committee.
New Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito in effect, replaced the Downtown committee with the Recovery and Resiliency Committee, which has been established in order to deal with post-Sandy efforts and planning to mitigate future natural disasters.
Chin was not appointed chairperson of that new committee, though she will serve as one of its members. Instead, the Resiliency Committee will be led by first-term Councilmember Mark Treyger, who represents a part of Brooklyn — including Coney Island and Bensonhurst — that was particularly hard hit by Hurricane Sandy.
In a statement, Chin, who is 59, said she’s looking forward to her new role on the Aging Committee.
“I am both humbled and proud to serve on committees that will make solid, meaningful change in the day-to-day in the lives of New Yorkers,” Chin said in a prepared statement. “I am committed to ensuring that our seniors have the resources, support and dignity they deserve. We must build a city where all of us can age in place, without the worry that we will be displaced by increasing rent or cuts to essential services.”
—Sam Spokony
