Council Member James F. Gennaro

07/29/2026

Someone calling claiming they work for the government and are demanding payment? HANG UP! It is most likely a scam. No agency will call you and pressure you into payment, especially in the form of gifts cards.

07/29/2026

Mayor Mamdani announced an 18-member Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary and claimed it would be ‘truly reflective of New York City.’ Not a single Jewish attorney, former judge, or legal professional was named to that committee.

Jewish bar associations from Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan have already called this out in writing. They are right. Jews make up roughly one in 10 New Yorkers and a far larger share of the city’s legal profession. The notion that zero qualified Jewish candidates could be found is not credible.

This committee will help select the judges who sit in Family Court, Criminal Court, and Civil Court. These include the very courts that handle hate-crime cases, custody disputes, and the daily administration of justice in a city that has seen a sustained surge in antisemitic attacks. Excluding the Jewish community from that process is not diversity. It is erasure.

City Hall’s stated defense -- that the Mayor has previously appointed some Jewish judges and that one particular retired justice was rejected from consideration for appointment to the panel for other reasons -- does not speak to this central fact: when the mayor had a free hand to name an entire new judicial committee, he produced a panel with no Jews on it. That is the record.

This exclusion does not stand alone. It is merely the latest manifestation of the metastatic antisemitism that Mamdani has cultivated in City Hall and, by extension, throughout the city. From branding pro-Israel advocates ‘monsters,’ to his antisemitic mindset that treats Jewish concerns as matters of no concern, to this latest act of institutional exclusion, the pattern is unmistakable.

New York City is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. Jewish New Yorkers have every right to expect their mayor to treat them as full and equal partners in the life of this city. The Mayor claims he is interested in inclusion, but his words and actions undeniably demonstrate the opposite.

Real leadership does not consist of assembling panels that erase an entire community and then claiming the result is ‘representative.’ That is rank bigotry. Leadership consists of protecting the safety, dignity, and equal standing of every New Yorker.

I will continue to speak plainly against Mamdani's antisemitism as it continues to metastasize. Doing so may become a full-time job, but every instance has to be called out. To not do so is to accept a baseline tolerance of that which cannot be tolerated. I will not be gaslit. And, in this instance, I will not accept a standard under which Jewish New Yorkers are systematically sidelined from the very bodies that shape our courts, the rendering of justice, and the future of our city.

07/24/2026

Team Gennaro was honored to celebrate Tommy's remarkable 100th birthday with Queens Centers for Progress yesterday! Tommy has called one of QCP's Jamaica Estates residences home for decades, and the love, compassion, and dedicated care of the incredible QCP staff have helped him reach this extraordinary milestone.

My staff member was proud to present Tommy with a New York City Council Citation recognizing his 100th birthday and celebrating a truly remarkable life on my behalf. Please join me in wishing Tommy a very Happy Birthday! Happy 100th Birthday, Tommy!

07/24/2026

Yesterday, Team Gennaro was proud to be at the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Luncheon at Queens College during Disability Pride Month!

The luncheon brought together advocates, community members, and leaders to celebrate the lasting impact of the ADA and reaffirm our commitment to building a more accessible and inclusive community for everyone. Thank you to Queens College for hosting such a meaningful event and for recognizing the importance of disability rights and inclusion!

07/24/2026

Join the NYPD 107th Precinct and the 107th Precinct Community Council for National Night Out Against Crime on Monday, August 4, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at 70-63 Parsons Boulevard.

The event will feature games, music, prizes, and free food. For more information, please contact Community Affairs at 929-270-6439.

For accommodations related to a disability, please contact PO McCarthy at least 72 hours before the event at [email protected].

07/22/2026

Tonight is the onset of the solemn Jewish fast day of Tisha B'Av, which will conclude on Thursday night. Wishing all who observe an easy and meaningful fast!

07/21/2026

Today, we congratulate Queens College President Frank H. Wu on his retirement and thank him for his outstanding leadership and dedicated service to the Queens College community.

Throughout his tenure, President Wu has been a tireless advocate for students, faculty, and higher education, helping strengthen one of our borough's most important institutions. His commitment to academic excellence, inclusion, and public service has left a lasting impact on countless lives.

My staff was honored to present President Wu with a New York City Council Proclamation, signed by the entire Queens delegation, recognizing his many contributions and celebrating his remarkable legacy. Congratulations, President Wu, on a well-earned retirement. We wish you continued success, happiness, and fulfillment in this exciting new chapter.

07/21/2026

Mayor Mamdani's latest comments about arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are legally baseless and expose a troubling double standard. The facts speak for themselves. My full statement is below.

"Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s continuing fixation on arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York for the United Nations General Assembly is not serious governance. It is political theater dressed up as a moral cause for his political base. And the hypocrisy is staggering.

While the Mayor and his team obsess over an International Criminal Court warrant that the United States does not recognize and that no local official has the power to enforce, his administration has shown a disturbing eagerness to engage the Islamic Republic of Iran. A senior official in the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs scheduled a meeting with Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations. Only after the State Department intervened was the meeting canceled. That is the regime whose security forces have slaughtered their own citizens in the streets. Most recently in the brutal crackdown on nationwide protests, where credible reports put the death toll in the thousands, including women, children, and peaceful demonstrators. This is the same regime that systematically executes political prisoners, tortures dissenters, and treats half its population as second-class under compulsory veiling laws enforced with violence.

Iran’s record does not stop at repressing its own people. For years Tehran poured blood and treasure into propping up Bashar al-Assad’s regime as it murdered hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Iranian officers, Revolutionary Guard forces, and proxy militias were essential to that slaughter. The same regime arms and bankrolls Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. These are groups whose charters and actions are explicit about destroying the Jewish state and who deliberately target civilians.

Against this backdrop, the Mayor’s threat to arrest a democratically elected head of government of a U.S. ally is not only selective; it is legally hollow on its face. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Federal law explicitly bars state and local governments from cooperating with the ICC. Sitting heads of state enjoy immunity under long-settled principles of international law recognized by the International Court of Justice. The conduct of foreign relations belongs to the federal government, not City Hall. New York’s own governor has stated plainly that the mayor lacks this power. Legal experts across the spectrum have called the idea baseless. Any attempt would be blocked instantly by federal authority.

That is why this entire episode reinforces what so many New Yorkers already see: performative politics. The Mayor knows he cannot deliver on the arrest. He says as much when pressed, that he will only do what the law allows and will not “write his own laws.” Yet he keeps the threat alive for the cameras and for his political base. At the same time, his administration reaches out to a regime that actually murders its citizens, props up mass killers, and sponsors terrorism. The contrast could not be clearer.

New York City is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. Jewish New Yorkers have every right to expect their mayor to reject selective outrage, reject engagement with a regime that chants for their destruction, and reject empty stunts that poison our civic life. Real leadership does not consist of threatening allies while courting their enemies. It consists of protecting the safety, dignity, and equal standing of all New Yorkers."

07/20/2026

Good afternoon,

Please see below for my statement regarding recent two recent hate crimes in our district. Anyone with any information related to these incidents are encouraged to contact the NYPD at 800-577-TIPS (8477).

07/17/2026

See my opinion piece in today's City and State NY about the destructive effort, led by Speaker Julie Menin, to ban New York City's iconic carriage horse industry.

For more than 167 years, carriage horses have been part of Central Park, supporting generations of small, family-owned businesses and providing livelihoods for roughly 200 hardworking New Yorkers – the overwhelming majority of whom are immigrants.

Yet, despite there never being a single conviction of a carriage driver for animal abuse in the industry's history, the New York City Council is considering legislation that would dismantle it based on political expediency rather than evidence.

In my op-ed, I explain why this proposal would not only eliminate an iconic New York tradition, but could also jeopardize the future of the 160 carriage horses it claims to want to protect, destroy dozens of small businesses during an affordability crisis, and ignore practical safety reforms that would actually make this industry even safer.

“Romanch’s Law” would kill horses and immigrants’ jobs.