Brooklyn City Council Candidates Face Off In Forum Tuesday

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — Candidates competing for Laurie Cumbo’s City Council seat will gather in Brooklyn Tuesday to discuss the big issues in the 35th district, organizers announced.

Cumbo — who currently represents Bed-Stuy, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights — is slated to face challengers Ede Fox, Jabari Brisport and Christine Parker at the Epiphany Lutheran School at 716 Lincoln Pl. at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Democrat Ede Fox previously served as an aide to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and was the first director of city council Office of Economic and Community Development Division, according to her website.

Fox is running on a platform that promises to fix overcrowding in schools, prevent development on NYCHA land and support the Close Rikers movement.

Green Party candidate Jabari Brisport is an activist whose political experience has been primarily on stage — the Yale School of Drama graduate describes himself as “an artist, educator, and activist who’s spent the past ten years making political theater and marching in the streets.”

Brisport supports the Green Party’s Green New Deal, the Close Rikers movement and increased financing for affordable housing.

Christine Parker, the Brooklyn Republican Party candidate, is the former deputy director of Advancement for the Cultural Museum of African Art who also worked in the public advocate’s office focusing on the foster care system, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Parker is running on an education platform and supports school vouchers in religious studies, charter schools and private schools, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported.

The discussion, organized by the Washington Avenue Botanic Block Association, will be moderated by Judge Ray Jones.

Photo courtesy of the Washington Avenue Botantic Block Association.