Elizabeth Fine became General Counsel and Executive Vice-President of the Empire State Development Corporation in 2014 after a long career of government service. Fine grew up in New Haven, Washington D.C., and Lima, Peru. Her family eventually settled in the Boston area, where Fine graduated Brookline High School. Jonathan Fine, Elizabeth’s father, had worked in Lima for the Agency for International Development while her mother, Edith W. Fine, was an administrator for the Peace Corp. Afterwards Fine’s mother worked as an attorney for Boston’s Corporation Counsel and later became a judge of the Boston Municipal Court, then rising to the Massachusetts Superior Court and the Massachusetts Court of Appeals. Fine’s father eventually became the Boston’s Deputy Commissioner of Health and founded the non-profit “Physicians for Human Rights.” (read more…)

On October 17, 2019, the City Council approved a plan to replace Rikers Island.  A month earlier, Allen P. Cappelli, a member of the City Planning Commission, had voted with the 9-3 majority in favor of the application. Cappelli called Rikers Island an “absolute abomination” and in need of “shuttering.” Cappelli’s vote reflected four decades of public service. (read more…)

Image Credit: Caroline Harris

Caroline Harris’s career as a land use attorney stems from an early interest in urban affairs and planning.  Harris was born in New York City and grew up in Peter Cooper Village. As a student at the then all-female Hunter College High School, she started the first student volunteer program for Head Start, earning Mayor Lindsay’s award for “Distinguished Volunteer Supervision.”  Harris spent five months in Israel before entering Trinity College, where she majored in Religious Studies and minored in Urban Planning. (read more…)

In August 2018, City Planning’s Chair Marisa Lago appointed Anita Laremont as the new Executive Director of the Planning Department. Laremont joined the Department as General Counsel in 2014 and has served New York City and State in public positions for over 35 years. (read more…)

Thomas McMahon grew up in Staten Island, attended St. Joseph Hill Academy and Monsignor Farrell High School, and graduated from SUNY New Paltz. McMahon knew from a young age that he wanted to have a career in government and public service, and he felt that the best path forward included a law degree. (read more…)

In 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Nisha Agarwal as the Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. Agarwal has since pushed forward and implemented IDNYC, New York City’s municipal ID card, a program that ensures that all New York City residents have access to City services. More than 900,000 New York City residents have signed up in the two years the program has operated. Agarwal also supervises ActionNYC. ActionNYC connects New Yorkers with free, safe immigration legal services, and supports community-based organizations to increase services at the grassroots level.

Nisha Agarwal was raised in Fayetteville in upstate New York. The daughter of first generation Indian immigrants, she witnessed the immigrant experience in America first-hand. Her father, a nuclear engineer, and her mother, a psychologist, were consistently supportive Agarwal’s activism. Though new to America, her family was no stranger to activism. Her lineage includes many members with a commitment to social justice, including her grandfather who marched with Mahatma Gandhi during the Indian independence movement. (read more…)