Candidate from Staten Island in the run for borough president

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Democrat Radhakrishna Mohan, IT specialist and member of Staten Island Community Board 1 recently announced his candidacy for the Staten Island Borough President making him the first Indian-American to run for that office.

An advocate for their borough, a borough president gets a share of the city budget to fund local initiatives, groups and projects like building new hospitals, renovating local parks or leading community health outreach.

Borough presidents share about 5percent of the city budget to fund things in their borough — about $4 billion among them, according to the city’s Campaign Finance Board.

Founder and President of Asian American Labor and Community Organization (AALCO), Mohan emigrated to the U.S. from Chennai, India in 1989. He has spent the last two decades in public service and community service serving the Staten Island community in various roles, and feels becoming the borough’s president is the next natural step for him.

“At this point in my life, I want to give back to the community that helped me prosper. I am already involved in a lot of community service in several organizations but I think there is more to do and much to offer. Becoming the borough president will grant me the budget for helping Staten Island and its residents,” said Mohan.

He believes his extensive experience with public welfare organizations and politics, and involvement with the borough residents sets him apart from the eight other candidates in the race.

“I am a member of the Public Services Committee, Transportation Committee and Silver Lake Parks Committee,” said Mohan.

According to his profile, Mohan has more than two decades of labor union experience. He was an interim regional coordinator for region 10 for the NYC chapter with more than 5000 members and past president (for 8 years) of Division 240 with more than 2000 statewide members.

Currently, Mohan is an executive board member and chair of article 13 committee on workers compensation working to publish resource booklet for members hurt on the job.

Mohan’s campaign revolves around solutions for immediate problems as well as long existing ones.

Addressing the covid-19 situation head on; improving the Staten Island transportation infrastructure and operational facilities; providing literacy programs and vocational training to the youth and senior; and building more public hospitals are some of Mohan’s top priorities.

“I also completed a course from NYC Citizens Police Academy and served as a block watcher for the community. I am also a member of the NYPD Staten Island Immigrant Outreach and Hate Crime Task Force. This current crisis of hate crimes needs to be addressed. We can only do this by being proactive,” said Mohan.

Mohan has a Master’s degree in Economics, bachelor’s in Mathematics and Statistics, and an Associate degree in Computer Science.

Mohan urged people to connect with his campaign if they share his views on giving back to the community.