Epsilon Pi Omega in the News

Adrienne Adams had to overcome several obstacles on her way to being voted in on Wednesday as the first Black woman to serve as speaker of the New York City Council, the second-most-powerful position in city government.

She had a competitive race to retain her City Council seat representing southeast Queens, including a primary challenge from her predecessor, and entered the contest for speaker relatively late. Mayor Eric Adams did what he had said he would not do and tried, unsuccessfully, to tip the scales in favor of one of Ms. Adams’s rivals.

Ms. Adams, 61, a moderate Democrat, prevailed and will now lead the City Council, as New York grapples once again with being a center of the coronavirus pandemic while facing a difficult financial future.

The new City Council, which is more diverse than ever and has its first-ever female majority, also looks to be more ideologically divided than in recent memory. And in spite of public efforts to show they are on the same page, Ms. Adams already faces potential battles with the mayor on everything from the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jails to new legislation that would grant more than 800,000 legal residents who are not citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.

Ms. Adams, who lost her father to Covid, said her priority would be seeing the city through the pandemic and working to strengthen families that have been damaged in its wake.

“We meet here today as the most diverse Council in history, led by the first African-American speaker,” Ms. Adams said in a speech Wednesday after her colleagues voted nearly unanimously to make her speaker. “While this is a moment to celebrate this milestone, we must realize that we are here because New York is at the crossroads of multiple crises — each one competing for our full attention.”

In an interview, Ms. Adams noted that the pandemic had further exposed existing inequalities on issues ranging from medical care to child care, housing and access to high speed internet. “All roads lead through this pandemic,” she said. “When I think of my priorities, I think of rebuilding a city.”

Ms. Adams’s predecessor as speaker, Corey Johnson, said it would not be easy.

“We’re in this painful and uncertain time with Omicron and not knowing what this will do to our economy,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview. “This new Council has more members who are very far left and more who are far right. To get things done will be a challenge.”

He added: “But it’s not an impossible challenge because Adrienne has the skill set, track record and temperament.”

Yvette Buckner, a political strategist who is vice chair of 21 in ’21, a group that helped elect a record number of women to the City Council, said Ms. Adams would “be able to understand the needs of the city from a different lens,” partly because of her experience as a mother of four and a grandmother of 10.

Even as the country goes through “a long overdue reckoning of racial justice,” New Yorkers need to feel safe from discriminatory policing, “safe from the virus and safe from violence,” Ms. Adams said in her speech.

Mr. Adams will be her counterpart in that effort. Though he suffered a significant political loss when Ms. Adams amassed enough support to become speaker, they both say they have a good relationship.

Ms. Adams and Mr. Adams were classmates at Bayside High School in Queens in the late 1970s. Mr. Adams, discouraged by an undetected learning disability, has spoken often about not being a model student. Ms. Adams, on the other hand, was a cheerleader who founded a gospel chorus at the high school, which was mostly white at the time.

“I actually went to class. We knew of each other but we did not hang out in the same crowd,” Ms. Adams said of her time at high school with the mayor. “But we are so proud of each other.”

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Queens Supreme Court justice Cheree Buggs is taking on a new role in New York City’s courts.

Buggs ended the first week of the new year with the news that she had been selected to fill an opening on the Appellate Term, Second Department left by the retirement of Hon. David Elliot. She is only the third African-American judge from Queens to serve at the appellate level, and the first from Queens to serve on the Appellate Term.

“I’m very excited about my elevation,” Buggs told the Eagle. “I thought it would be something that would make my judicial experience [more] fulfilling and I was honored to be selected.”

Buggs will still preside over her usual Supreme Court cases, as the Appellate Court handles appeals from lower court rulings.

She’ll be drawing from her experience serving on the Civil Court bench, where she was first elected in 2007, and from being assigned to cover arraignments, she said.

“I'm happy to continue the work I'm doing on the Supreme Court and to be part of making decisions on appeals of the lower court — ‘the people’s court,’” Buggs said. “I’m looking forward to learning more about the matters that haven't been a regular part of my judicial experience, and am looking forward to learning and growing.”

“I’m very excited about my elevation,” Buggs told the Eagle. “I thought it would be something that would make my judicial experience [more] fulfilling and I was honored to be selected.”

“I'm happy to continue the work I'm doing on the Supreme Court and to be part of making decisions on appeals of the lower court — ‘the people’s court,’” Buggs said. “I’m looking forward to learning more about the matters that haven't been a regular part of my judicial experience, and am looking forward to learning and growing.”

For now, she’ll remain based out of Queens as Appellate proceedings continue virtually due to pandemic safety precautions but said she is prepared to take her expertise to the Brooklyn courthouse “when it comes time, and I trust at some time we’ll get there.”

“I’m ready,” she added. “I’m open to whatever the experience is; I don’t know everything I'll be encountering but am open to new [challenges]. We’ll find out what they are as we go forward.”

The Bayside-born judge’s level of preparedness is far from new. She was ahead of her classmates when she started at Benjamin Cardozo High School at 12 years old and when graduating law school at 20.

Buggs has worked in various parts of the Court System, but said she is determined to remain laser focused on her job facilitating justice for the people who appear before her.

“For me the most important thing is to stay focused on what my job is, what I’m charged with and what I'm doing,” she told the Eagle in October 2021. “People care that excellence is my aim.”

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State Sen. Leroy Comrie honored Brathwaite Nelson as a “Woman of Distinction” in 2017. He said Monday that he is pulling for her to get the Court of Appeals spot.

Singas was born and raised in Astoria and went on to attend Barnard College, Columbia University and Fordham Law. She began her legal career in the Queens DA’s Office before moving to the Nassau prosecutor’s office in 2006. She rose through ranks, heading the Special Victims Bureau and becoming chief assistant DA. She was named acting DA when her predecessor Kathleen Rice won a seat in Congress, and went on to win her first four-year term in 2015. She won a second term in 2019.

Singas did not say what motivated her to seek a seat on the high court, but called it “an honor” to be considered a finalist.

“I’ve dedicated my entire career to public service and the pursuit of justice, and I remain committed to the work the people of Nassau County elected me to do,” Singas said in a statement.

Naming a top county prosecutor to the state’s highest court has recent precedent. New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore served as Westchester County DA before Cuomo appointed her to the bench in Albany.

In a statement, Commission Chair E. Leo Milonas, a former appellate judge, noted the “extraordinary quality” of the applicants, of whom more than half were women. 

“The number of exceptional and diverse candidates reflects the unparalleled depth of the legal profession in New York,” Milonas said.

The other five candidates include three active judges: Hon. Ellen Nachtigall Biben, the administrative judge for criminal matters in the First Judicial District, a Court of Claims judge and and acting Supreme Court justice; Hon. Erin M. Peradotto, associate justice of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department; and Hon. Shirley Troutman, associate justice of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

The commission also recommended two lawyers in private practices: Kathy Hirata Chin, an attorney with the firm Crowell & Moring; Caitlin Halligan, and attorney with the firm Selendy & Gay PLLC.

The commission will next release a list of nominees for a second vacancy left by late Justice Paul Feinman, who stepped down just days before his death last month.

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