Council Member Francisco Moya is a community leader and activist who has represented East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, LeFrak City and his native Corona in the City Council since 2018. Francisco has been a leader in the community for decades, beginning when he was just 15 years old when he founded the Corona Gardens Neighborhood Association, where he organized members of the community in order to improve the neighborhood’s quality of life. In 2010 with his election to the New York State Assembly, Francisco made history by becoming the first Ecuadorian-American elected to public office in the United States. 

Francisco has been an active leader during crises for years, but none compare to his response to the community's battle with COVID-19. When the pandemic hit New York and our community became the global epicenter of the virus, Francisco went to work by securing over 120,000 pieces of PPE for Elmhurst  hospital and our frontline workers in the first week alone. Francisco worked tirelessly to help secure resources and relief for the community, secured $25 million in funding for emergency food providers, and volunteered at food pantries during the worst of the pandemic to ensure they had the support they needed to help our community during these difficult times. Francisco continues to support the district nearly a year into the crisis, by securing new mobile testing sites and increased vaccination sites so that our community gets the recovery it needs and deserves. He’s dedicated to ensuring that all New Yorkers, regardless of race, age, immigration status, or zip code gets the same access to relief and resources in order to emerge from this crisis stronger than when we went into it.

As a member of the City Council, and over his eight-year career in the State Assembly, Francisco has consistently fought for working class New Yorkers, advocating for their rights, improving workplace safety, and strengthening worker protections while helping our local economy thrive. Francisco’s advocacy over the years includes the introduction of the Sunshine Bill, his steadfast protection of the Scaffold Law, and the introduction of Carlos’ Law, all of which help protect working class New Yorkers from unsafe and hazardous working conditions. Additionally, Francisco passed legislation to limit the fees that third-party delivery services like GrubHub can charge and has introduced legislation to study the secondary displacement of recently rezoned neighborhoods. Francisco’s commitment to the good treatment of workers and respect for the community led to the approval of the LaGuardia Airport Redevelopment Project which, due to Francisco’s advocacy, utilizes 100% unionized labor and will use local restaurants and small businesses as vendors in terminals when the project is complete. This project has helped secure thousands of good paying jobs for the district, and will help local small businesses and restaurants thrive for years to come. 

As a steadfast supporter and advocate for immigrant New Yorkers, and as the son of immigrants himself, Francisco has introduced and seen the passage of various bills which protect immigrant communities and earns them new rights under the law. He wrote the New York State Liberty Act which made New York State a Sanctuary State, the Green Light Bill which gives undocumented immigrants the right to a driver’s license, the Dream Act which gives the ability for undocumented students to receive tuition assistance, and the Family Unification Act which gave free legal representation to undocumented immigrants who are facing deportation. Francisco also led the fight in the City to secure emergency burial assistance funds so families, regardless of their immigration status, could bury their loved ones with dignity. This paved the way for the federal government to follow suit almost a year later. Furthermore, Francisco introduced a bill that would ban the use of the words “alien” and “illegal immigrant” in local laws, rules and documents, making New York the first major city in the U.S. to prohibit them and serving as an example for Biden’s Citizenship Act. He has set the standard for the federal government to treat our immigrants with dignity.

Francisco has also been hard at work fighting to protect our public schools, fighting for both students and teachers alike. As an Assemblymember, Francisco pushed to get rid of trailers which are not suitable placeholders for actual classrooms and helped build the recently constructed P.S. 19 in order to relieve some of the overcrowding in our public schools. As Chair of the Commission on Science and Technology, Francisco worked to bring more STEM curriculum into our children’s classrooms, helping prepare our students with the skills they’ll need to compete in the 21st century economy. He’s done this while also securing $3.4 million for resources for our students and necessary infrastructure projects, while also working with the UFT to ensure that our teachers have the support they need to give our students as rich of an education as they can. 

Francisco is running for re-election because, although there are many accomplishments to be proud of, in this moment of compounding crises he believes we need experienced, proven and dedicated leadership to make sure that all of us, from East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights to LeFrak City and Corona, come out of this pandemic and economic crises as safe and secure as possible.