Running a City Council Office

Tucked between a supermarket and a café just outside the 45th Street R train stop in Sunset Park sits the modest storefront office of City Council Member Alexa Avilés. From the outside, it blends easily into the block, but inside, the space hums from the activity of a small team of some of Brooklyn’s most dedicated public servants.

A council member’s district office functions as a hub for the local community. Whether residents are seeking assistance or looking to get involved, staff help point them in the right direction. They assist with everything from overflowing trash outside an apartment building to immigration paperwork and housing concerns, and they organize and promote a wide range of community events. For many constituents, the office is the first stop when they need guidance or support.

“We’re a high-need district,” Deputy Chief of Staff Winnie Marion told the Red Hook Star-Revue. “We have a lot of constituents who come in on a day-to-day basis. There are some offices that aren’t like that, but because we represent a lot of working-class areas, we have people coming in all the time for support.”

Avilés’ office serves more than 177,000 residents across the 38th District. Seven full-time staff members work there, each with their own area of expertise such as communications and policy-making. Regardless of their specialty, staff regularly step in wherever they’re needed, including responding to the roughly 100 constituent service requests they receive on an average day.

Constituent services
“People use us as a community center,” Ross Joy, the council member’s budget and data director, told the Star-Revue. “And Council member Avilés really wants us to play that role because you get to take a pulse of the neighborhood and that also helps us inform our policy discussions and budget priorities.”  

When a constituent reaches out, staff begin by logging the caller’s name, contact information, and the nature of the request into a centralized system used in council offices citywide. The database ensures that no case gets lost and allows the team to track trends and follow up on recurring issues.

Among the most common calls are inquiries about accessing resources for residents facing housing or food insecurity. 

“I always try to appreciate that everyone who comes into the office is a unique individual and give them my full time and attention,” legislative fellow Dominic Schlossberg said. “I think that’s an ethos that permeates our office.” 

District even includes Bath Beach
The 38th District stretches from its northern border along the BQE in Red Hook to its southern edge near Bath Avenue in Bath Beach. To ensure residents across this wide area can access support, staff regularly take the office on wheels, hosting mobile office hours throughout the district.

“We do the same constituent services we do here but closer to where people are,” Marion said. “Our district is so long and it can be hard for people to make it all the way out to Sunset Park, so we try to meet them where they’re at.”   

The district is also linguistically and culturally diverse. 46% of residents were born outside the United States, and 69% speak a language other than English at home. To meet those needs, Avilés’ staff includes English, Spanish, and Mandarin speakers, with interns adding additional languages at special events. Avilés also helped establish the city’s first translation bank, which connects council offices and other agencies with a vast network of interpreters.

The council office cannot always solve problems on its own, so much of its work involves maintaining strong lines of communication with city agencies.

“One of our resources is just emails and contacts that the public doesn’t have access to,” Schlossberg said. “Another tool that we have is just being a good advocate. Having worked in intergovernmental affairs I’ve seen lots of emails come into city agencies where the problem the constituent is dealing with is not being articulated well. That’s why our intake process is so thorough.”   

Avilés’ Chief of Staff Edward Cerna urges constituents to place 311 calls in addition to contacting the office. Those reports give staff documented evidence they can use to hasten the bureaucratic process. He recalled a recent effort to secure more sanitation support for illegal dumping across the district, an effort that had initially stalled. 

“Often the feeling can be that 311 is sort of this black hole where you submit a complaint, but nothing ever gets resolved,” Cerna told the Star-Revue. “But once we started pumping up those numbers of complaints filed, we got movement and traction with the sanitation department.”

Despite diverse backgrounds and varied lived experiences, one theme unites the office’s staff: a deep, unwavering commitment to public service. 

That commitment extends beyond office hours. Every staffer interviewed said they routinely spend their limited free time assisting with constituent calls or volunteering with local nonprofits. Unfazed by long hours and complex work, each seemed certain they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Certainly no one day on the job looks identical,” said Senior Policy Director Melanie Kruvelis. “But, if there’s a theme, I would say it’s just listening to constituents and listening to advocates about how we can be a better voice for these folks who don’t often get a seat at the table. That is the common thread in an otherwise very uncommon job.”