NY-CC47: Justin Brannan (D) is backing his chief counsel for his City Council seat

The Justin Brannan mini machine is backing a Bay Ridge Democrat to run for the term-limited lawmaker’s City Council seat next year. On Monday, Kayla Santosuosso, currently chief counsel in Brannan’s office, is launching her campaign for southern Brooklyn’s 47th City Council district, which combines Bay Ridge and Coney Island, and which Brannan has represented – in varying configurations – since 2018. Brannan and state Sen. Andrew Gounardes are both endorsing her.

Santosuosso, an Ohio native who has lived in Bay Ridge since 2013, worked for the Arab American Association of New York before joining the City Council campaign of Palestinian pastor Khader El-Yateem, who ran against Brannan in the 2017 primary. She later joined Brannan as his deputy chief of staff, before working as an attorney for the city’s Law Department and then returning to Brannan’s office. She was recently made president of Bay Ridge Democrats, the club Brannan and Gounardes co-founded.

“I’m running because I can basically be ready on day one,” Santosuosso told City & State, noting she’s lived “a couple of different lives” in the neighborhood. A year before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the city, she and her now-husband bought Lock Yard, a Bay Ridge bar. “I know what it means to struggle to run a small business here. I know what it means to be a renter here. I know what nonprofits go through, because I’ve managed a nonprofit here. And I’ve organized here, and I’ve worked in the council.”

The 47th district saw one of the biggest shakeups of the 2022 City Council redistricting process, combining major parts of Brannan’s Bay Ridge domain with then-Council Member Ari Kagan’s Coney Island turf. With the two areas lumped together in a single district, Kagan and Brannan faced off in a contentious incumbent versus incumbent election in 2023.



https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2024/11/justin-brannan-backing-his-chief-counsel-his-city-council-seat/401268/?oref=csny-category-lander-top-story