District Leaders
Vittoria M. Fariello
Vittoria is the Female Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 61 Part A. Vittoria is a native of Turin, Italy, and has also lived in France, Germany, Canada, and Egypt. She is an attorney, an experienced investigator and litigator, and currently a partner at Balestriere Fariello. Previously. she worked as an Investigative attorney in the New York City Buildings Special Investigation Unit (a joint initiative of the City’s Departments of Investigation and Buildings). There she worked with investigators and analysts to conduct a variety of investigations into professional misconduct and official corruption matters and litigated and tried cases based on those investigations.
Vittoria is also an associate of SUNSGLOW, the Study of the United Nations and Global Legal Order, a non-governmental organization which trains lawyers and judges in developing countries.
Vittoria was chosen to represent AD 65 on the Democratic County Rules Committee, which has been tasked to reassess the County Rules in the light of events many Committee members considered outside the spirit of the Democratic Party.
Dennis Gault
Dennis is the Male Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 61 Part A, which includes much of Greenwich Village, NoHo, SoHo and parts of northern Tribeca.
Dennis is a native New Yorker, parent, and NYC public school teacher. Dennis is also a union representative for the United Federation of Teachers.
Ron Thomas
Ron Thomas is the Male Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 65 Part B.
Ron, born and raised in Harlem, moved to the Smith Houses in the Lower East Side in 1999. He endured, with so many here, the horrific events of September 11th and Super Storm Sandy first hand.
Ron worked the U.S. House of Representatives as a Congressional Community Liaison. In that role he worked with various Community Boards, Tenant Associations, Police Precincts and Precinct Councils. He also galvanized relationships with multiple religious entities, ethnic groups, and organizations, including the Muslim, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani populations. In addition he had formed a trusted and collaborative relationship with many constituents from the Hasidic, Orthodox, and Soviet Jewish community.
He has been partnering with the community Baptist Church, and assists with the monthly food distribution, sponsored by the Dept. For the Aging, local food pantries and county Farms. He is dedicates his time with the yearly, Thanksgiving food distribution, and Christmas gift giveaway, with the church during the annual holiday seasons.
He loves to cook too...!
Mariama James
Mariama is the Female Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 65 Part C.
Mariama is a lifelong resident of Lower Manhattan with a 22+ year professional background in accounting and finance. She is the Vice Chair of the New York County Party.
She raised her three now adult children in Lower Manhattan. During their school years, she was at various times the 1st, 2nd & Community PTA VP at PS 234, on the SLTs at Lower Manhattan Community Middle school (LMC), MAT and IS 89, the PTA Secretary at Lower Manhattan Arts Academy (LOMA), and the PTA President at Art and Design High School.
As a former victim of violent crime as a teen and a survivor of 9/11 and Sandy, Mariama has advocated for 9/11 related health protections and cares very deeply about the environment, resiliency, affordable housing, lowering crime rates, green spaces, and the unhoused. She is also a fierce advocate for justice reform, equity, inclusion and the healing of race relations.
Paul Newell
Paul Newell is Male Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 65 Part C.
A lifelong resident of Lower Manhattan, Paul is a community organizer and progressive Democrat, committed to working for affordable housing, quality schools, livable streets, and an honest government in Albany.
In 2009, Paul was elected District Leader for Lower Manhattan and the Lower East Side with 67% of the vote. Since then he has been re-elected three times, most recently in September 2015.
Long before being elected Democratic District Leader, Paul has been speaking out against corruption in Albany. In 2008, fed up with a culture of failure and corruption in our State Government, he launched a campaign for New York State Assembly. In the course of that campaign, he was endorsed by The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, Americans for Democratic Action, BlogPAC, Gawker Media and more. The campaign was also the subject of an award-winning documentary by filmmaker Justin Sullivan, Excuse Me, Mr. Speaker….
As District Leader, Newell has led a six-year effort to extend rent regulation to thousands of “421-g” apartments, organizing tenants to win protections from rent increases and evictions. He has also been a leading voice for protecting and expanding rent regulations for the over two million New Yorkers who depend on them, and for increased capital funding for NYCHA.
Before the closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital – a devastating blow to Lower Manhattanites’ access to emergency and long-term health care – Newell founded the Coalition for a New Village Hospital. The Coalition led our community’s efforts – in the courts and in the streets – to demand a full-service hospital at the site; a fight that is still ongoing. He later worked closely on the fight to keep LICH hospital in Cobble Hill, and continues that work today at Beth Israel in Manhattan.
In 2000, Newell joined Ubuntu Education Fund, then a fledgling non-profit based out of a broom closet in an elementary school. Newell helped build the organization into an internationally recognized leader in response to HIV and poverty. Ubuntu now reaches thousands of vulnerable children in New York and South Africa.
Prior to working at Ubuntu Education Fund, Newell, a Yiddish speaker, worked to preserve Yiddish language and culture as an archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Jeannine Kiely
Jeannine is the Female Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 66 Part B, which includes much of Greenwich Village, NoHo, SoHo and parts of northern Tribeca.
Jeannine currently serves as the Chair of Community Board 2 Manhattan (CB2) and previously as the Chair of CB2's Schools & Education Committee. Jeannine also is President of Friends of Elizabeth Street Garden leading the effort to permanently save the Garden as a NYC park, and she is on the board of Green Below 14, a non profit dedicated to improving parks, playgrounds and open spaces below 14th street.
Jeannine holds a BA from UCLA and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She previously worked on Wall Street providing financing and advisory services to not-for-profit healthcare companies and higher education institutions.
E. E. Keenan
E. E. is the Male Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 66 Part B.
State Committee Members
Jill Goodkind
Jill Goodkind in the Female Democratic State Committee Member for Assembly District 61 Part A.
Jill Goodkind is the female member of the New York State Democratic Committee for AD 61 and a member of the New York County Democratic Committee. She is a co-founder of 100% Affordable 5 World Trade Center, a public member of Manhattan Community Board 1, a member of the Downtown Independent Democrats executive committee, and a long-time member of the Gateway Plaza Tenants Association. She is a tenacious advocate for affordable housing and for 9/11 survivors.
A resident of lower Manhattan for over 30 years, Jill has watched as her lower- moderate- and middle-income neighbors have been priced out of the their neighborhood by an influx of luxury housing financed with Liberty Bonds and large tax breaks. She is particularly disheartened by the large number of the residents who returned after 9/11 to rebuild and are now suffering from related illnesses.
Jill dedicates her advocacy to the memory of her late husband - beloved community leader, long-time housing advocate, Grammy-nominated recording artist and loving father - Tom Goodkind.
Akm Mike Bhuiyan
Akm Mike Bhuiyan is the Male Democratic State Committee Member for Assembly District 61 Part A.
Mike lives in Battery Park City and has been in New York for over 30 years. He is the owner and operator of real estate brokerage and home improvement companies here in Lower Manhattan.
Above and beyond his businesses, Mike has spent much of his life serving community and those in need. In 1985, he founded and continues to support a school for girls in Chandpur, Bangladesh. Among the many civic roles he has had that are too numerous to list, Mike has received the highest honors and held some of the highest positions in the Lions Club International, an organization dedicated to serving communities across the world, promoting the principles of good government and good citizenship. From the beginning and throughout the Covid pandemic, he organized a food pantry and also distributed over ten thousand pounds of food each week as well as PPE here in Lower Manhattan.
Mike brings his commitment to community and good government to Downtown Independent Democrats as Vice President and to the Democratic Party as State Committee Member.
Morton Minsley
Morton Minsley is the Male Democratic State Committee Member for Assembly District 65 Part C.
Morton is a lifelong New Yorker, born in Brooklyn, NY and educated in the NYC Public Schools. A graduate of Brooklyn College in the CUNY system, he got his law degree from NYU School of Law. Morton currently resides in the Financial District of lower Manhattan within AD 65, with his wife and seven-year-old son.
Morton is an attorney with his own legal practice within District 65, representing individuals and small businesses in litigation matters in both State and Federal Courts. He is also a full member of Manhattan Community Board 1, where he serves on both the Youth and Education and the Waterfront, Parks and Culture committees.
Morton has either lived and/or worked in Downtown Manhattan for over 40 years. He has seen New York change and evolve over all this time, which gives him a perspective when looking at things today. A lifelong Democrat, his political involvement goes back to his mom – who, as an ardent post FDR Democrat and feminist – had him handing out literature to support Democratic Candidates during the 1968 presidential election cycle when he was 9 years old.
Morton combines a lifetime of lived personal and political experience in New York City with his legal background and a commitment to social justice and community representation, all helping him serve our community on the NY State Democratic Party State Committee.
Ben Yee
Ben is the Male Democratic State Committee Member for Assembly District 66. He is also the Secretary of the NY County Democratic Party
Ben got his start in politics as a fundraiser and NY State Digital Director for Barack Obama in 2008. He later worked for the NY State Senate’s CIO’s office reforming Albany's technology infrastructure and good government think tank Reinvent Albany.
Politically, Ben has served at every level of the Young Democrats, including VP of the Young Democrats of America.
After the 2016 Presidential Election, Ben developed the popular (Real) Politics 101 curriculum and co-founded You Matter Nation to focus on political training and electoral work.