Friday, January 17, 2025
Siela Bynoe was sworn in as the first Black New York state senator to represent Long Island’s 6th Senate District on Jan. 5 at Westbury High School, with several hundred in attendance.
Bynoe, 57, comes to Albany after representing her native hometown of Westbury for 10 years as a Nassau County legislator. She will continue to represent but will also carry the responsibilities of Baldwin, Freeport, Garden City, Hempstead, Uniondale and Rockville Centre. She succeeds Kevin Thomas, who declined to run for another term.
“I move forward on this journey to Albany to serve in the New York State Senate,” Bynoe said, addressing the audience. “I will move forward to make sure that communities like Rockville Centre, South Hempstead, and West Hempstead, as well as those I’ve never served before—like Carle Place—and those I’m getting to know, such as Roosevelt, Baldwin, and Freeport (are heard and represented).
“We may all have different needs in these communities,” she added. “But we are one.”
Bynoe campaigned on her work in Mineola and beyond, including her tenure as a commissioner of the North Hempstead Housing Authority in 2008. A Westbury native, she was elected to the Westbury Board of Education in 2010, serving two terms focused on educational policies. She was elected to the County Legislature in a special election in 2014.
Despite being in the minority, she was able to achieve accomplishments such as the passage of the Groundwater and Public Supply Facts Report Law and the implementation of police body cameras.
In an interview with the Herald a month before the election, she stated that her top priority was preserving public benefits and resources, such as Nassau University Medical Center, or NUMC, which had been on the verge of financial collapse earlier that year. She proposed consolidating NUMC’s campuses and converting its vacant lots into assisted living facilities, rehabilitation centers and institutions for veterans and behavioral health.
“There are opportunities there for senior housing, workforce housing, especially for folks who want to ensure have access to health care; they could be right on the campus,” she said then.
Along with NUMC, she advocated for mental and behavior health in school districts, access to health care, helping first-time homebuyers purchase property on Long Island and developing affordable housing.
“Together, we will create housing, ensure we strengthen our public schools and make sure we invest right here in Nassau County,” she said. “I have a charge, we have a charge, and together, I know we can move this county forward.”
Notable political figures in attendance were U.S. State Senator Chuck Schumer, Attorney General Letitia James and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It is sort of a homecoming,” Schumer said. “Siela graduated from this very school — Westbury High School — grew up not far from here and she wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She’s a first-generation American raised by a single mom.
“Siela is the right person at the right moment for this job in the 6th District,” he added.
