TBO Harlem Uptown's Tony Rasan says he was in the Signal group but unpaid

Thank you, counsel.

Pleasure being here.

My name is Tony Rasan.

I run TBO Harlem Uptown, and I'm the founder and producer of the Harlem Night Market, as well as the Harlem Wellness Festival.

We do a lot of work in the community with a special emphasis on amplifying and focusing on small businesses.

Our platform is very popular uptown.

We have probably one of the largest followings, you know, along with like Uptown Collective and stuff.

But what I really wanted to kind of come and say and speak and testify in this.

Council hearing is regarding the I guess the the signal group I was a part of that signal group and

I didn't pay much attention to it because a lot of it is just press stuff like you know links to information or things that that would happen

where Mamdani is coming to Harlem.

Those are things that are of particular interest to me.

I've refused to, I mean, I just was not interested in some of the things that they kind of put forward.

Or, you know, if I see something, a link or something that I'm interested in, I'll reach out and say, hey, I want to be here.

But a lot of what I do,

and the trust in the community that we speak on comes from informing the community about community boards and just to get active in the community to make sure that

you understand what goes on in terms of like, you know, the biggest problems uptown are affordable housing.

I mean, that's among other things.

But one of the things in terms of like our access to City Hall, this is kind of unprecedented because

under previous administrations, you know, content creators like myself never really had the opportunity to engage with the mayor's office and other city agencies.

So, you know, that's kind of one of the things that I think is kind of misconstrued.

I've never been paid.

I don't know people that have been paid, influencers or whatever.

So when I saw the New York Post article, I was kind of confused.

You know, I laughed about it.

A lot of us laughed among ourselves about it because, you know, a lot of this stuff was just not true, what we were reading and stuff.

I speak for my community, and I speak to my community.

If there's something that I'm not interested in, I don't cover it.

I don't talk about it.

And there will be differences.

I already have differences with the Mamdani administration on some of the things that they do.

And I'll talk about it.

You know, like, I mean, I'm not, you know, controlled or paid by anybody.

Just wanted to say that.