Council Member Krishnan speaks on horse carriage ban and COPA

Permission to explain my vote?

Permission granted.

To the Mahajan family, I want to send my strength and my love and prayers to what you all have gone through.

It is indescribable, and I can't even imagine the pain that you all have felt after losing Romach.

And to know that you all came here from India for a trip.

As an Indian American, as the first Indian American in this body, it also hits me very personally too.

I was very moved to speak with Deepak Mahajan, Romanch's father, who's in India earlier today.

And you all and Romanch's memory will always be with us as we finally take action as a council.

I want to really...

I commend the Speaker Menon's leadership of this council after 19 years of our body not taking action on this issue.

Thanks to the advocates and a big thank you to Speaker Menon for standing up to get this done finally.

And I'm proud that we've done it in a way that both recognizes the importance of human safety in the parks, of animal welfare,

and also with support and a just transition for workers too that form this industry.

This is a big step forward for our council, and we do it in Romant's name and a debt that can never be repaid to his family.

I also want to commend, we passed a number of bills today, I also want to commend Councilman Bersandi-Nurse on our passage of COPA, also a long time in the coming, but as a former housing lawyer,

myself, I know how it's not just about building new housing, but it's about preserving affordable housing and combating displacement.

That's just as important and one of the key pillars of solving this housing crisis.

And COPA does exactly that.

So great work and congrats to Sandy Nurse and looking forward to continuing to fight together to solve our housing crisis.

Thank you.

And with that, I vote aye or no.

Lee.