Council Member Marte thanks supporters of horse carriage ban

Permission to explain my vote.

Permission granted, Councilman.

I'm just going to jump to thank yous.

I want to thank Speaker Menon for her leadership on this.

I also want to thank Chair Lynn Shulman, who, you know, has been focused on this issue for a lot of years and have taken a lot of bullets from different sides.

But she's so strong and fierce and bold when the time came to make a decision and host this hearing.

So I want to give my flowers to Chair Shulman.

I also want to thank the Mahajan family.

Thank you for your bravery.

You know, we stood in Central Park a few weeks after the loss of the life.

And for your commitment to staying on the course to getting this done, it was really your spiritual powers and your leadership that helped us get here today.

So I want to thank you.

I want to thank your family back in India.

And, you know, my deepest condolences because I understand that it's still a hard moment for the family.

I also want to thank the folks who work on the technical aspect of this.

I want to thank Chris Pepe, Elizabeth Arts.

Joshua Newman and all the committee staff who spent countless of hours of working on this bill.

I want to thank and give a huge shout out to my deputy chief of staff, Max in the back right here, and Simon, our comms director, who have taken a lot of calls all throughout the nights, morning, and weekend to finally get to this point.

So thank you, guys.

We definitely wouldn't be here without you.

But I also want to thank the advocates, and one especially.

I want to thank Adita from Night Class, who for years have been told that this was an impossible task, that they should go do something else and probably said it in worse language than that.

But she stayed committed.

She did what's right.

She cared about the horses.

She understood that this city will get there, but she had to continue on the course.

So to Adita, to PETA, to Voters for Animal Rights, thank you for all the hard work.

And to everyone in the gallery and everyone watching at home who voted for a poll to make this end, you guys made this happen.

Enough is enough.

Let's get this done.

Thank you all.

I honor.

Thank you, counselor.