Face-To-Face with Phil Goldfeder

COMMUNITY MAN “I never had a huge legislative agenda. Every one of my bills had a very specific focus on helping my district. I wasn’t interested in writing bills for their own sake but looked for things that impacted the communities I represent” (Photos: Amit Levy)

The story that has brought me to New York State Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder’s district office in the Rockaways on a sunny July morning has a distinct “man bites dog” feel to it. Am I really here to speak with an admired politician who’s actually leaving his post after just five years and not due to scandal or ambition for higher office? An elected official who decided that being away from his young family six months out of the year wasn’t right for him? What are there still people like that in government?

I had interviewed Goldfeder three years ago a year after Hurricane Sandy the cataclysmic superstorm that hitNew Yorkon October 29 2012 just a year after he was first elected. The storm damaged or devastated 85 percent of his constituents’ homes including his own — earning his turf the sobriquet of “the Disaster District.”

Phil and I had toured Far Rockaway in October 2013 to reminisce about those difficult days and assess how recovery efforts were proceeding. My Mishpacha magazine account of that interview is now prominently showcased on the walls of his legislative office and I get a laugh when I introduce myself to his staff as “the assemblyman’s biographer.”