Six who 'give their whole' honored with Sloan Awards

Celestina Leon, the district manager at Brooklyn’s Community Board 4 and a winner this year of a Sloan Public Service Award, sought to become a writer but was having a hard time finding a job in publishing after graduating from college.

“I wasn’t really having much success, and [my dad] had mentioned that often local elected officials need support with strong writers. ‘You’re a strong writer, maybe there will be an opportunity there for you,’” she said at the award ceremony held Thursday night at the New York Historical Society. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know about that, I don’t really get the politics thing, it’s a bunch of stuffy folks up in Albany.’ But I needed a job.”

Leon took on a “temporary” role as a communications assistant for Rafael Espinal, a state Assembly Member at the time. “Twelve years later, here I am,” Leon said. 

She followed Espinal to the City Council, where he represented Bushwick, East New York and Cypress Hills, and was eventually asked in 2017 to become the district manager of Community Board 4, which represents Bushwick. Although Leon was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, and attended Boston University, her family had roots in Bushwick.

“It was a homecoming of sorts,” she said.

Leon is among six city workers who were awarded the Sloan Public Service Award this year from the Fund for the City of New York, which for the last 50 years has honored municipal workers for demonstrating an outstanding commitment to the city.

“The Sloan winners — extraordinary civil servants whose efforts benefit New Yorkers every day, exemplify the remarkable talent within New York City’s 300,000 government workers. Despite facing significant challenges, these individuals serve the city with expertise and integrity,” said Aldrin Rafael Bonilla, the executive vice president of the Fund for the City of New York. “The Sloan Public Service Awards are a heartfelt expression of gratitude for their exceptional service to the community we cherish.”

Fund officials visited the worksites of each recipient of this year’s award to present them with checks for $10,000.

'I could make a difference'

For award winner Vimi Bhatia, deputy chief of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Elder Abuse Unit, her decision to enter the criminal justice field was sparked at least in part by a family tragedy. “When I was nine-years-old, my grandfather was murdered. It was a hate crime, and we never got any justice for it,” she said. 

A first-generation immigrant whose family came from India, Bhatia also said that her parents pushed her towards professional careers such as engineering and law, the latter of which piqued her interest. “When I started pursuing law, criminal law, criminal justice was the most interesting to me and where I felt like I could absolutely make a difference,” she said.

Bhatia has worked at Manhattan DA’s office for more than 24 years, beginning as an assistant district attorney in the trial bureau, where she was involved in street crime cases, such as robberies, assaults and drug offences. She became the senior investigative counsel in the DA’s Major Economic Crimes unit before joining the Manhattan Child Advocacy Center as an assistant district attorney in 2018.

“It’s always difficult when you hear about a child being hurt or mistreated. That said, there’s a sense of accomplishment when you’re doing something to get justice or to help a child get out of that situation,” Bhatia said.

Earlier this year, Bhatia decided to join the Elder Abuse Unit, noting that she wanted to learn more. “I felt as though after five years at the child advocacy center I had done everything that I could do to get it set up for the next person to come in,” she said. “Elder abuse seemed like the perfect fit because [it was] dealing with vulnerable people; I was dealing with vulnerable children. And a lot of the cases have a financial component too, so it’s not just physical or sexual abuse, it’s also financial abuse.”

'My story is in New York'

Born and raised in Jamaica, Queens, award winner Jade Bailey, the director of the Department of Design and Construction’s Design-Build Unit, was good at math and science but also enjoyed dancing. 

“I was in dance school one day and I was tutoring one of the students there. Their parents had suggested that I get involved in STEM. And that’s exactly what I did,” Bailey, who has worked at DDC since 2014, said at the award ceremony.

After studying civil engineering at Temple University, Bailey began working for a private-sector firm in Philadelphia that was doing work for the City of New York. “I heard about some opportunities to actually work for the city and so I decided to apply,” she said. “I missed home, I love my city. I loved Philadelphia; in certain ways it added to my story, but I knew my story was here in New York.”

The winners spoke of their biggest challenges and accomplishments on the job.

Leon highlighted her involvement in the Bushwick Community Plan, which worked to prioritize community objectives related to housing, transportation and economic development. Making sure that people are aware of their community boards was an especially important goal of hers moving forward. “Thinking about the future of this city, there’s a lot of fear and concern about democracy at the most foundational, grassroots level,” she said. “How do we prepare people to be champions of their community?”

In 2020, Bailey was tasked with managing the construction of a COVID-19 Center of Excellence site in Jackson Heights, Queens, which opened in March 2021. “It was an amazing opportunity to partner with [NYC] Health + Hospitals to basically start a facility to help patients have critical services that they need to deal with long Covid,” she said. “We were starting to see it across the city, people having symptoms that just weren’t leaving unfortunately. So it was really nice to be able to respond in that way."

Bailey added that she was “shocked” when she found out that she had been selected for the Sloan Public Service Award. “I was completely stunned because I know there are many New Yorkers who work day in and day out for the city, so to choose me, I’m just beyond humbled. I’m honored,” she said. “I’d like to be a representation of young girls, young women, to say that … you can bring your whole self, and the whole expression of yourself to your work and it can shine through.”

Other award recipients include Alex Kipp, whose background in theater helped him in his role as the director of education and engagement at the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, and Margaret Forgione, the first deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation who launched the Adopt-a-Highway program.

James Reichman, an FDNY captain who served in the Army during the Gulf War, was also honored. 

clewis@thechiefleader.com