By Daniel Macht

Last month, Yvonne Graham made a decision that cost her $17,500. After six years as Marty Markowitz’s deputy, the 56-year-old decided to step down from the job. She did not go far, though: now a special assistant to the borough president, she helps in planning events and conferences.
And if she gets her way, she will not be going far for years to come: Graham took the pay cut and new position to allow her to start raising money to run for borough president herself next year, when Markowitz will be term-limited out of office.
Graham said her boss was behind her in this decision.
“We have a wonderful relationship,” Graham said. “Marty supports me in whatever endeavor I want to pursue.”  
Asked if Markowitz had endorsed her for the job, Graham demurred.  But she did say that the two of them had “worked hand-in-hand as partners.”
According to Graham, Markowitz shares this view.
“That’s what he said: ‘You have my support,’” Graham said.
The daughter of Jamaican activists, Graham moved to New York in the 1970s “like everyone who has come before me, to realize the American dream, to get educational opportunities, to own a home and support my family.”
As an emergency room nurse at Brookdale Hospital, Graham said she saw many with preventable ailments. She began to pool resources with colleagues and later founded the Caribbean Women’s Health Association.
For 25 years, Graham said she has tried to help marginalized communities learn how government could work for them, and in her years as deputy borough president, she worked on persuading the city’s Department of Health to lessen bureaucratic delays for other non-profit organizations.
She also helped form a partnership with SUNY Downstate Medical Center and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban health to create a Brooklyn-based health center focused on reducing cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS, asthma and diabetes.
In her new, reduced role, Graham said she hopes to come up with a recommendation that suits Brooklyn and New York City after meeting with experts at a health care conference she has planned for April 4.  
With next year’s elections approaching, four of the five borough presidents term-limited out of office, and the fifth, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, rumored to be considering a citywide run instead of seeking re-election, the deputy borough presidents are beginning to consider life after 2009.
Graham is not the only one with a varied résumé or an eye to the future. City Hall caught up with all five deputy borough presidents, who reflected on how they got their jobs, what they have been focusing on, and what might be next.

Rosemonde Pierre-Louis
Manhattan
Rosemonde Pierre-Louis never cared too much about exercise. Then her boss, Scott Stringer, made her the point person of his “Go Green East Harlem” initiative, which looks to promote health, nutrition and environmental conservation in Upper Manhattan.
Pierre-Louis felt she had to lead by example.   
Since January, four days a week, she has woken up at 4:30 a.m. for boot camp. The 43-year old Harlem resident heads off to a local fitness center, where she sticks to a tight regimen which includes running and kickboxing.
That leads her into long days that often run into nights and weekends with the rest of her official duties on the job.
“I don’t have that much free time,” said Pierre-Louis, who lives alone with her dog Kelly, a pit bull-German shepherd mix.
Before joining Stringer’s administration, Pierre-Louis spent 18 years as a legal advocate for victims of domestic violence. Even when dealing with horrible cases of abuse, Pierre-Louis said the work helped keep her spirits high.  
“It never gets depressing when you are able to assist victims that have decided to extricate themselves from their relationships,” Pierre-Louis said.
That advocacy work was what brought her to Stinger’s attention. Even though the borough president did not know Pierre-Louis personally, his team asked her to apply for the deputy position. She became the city’s first Haitian-American deputy borough president.
Pierre-Louis attends community meetings most nights after work, and has spent the past few weekends meeting with potential community board appointees. She said she is helping Stringer depoliticize the process.     
“No other borough has an independent screening panel for community board applicants,” she said. “If the person does not pass the process, they don’t get through.”
But she is not blind to politics. Stringer is thought to be eyeing a run for public advocate next year, but Pierre-Louis said she thinks he would make a good mayor.
“I think he has potential,” she said.
Pierre-Louis sidestepped a question about her own political ambitions. But she did not rule out a run for elected office.
“I do want to continue in government service,” she said. “This has been an incredible experience.”

Karen Koslowitz
Queens
“I am lucky for who I am working for,” Karen Koslowitz said of Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. “The only thing I can’t do is legislation.”
Back when she was on the Council, she saw one theatergoer carry a disabled person up the stairs to his seat and worried what would happen in a fire. She sponsored a bill to expand handicap accessibility.
After a nude club moved into her Forest Hills neighborhood, Koslowitz sponsored legislation to bar such clubs throughout the city.   
Eager to get back to legislating, the 65-year-old Queens deputy borough president plans to step down in the spring to run for the Council seat she was term-limited out of, now held by term-limited Melinda Katz.
With term limits bearing down on her in 2001, she briefly ran for the borough presidency, but she was denied public financing for filing late paperwork, and withdrew. She campaigned for Marshall. That helped earn her the job as Marshall’s deputy.
By the time they came into office in 2002, budget cuts had whittled down 100 Queens Borough Hall staff positions to 57. To fill in the gaps, Koslowitz added the responsibilities of community board director and parks director to her portfolio.
Koslowitz said days at the office generally start at 8:30 a.m. and go for 12 hours straight.
“When you love what you do, there is no clock,” she said.  
One major recent project has been rebuilding Community Board 13 in Eastern Queens. Tensions among the board’s leaders eventually led to the district manager resigning by a letter which told the chair and others, “You can take this job and shove it!!!”
Koslowitz said she will supervise the board’s next few meetings, and is meeting individually with members at her office to try to resolve the problems.
Whether as a deputy borough president or on the Council, Koslowitz said she puts a premium on being accessible to constituents.
“I love helping people, putting a smile on their face,” she said.

Earl Brown
Bronx
Earl Brown lives in Brooklyn. A former student at Brooklyn College, Brown, 53, is president of his co-op board in Prospect Heights.
And for the past six years, Brown has commuted to his job nearly seven days a week as deputy borough president of the Bronx.  
“You can liken it to adoptive parents,” he said. “I chose you. I chose the Bronx. I think it is one of the most fantastic places on the face of the Earth.”   
Brown got his start in politics in the ‘70s as the community board’s liaison for then-Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein. He later went to work for Brooklyn President Howard Golden.
After serving as press secretary and ultimately a senior director for the School Construction Authority, Brown became an associate vice president of the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. That job put him in contact with then-Council Member Adolfo Carrión Jr., who later appointed Brown deputy in 2002.
Though Brown enjoys his current job, he said he misses the days of the Board of Estimate, when borough presidents wielded more power.
“It is really difficult to have a central government relate on an intimate basis with the needs of individuals,” Brown said. “The BP tends to have a much more bird’s-eye view of the needs of people who live within their boroughs.”
Still, Brown points to his office’s role in helping bring 20,000 construction jobs related to the Yankees’ new stadium, 30 percent of which went to Bronx residents.
Brown also touts his borough’s lowered unemployment rate and 40,000 new housing units. The credit, Brown says, should go to Carrión.
“He is the person who should get all the press,” Brown said of his boss. “Any work I do is on his behalf.”
While not ruling out a run for elected office himself, Brown said he would likely try to find another job in government once Carrión is term-limited out in 2009.
“The sky is the limit,” Brown said. “I am interested in public service and the ability to have a substantial positive impact.”

Ed Burke
Staten Island
A couple of years ago, representatives from the Staten Island Museum came to Deputy Borough President Ed Burke’s office with a request for increased funding. He told them that he would help if they secured a new exhibit for the museum.
“That’s fine,” Burke recalled telling them. “But first I have to see a pre-historic animal skeleton.”   
The museum soon had a mastodon’s skull. A skeleton would soon follow, the representatives told Burke.
Burke claimed victory.
“I call the mastodon project a mammoth undertaking,” he said.
After 23 years in government, Burke said he is proud also of his role in more complex undertakings: slowing development, widening roads and helping his boss, James Molinaro, in a mission to revitalize the South Beach Boardwalk.
Still, Burke’s favorite role is as facilitator and cheerleader for the rebirth of Staten Island’s cultural attractions and 9,800 acres of parks.
“We’ve changed our image as the borough with the largest landfill to the borough of parks,” he said, noting how instrumental the borough president was in shutting down the Fresh Kills landfill.
Burke grew up in Brooklyn, where his grandfather used to take him to zoos and museums. Now 49 and a resident of Staten Island, Burke said those experiences still inspire him, and led him to join the board of the Staten Island Zoo and volunteer to improve a local animal shelter.
Before being appointed deputy borough president, he worked as communications director and executive assistant to Molinaro’s predecessor, Guy Molinari, and earlier as Molinari’s congressional press secretary.
While working for Molinari, Burke discovered a new talent. Molinari was then trying to bring the Yankees’ minor league team to Staten Island, and Burke helped produce a video for the beginning of his 1999 State of the Borough which had the then-borough president acting out a scene from Field of Dreams.
Burke has continued the video tradition under Molinaro.
“I’m the first to admit that these speeches can be boring unless you make an effort to make serious subjects entertaining,” he said.
Despite his years working for elected officials, Burke rules out running for elected office himself. He does not know yet what he will do after Molinaro is termed out of office at the end of next year—some days he wants to stay in government, others he considers moving to the private sector.
“Being an elected official requires a passion for that job,” Burke said. “I like being behind-the-scenes to make that official successful."