David G Greenfield

Life and career

He is the founding director and counsel of TEACH NYS and prior to his election served as the executive vice president of the Sephardic Community Federation.

As Director and Counsel of TEACH NYS, Greenfield organized statewide advocacy campaigns that resulted in private and public school parents receiving tax breaks and private schools receiving more government assistance. Greenfield served as deputy director of finance in Senator Joseph Lieberman's 2004 presidential campaign. Prior to that, he had a stint as chief of staff to Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

Greenfield is ranked as the 51st most powerful New Yorker in City & State's most recent Power 100 list, ranking him one slot behind billionaire political activist George Soros.

Greenfield is Orthodox Jewish and prays in R' Landau's Synagogue in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, among other Orthodox shuls in the neighborhood. Greenfield voted against a 2010 bill that required the City Clerks office to post on its website, and hand out at its office, information on where exactly in the U.S. and the world same sex couples are able to get married.

New York City Council

On January 7, 2010 Greenfield announced his candidacy on the Zev Brenner radio show to replace Simcha Felder. Felder announced his resignation after accepting the post as the new deputy comptroller for accounting and budget under John Liu. Greenfield received powerful endorsements from groups and politicians from both sides of the aisle, including US Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch NY State Senators Carl Kruger, Martin J. Golden. He received the support of local NYC council members Domenic Recchia, Lewis Fidler, Michael C. Nelson, and Vincent J. Gentile, as well as the backing of the Kings County Conservative Party and then Kings County Democratic county leader Vito Lopez and the good government group Citizens Union.

He was elected in his first term by his Brooklyn colleagues to co-chair the Brooklyn delegation and serve as their representative on the Budget Negotiating Team of the New York City Council. He has since gone on to become the chair of the powerful Land Use Committee of the New York City Council.

Greenfield has appeared as a commentator on many national news shows including Fox & Friends and is a frequent political commentator in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal among other national newspapers.

Greenfield denounced an Anti-Semitic outburst in New York City Council Chamber by pro-Palestine activists protesting commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Greenfield is considered a political moderate in a liberal New York City Council. Greenfield authored a law that banned the Department of Sanitation from placing hard-to-remove stickers on vehicles that were parked on the wrong-side of the street. He co-authored a law that requires the Department of Education to notify parents and teachers about potentially harmful polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) in classrooms. Greenfield also introduced a law that would stop New York City from towing cars for unpaid parking tickets and instead boot the car. Greenfield's proposed legislation was adopted by the New York City Council Department of Finance as a pilot program in June 2012. Greenfield is also the author of the Vision Zero legislation that lowers the default speed-limit in New York City to 25 Miles Per Hour. This legislation is the lynchpin of Vision Zero and is widely considered to be the key strategy behind saving lives by reducing traffic accidents in New York City.

Greenfield is a long-time advocate for increased government funding for public and non-public (including religious) schools.

In July 2017 he announced that he would not be seeking a third term, and would instead be taking over as CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, when Alan Schoor retires in 2018.