Life After Term Limits - C. Virginia Fields

Term limits may apply to C. Virginia Fields’s days in elective office, but they have no bearing in her private life, where she has found other ways to use her experience in politics.

“Yes, there is life beyond term limits,” Fields says when asked this question, “and I’m using much of this time to reflect on my years as a public servant and how best to use that valuable experience.”

After serving two four-year terms as New York City’s first Black councilwoman (beginning in 1989) and two-terms as borough president, from 1997 to 2005, Fields was unsuccessful in her mayoral bid in the last election. “I do not support term limits,” she told The Network Journal in a telephone interview. “I think it is a misguided way to govern, and the voters should be re-engaged to consider whether it should continue.”

Though she currently holds no political position, Fields is as energetic as ever. She’s been catching up with friends and contemplating how to take some social and political issues to the next level. “One of the purposes I had when I entered politics was to find ways to use the government as a tool, as a catalyst to change the system and to initiate policies that might empower people,” she began. “My aim was to do some things that couldn’t be done in the private sector.”

And some of these accomplishments stand as her legacy. Particularly significant is what she did to improve the economic and commercial life along Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. “There was a lot of city-owned property on the street that had been badly neglected, and what was done there to remove the blight is indicative of what can be done with a little vision and determination,” she said. Fields gave the same concern to economic development on Roosevelt Island, at Bellevue Hospital and in the realm of housing, education and health care throughout the city.

“There is still much work to be done in these areas, especially in academic performance and with so many people dying from preventable and treatable diseases,” Fields added. “In this real estate–driven market, where we are lagging behind in economic growth, there is a pressing need to do more about the quality of life in our city.”

Improving the quality of life in the city has been a priority for Fields ever since she arrived in New York City in 1971 after earning an undergraduate degree at Knoxville College, Tenn., and a master’s degree in social work at Indiana University. One of her first jobs was as an administrator of social services for the Children’s Aid Society. Subsequently she was a supervisor of social services for the city’s Work Release program and later a consultant to the National Board of the YWCA.

Never one to bite her tongue, Fields expressed her disappointment that N.Y.C. Mayor Michael Bloomberg failed to choose more people of color as deputy mayors. “He expanded the number of deputy mayors to seven, but there is still only one Hispanic and one Black,” she lamented. “What this means is that major decisions will be made and we won’t be there. This is very disturbing, and the media should hold the mayor accountable for this.”

The media certainly weren’t asleep when it was reported that Fields had spent more than $40,000 mailing out “farewell newsletters.” “First of all, that amount is not exorbitant when you consider I sent out two newsletters,” she explained. “If I had sent out the one while I was running for office, it would have appeared as though I was using it as campaign literature. That’s why I delayed it.” In effect, two issues came out at the same time, and that accounts for the additional cost, she said.

Is there another political run in the future for Fields? I’m open to discussion,” she said. She intimated that she had been approached for a possible state senate bid if David Paterson decides to run as lieutenant governor with Eliot Spitzer. “I’ll have to wait and to see what value such a candidacy would have for me and for the community.”

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By Herb Boyd