Joel Rivera
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Joel Rivera (b. 1978) is the current Majority Leader of the New York City Council. The youngest person to be elected to the City Council in its history, at the age of 22, and to be elected Majority Leader, the following year, Rivera was chosen to represent District 15 in the Bronx in a special election held in November 2001 and re-elected two years later. He represents the Bronx communities of Bathgate, Belmont, Crotona, Fordham, East Tremont, and West Farms.
In addition to being Majority Leader, Rivera is the chairman of the City Council Committee on Health, which exercises oversight over the Department of Health, Health and Hospitals Corporation, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. He chairs both the State & Federal Legislation and the Charter Revision Committees as well. He is also a member of the Finance, Housing & Buildings, Land use, Rules, Privileges & Elections, and Zoning & Franchises committees.
Recent legislation of his has focussed on improving the health of the city's children. In the summer of 2006, he introduced a bill that sought to use the city's zoning laws to restrict the proliferation of fast food restaurants in the city and more recently, he introduced a bill that would raise the legal smoking age in New York City to 21. Both bills, whatever their intentions, mark shifts towards an increasingly paternal government that troubles some. Specifically, the latter bill effectively seeks to revoke the right to purchase cigarettes from certain legal adults in the population.
Rivera is the son of New York State Assemblyman Jose Rivera.
He is a graduate of New York Military Academy, and attended Fordham University.
