it’s a girl

Ben Kallos and his wife have their first child — and the new father steps back from his day job on the City Council

BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN

A healthy baby girl weighing in at eight pounds, seven ounces was born late last week to Upper East Side City Council Member Ben Kallos and his wife, his office announced on Monday, February 5th.

In anticipation, the 37-year-old Democratic incumbent began a fully paid six-week paternity leave on Thursday, February 1st, which he had disclosed to fellow Council members and constituents only the day before.

He is putting aside his Council tasks in the month of February and will stagger two additional weeks off after that to attend to child-rearing duties.

“My wife and I are more than a little nervous,” Kallos told Council members. “Helping to settle our nerves is knowing that we will be there for each other ... I mean this literally, as we are both lucky to have the option of paid parental leave — an option that is extended to far too few Americans.”

Fellow officeholders greeted his leave-taking with warm and sustained applause.

The leave comes less than three months after Kallos romped to reelection in the general election on November 7th by a lopsided margin of 80 percent.

It also follows by three weeks a reshuffling of committee assignments by newly installed City Council Speaker Corey Johnson in which he lost his post as the chair of the Council’s Governmental Operations Committee, a coveted portfolio, and became chair of its Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions and Concessions.

A FAMILY’S PRIVACY

The third-generation East Sider, who was first elected in 2013, declined through a spokesman to identify his daughter — and newest constituent — by her full name.

Citing privacy concerns, he also declined to provide the name of the hospital where she was born, and such details as height, eye color and even the exact date of birth.

As for the mother, who uses her husband’s last name, she is being identified only as “Mrs. Kallos,” the spokesman said. Around the office, Kallos said in December, she is simply known as “Ben’s wife.”

The first male City Council member known to have taken paternal leave was Dan Garodnick, who left office on December 31st because of term limits and took two separate leaves, in 2011 and 2013, when his wife, Zoe, gave birth to their sons, Asher and Devin.

Brooklyn City Council Member Antonio Reynoso is also currently on paid paternity leave, and Kallos is believed to be the third male Council member to take family leave for the birth of a child.

Kallos hadn’t mentioned his wife’s pregnancy during his reelection campaign, and he also did not say that he’d be taking a leave, although it wasn’t immediately clear at what point he actually made the decision to take the six weeks off.

He had briefed staffers about his wife’s pregnancy around the time of the election last year. Constituents learned she was expecting, and he was going on leave, only when he announced it at the Council meeting.

In Kallos’ absence, Jesse Towsen, his chief of staff since 2014, will be running the office, but he won’t be able to vote at stated Council meetings.

“I hope that our society begins to expect from its fathers that they will take full paid paternity leave,” Kallos told his colleagues.

Kallos also noted that he “proudly” supported Governor Andrew Cuomo’s paid family leave, which started on January 1 and provides private-sector employees with up to eight weeks off at 50 percent pay.