Kathryn Garcia's N.Y.C. Mayor Endorsement Interview

Kathryn Garcia is a longtime civil servant who served as commissioner of New York City’s Sanitation Department.

This interview with Ms. Garcia was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on April 30.

Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic primary here.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Thank you for joining us today. We don’t have very much time together, so we do just want to jump into questions. Because we don’t have very much time, brevity would be very appreciated. So I just wanted to start off by asking you why you want this job — I’m sorry, I’m hearing an echo. I’ll fix that once we start talking — and also why you’re the best candidate in the field. And finally, are you going to ask Andrew Yang to join your team when you’re in City Hall?

I’ll do the last one first. I’ve made no plans for specific people in my administration at this time, but we can always have a head cheerleader.

[Mr. Yang has said he’d like to be the city’s “evangelist and cheerleader in chief.”]

But I would say I’m running for mayor because I fundamentally love this city. And I know that I have the qualifications to get the job done for New Yorkers, with a real vision about how we can make programs work more equitably for people, and to really make sure that we’re treating New Yorkers like customers. I know what that means, and I understand how to get it done, which is why I’m both running and the best candidate for mayor.

Mara Gay: Thank you for that. At City Hall, you served as sanitation commissioner. The mayor gave you some of the city’s toughest jobs: food czar during the pandemic, lead abatement at NYCHA. How does your experience as a city manager prepare you to be mayor? I have a follow-up to that, but I’ll leave it there for now.

You know, the mayor’s job fundamentally has many pieces. You are the booster for the City of New York — you have to be able to talk about everything that we all love. But you also have to be the leader of 300,000-plus employees and get them to show up and do their work every day. And you have to know where your pitfalls are going to be: How are these agencies going to interact, and how are you going to make them work as a team? That doesn’t come automatically. And that is what I have systematically done, whether or not it was in lead, crossovers between D.O.B. and D.O.H.M.H. and NYCHA to effectively make change.

And it’s what I did during Covid for ensuring that we were keeping everyone fed. You know, taxi drivers for delivery, Parks Department employees at the distribution hubs, many contract people, ensuring that we were using caterers to prepare food, putting together those teams and effectively delivering for New Yorkers, because at the end of the day, that is the one person I’m always thinking about. Who’s in the Bronx, who’s in Brooklyn, who’s in Staten Island, who’s in Manhattan, who is happy with the service that they got from the city.

Mara Gay: How would you assess the mayor’s management style, and what would you do differently?

The mayor is not a manager. The mayor has been a public advocate, and that is where he got his training. I fundamentally manage differently. It is about bringing the smartest people together, listening to them, developing the plan and holding people accountable for delivery. That is very different than what we have today.

[Bill de Blasio was the public advocate before he became mayor. The public advocate acts as an ombudsman for the people of the city and a government watchdog. The public advocate is also first in line to become mayor in the event the sitting mayor is incapacitated.]

Mara Gay: So as you said just a minute ago, a mayor has to do a lot more than manage the city. Can you talk a little bit about how you would perform the other tasks of mayor as the cheerleader, the negotiator, the chief lobbyist, the ambassador for the city in Albany and D.C.?

Certainly. So in some ways, I’ve had microcosms of that role in the roles that I have had. I have had to go to Albany to advocate for funding for NYCHA. I have had to do the hard work of ensuring that the Sanitation Department really felt led and boostered. I have done fun things that promoted New York. I actually got two sanitation workers into Vogue because we made partnerships with a fashion designer to talk about textile waste. Unusual, interesting and a little bit of fun. We have to be able to celebrate New York City and embed all of these different, really talented people into our goals.

[The artist and designer Heron Preston began a collaboration with the city’s Department of Sanitation, which was featured in Vogue in 2016.]

Jesse Wegman: I want to move to the Police Department. We’ve all watched the last two mayors be essentially steamrolled by their police commissioners. You come out with some interesting and pretty specific plans for the department, including raising the age of recruits and ensuring that officers live in the city. How would your overall approach be different and make sure that the department is accountable both to the mayor and to the people of New York? And specifically, how would you deal with the New York police union?

[Mr. de Blasio had a fraught relationship with the Police Department, and both he and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg adopted a hands-off approach to their commissioners.]

N.Y.P.D. is made up of officers who are actually — or should be — residents of New York but are actually just people. We have a real opportunity at this moment — we have upper-level management leaving in droves — to formally reshape this entire organization. But I hold my people accountable. I don’t understand why the current mayor doesn’t hold his police commissioner accountable for delivering.

When we think about what needs to transact, we have to make it so that discipline is really transparent. Otherwise, you are not going to rebuild trust with communities. You know one of the things that’s true? There are five deputy assistant district attorneys. There are U.S. attorneys. We sort of outsource discipline away from the police commissioner, as well as the chiefs. That is where it needs to be. Fundamentally, the mayor has to hold them accountable for doing that.

And when it comes to the union, you sit down with labor. I sit down with labor. I am very open to labor issues. I don’t get steamrolled by labor. Nobody has ever accused the Teamsters of being pushovers. I have been able to work incredibly effectively with them to make sure we got the job done.

Jesse Wegman: I think the steamrolling was done primarily by the commissioner within the last two administrations. Can you tell us what kind of commissioner you would choose or even give us some names of potential candidates?

I am not picking a candidate now. It feels like that could jinx the election by presuming that I already have the title. I know I need to go ask people for their vote, but I do have some fundamental characteristics that I need from a police commissioner.

I need to know that they are completely on board with the agenda that I have set and been very clear about; that they have the management chops to get it done; that they are prepared for culture change, which means that you’re going to have to take some tough stances; and that they understand that I will work with them to make that happen. But I am not necessarily looking for just a cop’s cop, which is what others seem to be choosing over and over again.

Nick Fox: In an online Q. and A. you said the police commissioner should have the final say on disciplining officers. Why? Commissioners don’t have a very good record on holding officers accountable for misconduct.

[Ms. Garcia, splitting from some of her rival candidates, has said, “My police commissioner would be strictly accountable to me on discipline decisions, and I would hire someone I trust to have final authority on that decision.”]

The past commissioners have not had a very good track record of holding people accountable on discipline. But if you don’t make them responsible for discipline, then you’re giving them an out — that they are not fundamentally responsible for managing their force and for holding the chain of command completely responsible for ensuring that discipline is maintained.

They should have been disciplining for not wearing masks last summer. Beyond the things that are really egregious, you have to do the little stuff to be able to maintain your authority in a paramilitary organization. I have that experience. I understand how to get that done.

Brent Staples: Hi. What would you have done specifically in these last instances when the Police Department sort of broke discipline — this whole kettling thing with demonstrators and not wearing masks and just flouting everything? What would you have done at that point as mayor?

[A 111-page report by New York’s Department of Investigation found that the N.Y.P.D. mishandled protests against police brutality last summer and that some police officers violated protesters’ First Amendment rights through their use of aggressive tactics.]

As mayor? Well, hopefully my police commissioner is doing this, so I don’t have to do it. If it was me —

Brent Staples: What, specifically, would you have done?

Very specifically? First and foremost, for every mask you don’t wear, you get a day. We take a day. That is the way discipline works. If you are kettling — which I actually think was ordered by people not on the front lines, people who were there, more the white shirt than the blue shirts.

As soon as I saw video of what that was, I would have said this is not a tactic we’re going to use. And I was out there. I saw what was happening with kettling. I let City Hall know that it increases the tension. You just turned the peaceful protest into an altercation. And so it would have just been very clear that you can’t do that. And then I would say that like there should have been discipline immediately for the pepper spray in the face, for the use of batons sort of willy-nilly. We were all watching it. If you’re the mayor and you’re not watching it — because as I recall, he just kept saying, ‘I didn’t see the video.’ That’s unacceptable.

Kathleen Kingsbury: I’m going to change the subject for a minute. The city is facing deep financial shortfalls. And right now we obviously have some funding from the federal government, but the next couple of years are going to be pretty tough. Could you talk a little bit about what you see as what the mayor’s relationship should be to New York City’s business community and how you would make the heads of companies, for instance, comfortable coming back to the city and bringing those tax dollars with them?

The next few years in the city are going to be tough. I don’t think we should be naïve about that, but it will require all of us at the table, and all of our talents, to come back strong. And I fundamentally believe that what differentiates New York City from anywhere else in the country is our diversity, our arts, our culture, our restaurants. Supporting those organizations helps us bring back businesses, because why would you want to go to the office if you can’t get lunch? Why would you want to go to the office if you don’t feel safe on the subway? You’re not. You’re going to push back on that. But employers want their employees back in the offices. That is what I hear time and time again.

And what I hear from folks in the big business community is that they want to be at the table and helping, that they want to be part of the solution. And I know the more livable we make this city, the more attractive it is for people to stay, the more attractive it is for people to move here and the more attractive it is for people to visit here. That brings business. We need to focus on the people and not on the business, because they will follow talent.

Kathleen Kingsbury: You know, many New Yorkers know your work really well, if not necessarily your name. How would you describe your political views? Do you consider yourself a liberal, a progressive, a moderate?

I would actually describe myself as a very practical progressive. I want to make sure that we get the work done. When I was sanitation commercial commissioner, commercial waste zones and that concept had languished for decades. Getting everyone to the table and hashing through what that needed to be and really driving it fundamentally is going to change the city and reduce truck traffic by 50 percent in the private sector. That’s the type of work that I want to continue to be able to do. That’s why I get up every morning.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Eleanor, do you want to jump in?

Eleanor Randolph: So to follow Katie’s question, you know, you’ve been described as a great city manager. I think Politico said that that was your strength, and the question was whether or not you could move beyond that. We talked about that a little bit, but, how do you convince New Yorkers that you are that person, and how do you get beyond, like, 4 to 6 percent in the polls, which is where most of the polls show you right now?

[A recent poll conducted by NY1 and Ipsos found that 29 percent of likely New York voters were familiar with Ms. Garcia.]

I know that the voters want someone who can fix it but also be optimistic about our future, and be enthusiastic about where this city can go and how we can come together as a city. And being out and in the public, finally off of the world of Zoom, we are about to do some big things, both with media as well as with endorsements, and we are looking forward to ensuring that my name is out there. I know that our message works because I’m talking to voters. I can tell that this is what they want from their next mayor. They want to be led out of this crisis, and they want to have some optimism, and they want to be assured that you actually can do it. They don’t want to be sold a rose garden and not have faith that it’s actually going to get executed on.

Mara Gay: You want to ask about housing, Binya?

Binyamin Appelbaum: New York City has the nation’s largest homeless population. You have said that that’s unacceptable, but you’ve also proposed to create 10,000 units of supportive housing, which is vastly inadequate to the problem. Could you explain why you have set such a modest goal and how you would address homelessness?

[The number of single adults who slept in a city shelter reached 43,803 last year. That is the population most likely to need supportive housing. But the Coalition for the Homeless estimates there is only one available unit of supportive housing for every five applicants who complete the city’s approval process.]

So 10,000 units of supportive housing are primarily for those who are street homeless and not for family homelessness. I fundamentally believe that that is ultimately primarily an economic problem and that we need to make sure that we have the support services — but just give them a voucher that actually could pay the rent. We know that if we do that, that we will have better outcomes for kids, that we will have better outcomes for their parents and that they will actually be healthier.

Binyamin Appelbaum: But your first-term goal is to house 50 percent of that street homeless population. Why is it acceptable for 50 percent of the street homeless population to still be homeless at the end of your first term?

I believe that this is what is achievable in terms of looking and digging into the numbers of what I can get produced in the first term.

Binyamin Appelbaum: How many more units of housing do you think New York needs to build to address its affordable-housing crisis?

[From 2010 to 2019, New York City added 197,558 housing units. Over the same decade, the city added more than 900,000 jobs. The gap between job growth and housing growth is a key reason housing prices were on the rise before the pandemic — and are likely to climb as the city recovers.]

Oh, New York needs to build tens of thousands of units of housing, but not only affordable housing. It needs to build across the board because we have been in a housing crisis since 1947, and all of us have lived through that. Everything has been unaffordable for the entire time. But we need to make sure that we are getting into the ground with our subsidy: the 50,000 units of affordable housing and the 10,000 units of supportive housing. And in addition, that we are streamlining the permit and application process so that folks are actually building across the city.

Binyamin Appelbaum: Should members of the City Council be able to block affordable housing projects in their district?

You know, this is — this is a challenge where I don’t believe they should. As mayor, council discretion is something that I will work with, with the speaker, but that is fundamentally in their court. I actually don’t think they should be blocking projects that benefit the entire city. For example, projects that support job creation. But we also need to make sure that we are working with communities. Many times they see things when we’re already past the rendering stage. They feel as if they have no input into what’s happening. As mayor, I know that I can change that relationship so that they are able to be a part of this. But we need to get things built in this city.

Mara Gay: Brent, do you want to ask about education?

Brent Staples: In your mind, how serious a problem is segregation in the school system and particularly in the most important, competitive high schools? Is that important to you? And what would you do about it?

[Once again this year, only a tiny number of Black and Latino children were admitted to the city’s top public high schools. Just eight Black students were admitted to Stuyvesant. Ms. Garcia and Dianne Morales are both alumnae.]

There is fundamental segregation in the city’s school system, and there has been for years. First and foremost, what I would do about it is eliminate the 4-year-old gifted and talented test to make sure that we had magnet programs in every single school. It’s one of the more expensive pieces of my policies because we systematically don’t fund our schools with any equivalence.

I would eliminate screens at the middle school level, because a kid is not late for school in the second grade because they decide to be late when they were 8. They did not have the support from a parent or guardian, so we should not be holding them accountable for that.

We need to increase our standards and make sure that we are doing algebra … But we also, in those early years, need to make sure that we are screening for disabilities and dyslexia and getting the services to kids early because they need to be ready for reading by the time they are in third grade. Otherwise, they spend year after year not understanding what’s happening in the classroom and just getting pushed forward because we have not given them the skills to actually, fundamentally be able to thrive. And that cascades through their entire life.

In high school, we need to expand the number of high schools. We need to stop talking about a scarcity model and use the University of Texas model, where they take the top 10 percent of middle school kids and offer them seats in high school, regardless of the level of their middle school or a standardized test. This has changed the dynamic in Texas, both economically as well as racially. And so that is my approach. You start young, and you move through the upper grades, because we have to have significant change in this city to ensure that everyone can thrive.

Lauren Kelley: I’m just going to change the subject a bit here. Katie sort of referenced this issue earlier in her opening remarks, but I just wanted to ask you directly what your response is to Andrew Yang sort of going around on the campaign trail saying that he would like to hire you.

[In a recent interview, Mr. Yang said of Ms. Garcia, “I think she’d make a phenomenal partner in my administration.” Ms. Garcia told The New Yorker’s Eric Lach, “I would like Andrew Yang to stop saying that.”]

If Andrew Yang thinks I need to run his government, then maybe I should just run the government and we should stop having me actually do the job and you get the title. I just reject that. So I think maybe he has knowledge that I don’t have, but my position is I’m ready on Day 1 — not to steal the line from somebody else — but I know how to lead, and I know how to actually make government work for people and make New York City vibrant and dynamic again. And being mayor is actually the chair you need to be in to make that happen.

Mara Gay: Greg’s got an infrastructure question, and I think I see Nick’s hand up, too. I just wanted to ask you, though, you’ve talked a little bit about your father’s work, on the trail, as the chief labor negotiator for former Mayor Ed Koch. But your father was also, my understanding is, a community organizer. I mean, is that where your influence or your views on politics come from? Could you tell us a little bit about your background as it relates to New York?

[Ms. Garcia’s father was also the president of the Long Island Rail Road.]

Sure. So my parents actually met in the Chelsea projects working for Hudson Guild. I think my father was a VISTA volunteer working with gangs in the projects, as they were called back in the day, in the ’60s. And they made a real commitment to social justice. You know, they’re a little bit older. They did work in the civil rights movement making sure that lunch counters got desegregated, really traveling around doing that sort of community organizing work. They had a bit of battle when my mother said, “You would never organize the Ku Klux Klan.” He’s like, “I am committed to organizing.” And she’s like, “Oh, my goodness, I can’t talk to you.”

But they were about having real diversity and having us grow up with real diversity in our lives. And, you know, that has been something where she was a teacher, she was working at Medgar Evers when I was growing up, and he was actually working in lower levels of government and then became conscious. He was actually working for Basil Paterson, initially, before. They would talk about the power of what government can do for people. And it was just a very rich experience for me to see their commitment and for them to also be conveying to us the value of what you do with your life is important, and you need to find meaning in it and find meaning in being helpful to other people.

So that is really what we grew up around — very much the golden rule of do unto others as you would have done unto you. And how are you fulfilling your mission in life to lead a fulfilled life and that it should be in service.

Mara Gay: Thank you. Nick? Before we get to Greg’s infrastructure question. You’re on mute, Nick.

Nick Fox: Absent state and federal help, what can the city itself do to improve the awful conditions of NYCHA houses? And do you think there’s a role for privatization?

I believe that NYCHA doesn’t need another plan. Any delay in accessing the Section 8 money or the tenant protection voucher money is a day that a NYCHA tenant is living without a new kitchen, without a new elevator and without a new bathroom. Or with mold or with lead. It’s completely unacceptable. We need to make sure that one of the first things in my administration that we do is go to Albany and get the blueprint passed.

Mara Gay: Thanks. Greg?

Greg Bensinger: You touched on housing, but I’d be interested to hear what you think are the critical infrastructure projects you’d like to address starting in your first year.

In my first year the biggest infrastructure project that I hope to actually move forward is one I won’t have control over. But I think Gateway is absolutely critical, both to the city and to the regional economy. And it’s hanging on by a thread, as far as I can tell. We’ve been talking about it for at least the last 10 years. The other big infrastructure projects that need to get tackled, of course, is the B.Q.E., and the cantilever section. I would really love to see the Second Avenue subway get to 125th Street. I would really like to see the Utica Avenue subway go in.

[The extension of the Second Avenue subway on Manhattan’s Upper East Side cost $2.5 billion per mile.]

We also have to ensure that we are doing the regular maintenance on not just our fancy bridges like the Brooklyn, the Manhattan, but all of the little-bridge infrastructure. We have hundreds of little bridges. But I also want to see the Fast Forward plan done. The guts of the system — the signals of the system, things that get you to work on time — need to be revamped, and we need to make sure that we are making that investment.

And of course, I always have a love for the water infrastructure and finishing up Tunnel 3 and getting those shafts completed is also an imperative. But also the regular maintenance of the system. But there’s really interesting stuff we can do at the wastewater treatment plants about combating climate change where you are using the methane gas that they produce to repower them and to put back into the pipelines.

Nick Fox: What would you do about the B.Q.E.?

The B.Q.E. — we need to actually fundamentally replace it. It is something that literally I think could fall down. And unfortunately, 90 percent of our food comes in by truck. We still need that lifeline. I learned this when I was working in food, how precarious it can be for the city should those lifelines get cut back. When they closed the truck stops in Pennsylvania, all of our food stopped moving for about six or so hours.

[The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was built for 47,000 vehicles per day and is now used by 153,000 cars and trucks per day.]

Nick Fox: How would you replace it?

So you’re asking me, would I do the promenade? I don’t want to do the promenade. I think that is not the way to go. But I would bring back the engineers to the table. We have to make sure that we are digging in and not destroying what is an incredibly important neighborhood where they fought to get the cantilever in the first place.

Mara Gay: What is your plan to deal with the city streetscapes and also to address the clogging of our streets and air with trucks and truck emissions?

My plan, when I’m mayor, is to fundamentally change the streetscape to make it so that is more focused on pedestrians but also to ensure that it has bike lanes and green infrastructure and bus ways. The car gets pushed down into a narrower piece of the pie so that we are prioritizing the public in public realm but also because this is good economic policy if it makes it more livable and we know that people actually come. The Meatpacking District had a great metric when they did this. They saw a 30 percent increase in revenue in those businesses. But we have to electrify our fleets, particularly school buses. I have also been a proponent of a delivery fee so that we do not end up with streets clogged with delivery vehicles as everyone moves to online shopping.

[The Times’s columnist Farhad Manjoo mapped out what a carless Manhattan would look like.]

Eleanor Randolph: How do you feel about the restaurants that are suddenly popping up here and there on the streets?

I like open restaurants. I like outdoor dining. I want to make sure we are also being as supportive as we can be to our small restaurants in particular. They have been through literally hell over this last year.

My sister owns an event space and a restaurant in Bushwick. She’s had a pretty terrible year. She’s going to try and make it through. But we should be making sure that we are doing everything to give them access to the public realm, because it also activates it, as well as ensuring that we are supporting them so that when we are all free and vaxxed, that they are still there for us. Because it’s what makes us different. And I also discovered when I was working on food that we are 8.4 million food snobs, and we do expect to be able to walk outside of our door and have any type of cuisine from anywhere in the world and also think that we are the only ones who know about that special restaurant.

Mara Gay: I’ve heard you talk to Errol Louis and I think some others about how your parents were able to raise five of you on modest salaries in the city fairly comfortably in Park Slope, I believe. So how do you think about making New York more livable for the middle class?

When I think about the middle class, I think about the fact that it is both ensuring that people are getting jobs that can pay the rent — so it’s about the internships we will provide for CUNY kids. It’s about in high school making sure that there is work experience like the Here to Here program and expanding that. But as you come into the work world, we need more housing, and we need free child care for those making under $70,000 a year. It is the biggest expense for families and one of the reasons why they choose not to stay here.

Mara Gay: Thank you. I’ve got a little bit of a pop quiz for you here. Just answer the best that you can, please. About what percentage of New York City schoolchildren are homeless or living in temporary shelter?

Twenty percent.

[In the 2019-20 school year, that figure was just under 10 percent, with about 111,600 homeless students attending district and charter schools in New York.]

Mara Gay: It fluctuates between 10 and 20. What is the median sales price in Brooklyn right now of a home?

Oh, I don’t know this. I haven’t purchased in a long time. I’m going to guess $800,000.

Mara Gay: $900,000. Close. What about the median rent in Manhattan?

I think it’s about $3,000.

Mara Gay: That’s right. Where were you in the pandemic?

I was here. I was at my office, which was — considering how many people got sick there — probably might not have been the best place. But you can’t lead people from home when you’re asking them to go to work every day.

Mara Gay: Who is No. 2 on your ballot right now?

I do not have a No. 2. I would not be in this race if I did.

Mara Gay: And finally — we could spend another hour talking about this — but do you have a big-picture solution as mayor for the city’s hundreds-of-years-old trash problem?

The big picture is we got to get it off the curb. So when you talk about the public realm, it’s also about getting containers into a parking lane that we can then just take away.

Mara Gay: Containers into a parking lane?

Off the sidewalk. Get the garbage off the sidewalk. So the Clean Curbs program. Do it big.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Sorry, can I ask a question of clarification on that — which is, so simply the buildings would take it to a big dumpster?

Big. Yes.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Got it. OK.

But we would make it beautiful.

Mara Gay: I’m just trying to visualize. Can you give us a visual?

Yes. The visual is like you think of it as there’s a container, maybe some plants on top, then you maybe have some seating. It will depend on the density of the neighborhood, but the idea is to get it off the curb. But for future buildings, they need to containerize inside their loading docks and not use the sidewalk as their storage area.

Mara Gay: So where would the containers be, though?

They would take a parking lane for that.

Mara Gay: Thank you.

Not on the sidewalk. I want it out of the way for pedestrians.

Mara Gay: Alex?

Alex Kingsbury: I have two quick questions to wrap it up before we turn over to you for last remarks. The first is what’s the biggest mistake that Mayor de Blasio has made, in your view? And the second is, what do you think would be the most challenging aspect of being mayor, should you be elected?

The biggest mistake: not having a plan to reopen the schools, not having a plan for the vaccines. Those are some of the more recent ones. Being in Iowa when the lights went out. Those are some of the ones that come to mind.

I think the biggest challenge with being mayor is one that I already know and understand. It’s a 24/7 job. I know what it’s like to get called at 3 in the morning. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. And ensuring that people feel that we are all in this together. We are an incredibly diverse place, but we all have to have a shared vision of how we come back strong.

Mara Gay: Thanks. Do you want to just take a minute if there’s something we didn’t ask? The floor is yours for a minute or so here.

I really appreciate all of your time. I know that I am ready to lead this city out of the pandemic and really make it a place where everyone feels they have opportunity. This campaign has given me the opportunity to talk about policies that I really cared about, particularly foster kids and how poorly we serve them. This is something that when you come into a crisis and you know that you are the best person to lead, that you need to step up and do that job.

I want to be the one who’s doing that job and having the opportunity to really make change in New Yorkers’ lives. You don’t always hear about everything that happens in city government. It doesn’t always make the front page. But if you work in government and you are the mayor, you know all of those pieces that have changed lives, like banning No. 6 fuel oil changed the air quality in Upper Manhattan, in the South Bronx. That’s what gets me motivated and why I like to do what I do.

Mara Gay: Well thank you so much for your time, and good luck on the campaign trail. We really appreciate it.

I think we’re going to have an exciting few days.

Mara Gay: We’ll be looking.