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New York City has a very important mayoral election this year, which will very probably be decided in the June Democratic primary. Big debate coming up which voters will get to watch on … More
“How’s it going?”
“Thought we’d make an entrance.”
“Hello, everyone.”
“How you living?”
“OK, let’s go through this way.”
[music]
“Am I just going
to the chair?”
“There’s lot of cameras.”
“I could go into
the movie business
I feel pretty good.”
“I’ve never walked
out on an interview yet.”
“All right.
Tell me what you need.”
“So starting with pandemic.”
“What is the first
thing you would
do to help
New York City recover?”
“Systemic racism.”
“Educational losses.”
“Amazon headquarters.”
“A car-free Manhattan.”
“What is the key to improving
public transportation?”
“Police reform.”
“Traffic congestion.”
“Climate change, in general.”
“That’s an interesting way to ask it.”
“Do I get choices?
Do I get to choose
amongst my answers?”
“I don’t talk as much as
the other guys.”
“That is a secret.”
“I know, what does that say about me?”
“Do you want me to
expound on that?”
“No questions about my cats?” More
“I’m someone who has benefited
from New York City as much
or more than anyone.
I moved here as a 21-year-old
student who knew nothing
about anything, and I have had
the kind of life and career
I could only have dreamt of.
That’s what New York City
has meant to me
and so many other people.
New York City is an incredible
place where dreams come true,
and it can still be that place
with the right leadership
steering us in a
better direction.
I’m running for mayor because
our city is badly wounded.
We’re in a crisis,
and I think I can help
us get out of it faster
than any other candidate.
I’m socially
distanced, all right.”
“The first thing we have to do
to help New York City recover
is let people know that
New York City is open
for business.
By that, I mean our
schools are open.
Our companies are open.
Our restaurants and bars
and theaters and Broadway,
by the time I take
office, will be open.
We have to get back some of
the 66 million tourists who
helped support 300,000 of the
600,000 jobs we’re missing,
as well as all the commuters
who are missing from Midtown
and other parts of the city.
When a commuter doesn’t
come into the city,
it’s not just that company.
It’s the security guards,
the cleaning staff,
the food truck
operators, the retailers,
everyone that’s missing that
person coming into the city
and doing what they
did pre-Covid.”
“Would you accept an
endorsement from
Governor Cuomo?”
“My goal is to help get
New York City heading in a
better direction.
And we need everyone under
the sun as a partner who
wants to help New York City.
And so if Governor Cuomo were
to offer me his endorsement,
I would accept it.
I think it would be
positive for New York City.
And it would be a clear signal
that the city and the state’s
interests are aligned.”
“What is the single most
important step the next mayor
can take to make up for
educational losses sustained
during the pandemic?”
“No. 1, we have to
get our schools open,
and then we have to get our
families back into schools.
Right now, unfortunately,
even the families
that are opting
into school are
falling along racial lines
where whites and Latinos are
more likely to have their
kids heading back to school
whereas Blacks and
Asians are not.
And the data shows that
in-person instruction
is actually more like twice
as good as online instruction.
So we have to get
our schools open,
and then get our
kids physically back
into school, which is
not going to be easy.
It’s going to be
a big challenge.
We have to commit
ourselves to it.”
“Do you support
year-round school?”
“I think as a
temporary measure,
we should be extending the
school year and
extending hours.
And so year-round school
should be something
that we consider to try
and help our kids recover
from learning loss.
We also have to know
that many of them
are going to come back
to school struggling
with trauma and abuse.
We need to dramatically
increase our investment
in social workers, in
mental health workers,
in guidance counselors
at the school level.”
“Since voters can rank
up to five candidates
on the ballot, whom would you
pick as your second choice?”
“My second choice would
be Kathryn Garcia.
She’s a disciplined operator
with great experience,
and I hope that she’s a
partner in my administration.
Kathryn, if you’re
watching this, Kathryn,
let’s team up.
We’re going to do it.
We got to do it for the city.
I would have supported a
version of the Amazon deal.
New York City has
to be a place where
businesses, big and small,
feel like they can invest.
And Amazon was ready to create
26,000 high-paying jobs which
would have resulted in
an additional 100,000
or so service jobs out
of Long Island City,
an area that’s been wanting
for development for quite
some time.
Now, there were problems
with the process.
The subsidies, maybe,
were excessive.
But you cannot let an employer
at that scale walk away.
It was a mistake for that
deal not to go through.
And a lot of New Yorkers
wish we had those 26,000 jobs,
right now.”
“The first memory I have of a
mayor of New York City is
Ed Koch, his smiling face
on my TV set as a kid.
And so he has been my
favorite my entire life.
And as I’ve grown older, I’ve
appreciated the fact that he
became mayor in a really
difficult time for the city.
And his optimism and
spirit helped lead people
to believe in
New York City and invest
in New York City
in a time when
people questioned whether
New York City was
the city of the future.
Unfortunately, we’re in
a time like that now.
And we need someone who’s
going to cheerlead for
New York City and is
excited about the city,
and will help people
have that same sense
of optimism about
our city again.
We are still the
city of the future.
Let’s go, New York City!
So Ed Koch.”
“What is the most important
police reform you would
pursue as mayor?”
“Cultures change from the top.
We need a civilian police
commissioner who’s not
of the N.Y.P.D. culture to help
our police force evolve.
We know that there is a
consistent problem with
the police’s treatment
of people of color.
And as a numbers
guy, you can see it
in the hundreds of
millions of dollars
we spend every year
settling civil lawsuits
against abusive cops.
It’s the worst use
of public funds.
We have to change the culture.
And again, we need the
right kind of leader.
We need someone who’s not from
the N.Y.P.D. culture to help
the culture move
forward and evolve.”
“Do you believe the phrase
‘defund the police’ helps
or hurts the police
reform movement?”
“I think the ‘defund the
police’ slogan, unfortunately,
seems very absolutist.
If it were something
more nuanced,
like channel more resources
to mental health interventions
and substance abuse counseling,
and education and jobs
and health care and other
things in communities,
that’s where most
New Yorkers are.
That’s where we need to go.
They’re certainly are
many, many interventions
that right now are being
answered by an armed police
officer that would be better
addressed by a mental health
professional, a social worker
or a substance abuse counselor.
And that’s where
we need to invest.”
“Do you think New York
is becoming less safe?
And if so, what is the first
action you would take to make
the city safer?”
“Unfortunately, I do think
that New York City is getting
less safe.
And the numbers bear that out.
And we have to turn
this around as quickly
as possible.
One thing we can do
immediately is be much more
stringent in the way we’re
enforcing our firearm laws.
But bigger picture,
the best way
we can actually make our
cities safer and more secure
is by getting people
back out on the streets
and on the subways because
a well-lit street where
the restaurants open and
people are walking around
is a lot safer than
a darkened street.
A subway car that’s filled
with dozens of people going
to school or work is a lot
safer than an empty
subway car.
To get our city feeling safer
again and being safer again,
we need to reignite the engine
of New York’s economy and see
to it that people are enjoying
our city in the way that we
always have.”
“What is your favorite
New York City restaurant?”
“My favorite New York City
restaurant is Corner Slice
in Hell’s Kitchen.
They make pizza on top of
bread that’s like
focaccia bread.
So if that sounds delicious
to you, Corner Slice.
Check it out.”
“Bagel order?”
“My bagel order is a
whole-wheat bagel with
scallion cream cheese,
and lox if I’m hungry.”
“New York City park?”
“My favorite New York
City park is Central Park.
Don’t judge.
But it is — Central Park.
It’s enormous.”
“Sports team?”
“My favorite sports
team is let’s go Mets,
ever since ’86.”
“Broadway show?”
“My favorite Broadway show of
recent vintage is ‘Hamilton.’
Wow, was that a great show.”
“Mayor de Blasio has
been criticized for his
late-morning workouts
at the Park Slope Y.
What is your fitness routine,
and would that change
as mayor?”
“My fitness routine has been
to ride a bicycle around
and try and work out or
exercise or play basketball
several days a week.
I’m hoping that stays
exactly the same as mayor.
But one thing I
would like to do —
and I hope everyone’s
cool with this —
is I would like
to install just
a very, very simple
outdoor basketball
court on the grounds
of Gracie Mansion
because I have two young
boys, and I would love just
to be able to go
outside and just
shoot some hoops with them.
And then if you come
visit me in Gracie,
which I would encourage
you to do, then
maybe we could just
shoot some hoops too.
You know?
It’s going to be a
very small investment,
and it will stand the
test of time hopefully.” More
Back on the campaign trail, the leading Democrats traded barbs over their competing visions for public safety.On the day after the leading Democratic candidates for mayor faced off in the first major debate of the election season, Andrew Yang attended a conference on the future of the waterfront. Scott M. Stringer went to a vacant lot in Brooklyn to talk about affordable housing. Maya Wiley toured a Puerto Rican cultural center on the Lower East Side. Eric Adams attended fund-raisers, and Raymond J. McGuire greeted business owners on Staten Island.But whatever the candidates’ ostensible agendas, public safety — which spurred some of the hottest exchanges during the debate — remained the topic of the day, after yet another rash of attacks in the subway kept the city’s focus on its shaken sense of order.And so there was Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, reminding New Yorkers in a statement Friday morning that he stood with transit workers in their demands for more officers in the subway. There was Mr. Yang on “Good Morning New York,” opining that the police “are going to drive our ability to improve what’s going on our streets, in the subway.”There, on the other side of the divide, was Ms. Wiley, at the Clemente Cultural and Educational Center in Manhattan, urging that more social service workers for people with mental illness, not more police officers, be sent underground.And there was Mr. Stringer, the city comptroller, sounding a similar note in front of the vacant lot in Brownsville, saying that without a comprehensive prescription that included social services and supportive housing, “We will be cycling people from the subways to Rikers,” the city’s jail complex, “back and forth and at a tremendous financial cost.”With less than six weeks left before the June 22 primary and a crowded field of contenders struggling to define themselves to a distracted electorate, crime, and how to stop it, has emerged as both a dominant public concern and a way for the candidates to score points against each other.Each day seems to bring a fresh cause for alarm. On Friday, a group of men slashed or punched commuters aboard a moving subway train. The attacks came at the end of a one-week stretch that included the shooting of three bystanders in Times Square, a police officer being shot three times while responding to another shooting and at least a half-dozen other seemingly random subway attacks.The candidates have clearly felt pressure to address the violence. After the Times Square shooting last Saturday, Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuire held news conferences there, even as the current mayor, Bill de Blasio, stayed away.At the debate, Mr. Adams took Mr. Yang, a former presidential candidate, to task for holding a news conference “blocks from your home” in Times Square but not responding to recent shootings in neighborhoods with large Black populations, like Brownsville. Two other candidates, Shaun Donovan and Kathryn Garcia, responded to the Times Square shooting with plans to get guns off the streets.In many ways, the campaigning on Friday was a continuation of the previous night’s debate, where the candidates leaned into their sharply different approaches to law enforcement and to the question of whether the city can police its way out of a spike in gun violence.Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio and civil-rights lawyer, said at the debate that she would take $1 billion from the Police Department and use the money “to create trauma-informed care in our schools, because when we do that violence goes down and graduation rates go up.”Another candidate, Dianne Morales, who has called for cutting the $6 billion police budget in half, said that “safety is not synonymous with police.” Mr. Stringer and Mr. Donovan have also called for shifting at least $1 billion from the police budget to social services.Ms. Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, staked out a middle ground on Thursday, saying, “We do need to respond when the M.T.A. says we need more cops in the subway. That does not mean we’re not sending mental health professionals into the subway as well.”Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have opposed “defunding” the police, and on Thursday night Mr. Adams repeated his call for a reinstituted unit of plainclothes police officers to target gang activity in the city.“We have to deal with intervention,” he said, “and stop the flow of guns into the city,” adding, “We have to deal with this real, pervasive handgun problem.”In one of the debate’s fiercer exchanges, Ms. Wiley called Mr. Adams an apologist for stop-and-frisk policing. That prompted him to counter that he was actually a “leading voice against the abuse of stop-and-frisk” and that Ms. Wiley had showed a “failure of understanding law enforcement.”Ms. Wiley retorted that as the former head of the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, “I certainly understand misconduct.” Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, hit back, saying that under her, the board was “a failure.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Ms. Wiley picked up the thread on Friday, reminding a reporter at her tour outside the Clemente Center that Mr. Adams had called stop-and-frisk a “great tool” just last year. (She called the policy “lazy,” “ineffective” and “traumatizing.”)Mr. Adams also took flak from Mr. Donovan at the debate for having said that as mayor he would carry a gun.“As a New Yorker but also as a parent, I’m deeply concerned about the idea of a mayor who carries a gun at a time where gun violence is spiking,” Mr. Donovan, a former city and federal housing official, said.Mr. Adams replied that he would do so only if the police’s threat assessment unit found that he was the target of “a credible threat.”On Friday, Ms. Wiley spoke about there being a “false choice between either being safe from crime and being safe from police violence” and promised, “We can have both.”In an ad released on Friday by a political action committee that supports Mr. Adams, Strong Leadership NYC, Mr. Adams used similar words.“We can have justice and public safety at the same time,” he says in the ad, adding that after being assaulted by the police as a young man, he became an officer with the goal of reforming the department from within. In his statement on Friday, Mr. Adams called not only for more officers in the subway but for “serious mental health resources.”Still, there was no question where his emphasis lay: He also called for better monitoring of security cameras and closer coordination between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway, and the police.“Progress cannot be derailed by crime,” Mr. Adams wrote. “If New Yorkers themselves cannot rely on our public transportation to keep them safe, then tourists will not return and not the businesses that depend on them.” More
Naik Path (left), 33
Self-employed from Rego Park
“Empower law enforcement for people’s safety because there’s a lot of shooting, a lot of stabbing, subway crime, hate crimes — it’s spiking.”
“Empower law enforcement for people’s safety because there’s a lot of shooting, a lot of stabbing, subway crime, hate crimes — it’s spiking.” More
Welcome to the Times Opinion scorecard for New York City’s first mayoral debate of 2021, which featured the eight leading Democratic candidates on Thursday night. A mix of Times writers and outside political experts assessed the contenders’ performances and ranked them on a scale of one to 10: one means the candidate probably didn’t belong […] More
The eight Democrats competing to win the June 22 primary presented divergent views on how to lead the city in a sometimes acerbic debate.The two leading candidates in the New York City mayor’s race battled to protect their advantages in a hard-hitting Democratic debate on Thursday evening while their six rivals grasped for breakout moments, sought to redefine the stakes of the contest and put forth their own visions for the struggling city.The contenders clashed over government experience, ideology and public safety in confrontations that sometimes devolved into acrid personal attacks.They sketched out their plans on an array of city issues, taking divergent stances on policing, education and managing the city’s economic revival. Policing emerged as the most-talked about problem, with proposals ranging from reimagining plainclothes units to expanding the use of mental health professionals in traditional law enforcement situations.Andrew Yang, one of the front-runners, was the target of an onslaught of criticism, which he sought to defuse by reaching for areas of common ground rather than engaging with equal force. But the sharpest direct clashes were between the other leading candidate, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.Ms. Wiley sought to cast Mr. Adams as a conservative former Republican who embraced stop-and-frisk policing tactics, while Mr. Adams dismissed her criticisms as ill-informed.“Every time you raise that question, it really just shows your failure of understanding law enforcement,” Mr. Adams said after she questioned how he could be trusted to “keep us safe from police misconduct.” Mr. Adams argued that he was a “leading voice against the abuse of stop-and-frisk.”Ms. Wiley shot back that “having chaired the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, I certainly understand misconduct.”The debate arrived less than six weeks before the June 22 Democratic primary that is virtually certain to determine the next mayor. The contest is shaping up to be the most significant city election in decades, one that will determine how and whether New York will recover from the economic devastation of the pandemic as the city also confronts staggering challenges concerning inequality, gun violence and education.Yet the race remains volatile and muddled, complicated by sparse public polling, a distracted electorate and the first use in a New York mayoral election of ranked-choice voting, a system that will allow voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference.Spectrum News NY1 & the NYC Campaign Finance BoardSpectrum News NY1 & the NYC Campaign Finance BoardFor months, Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate, has been portrayed by his rivals as a New York political newcomer who lacks the gravitas and knowledge of city intricacies to lead at a moment of crisis. In a reflection of his standing in the race, a number of his rivals sought to put him on the defensive over the extent of his political experience; his leadership record at Venture for America, his nonprofit; and implicitly, over his close ties to a consulting firm run by Bradley Tusk, his campaign strategist.When Mr. Yang was pressed on why he has never voted for mayor in the city that he hopes to lead, he described his deep connections to the city as a parent and noted that he is like many New Yorkers who have not always engaged at the local level.But when he noted his political activity elsewhere — in helping Democrats win two Georgia Senate runoffs, for instance — Mr. Adams ripped his efforts to claim credit as “disrespectful and appalling to Stacey Abrams and those Black women who organized on the ground.” Mr. Yang, who held elaborate mock debates in recent days, was bracing for a pummeling, his allies said. The candidate, who is running on a message of sunny optimism about the future of the city, struck a conciliatory note under pressure, emphasizing areas of agreement as his rivals pressed him.The debate, co-hosted by Spectrum News NY1 and the first of three official Democratic debates, represented the biggest test yet of Mr. Yang’s ability to sustain scrutiny from his front-runner’s perch.In a reflection of his perceived strength in the race, Mr. Adams, a former police officer who is well-funded and has shown strength in some limited polling, was targeted by the other candidates nearly as much as Mr. Yang. Mr. Adams has placed public safety at the center of his campaign pitch, declaring it the “prerequisite” to prosperity and progress. It is a message that he has pressed with new zeal in recent weeks, amid a spike in gun violence, including a shooting last Saturday in Times Square.Mr. Adams identifies as a progressive, has a record of pushing for changes from within the police force and says he was a victim of police brutality. He also briefly switched parties and became a Republican in the 1990s, and his opponents publicly signaled an eagerness to lace into his record ahead of the debate.“Eric, you were a self-described conservative Republican when Rudy Giuliani was mayor,” Ms. Wiley said. When Mr. Adams objected to the characterization, her campaign blasted out an excerpt from a 1999 New York Daily News article.The debate unfolded as issues of crime and gun violence have become central to the mayor’s race. Mr. Adams, Mr. Yang and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, rushed to Times Square after the shooting to issue stern denunciations of rising violence. Several other contenders have highlighted plans around policing or gun violence this week, including Ms. Wiley; Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner; and the former federal housing secretary Shaun Donovan.In a sign of just how vital the question of public safety has become in the race, it was the first policy topic raised in the debate. Many of the contenders emphasized their interest in both reducing violent crime and combating police misconduct and bias.A year after the rise of the “defund the police” movement amid an outcry over racial injustice, Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams are both plainly betting that the electorate is in a more moderate mood when it comes to public safety, even as they also call for changes to ensure police accountability. Mr. Yang proactively declared that “defund the police is the wrong approach,” while Mr. Adams said that “there’s no one on this Zoom that has a greater depth of knowledge around public safety than I do.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}A number of candidates of color discussed the issue in part through the lens of their personal experiences, whether it was Mr. McGuire describing himself as a “6-4, 200-pound Black man” who wants to have “the police protect me and not profile me,” or Ms. Wiley, who spoke of her racial identity as she called for reallocating $1 billion in New York Police Department funding “to create trauma-informed care in our schools.”“I have been Black all my life,” Ms. Wiley said. “And that means I know two things: I know what it is like to fear crime, and I know what it’s like to fear police violence, and we have to stop having this conversation, making it a false choice.”The first clear contrast of the debate emerged over the question of support for adding more police to the subways. Ms. Wiley, Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, did not raise their hands when asked for a show of support, emphasizing that their focus would instead be on empowering more mental health professionals.The debate, like many earlier mayoral forums, was held virtually — the candidates appeared by video from their homes and other locations around the city — which made it harder to smoothly land clear standout moments and more challenging to jump in given the cacophony of several people talking over each other on camera.Throughout months of virtual forums, the candidates became familiar with each other — their policy platforms and their well-traveled lines — and developed a measure of collegiality over Zoom, with few moments of obvious tension. On Thursday, the format was similar but the stakes far higher, the audience larger and the contrasts notably sharper.In addition to the criticisms aimed at Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan clashed over Mr. McGuire’s tenure on Wall Street, and Mr. Stringer took an implicit shot at Mr. Donovan, who has been bolstered by a super PAC funded in part by his father.“Don’t get me involved in your daddy problems,” Mr. Stringer said.For Mr. Stringer, the debate was his most high-profile appearance following an accusation of unwanted sexual advances that has upended his campaign. Mr. Stringer has strongly denied the allegations from Jean Kim, an unpaid campaign worker on his 2001 race for public advocate, but the claims cost him the support of some of his most prominent progressive supporters, though he retains backing from key labor endorsers. He emphasized again during the debate that he rejected the allegations.Mr. Donovan, a veteran of the Obama administration, went after both of the leading candidates. He ripped into Mr. Adams for remarks he has made about carrying a gun, and used his extensive government and political experience to draw a sharp contrast with Mr. Yang.“This is the most consequential election of our lifetimes,” Mr. Donovan said. “This is not time for a rookie.”Mr. Yang was the only one of the eight who did not favor requiring citywide composting, saying his reservations were tied to implementation citywide. He sought to explain his objection with his trademark enthusiasm.“I love composting,” he said.“Just not enough,” Mr. Donovan replied. More
