If you’ve waited until the last minute to figure out who to vote for mayor, the Village Voice has you covered with our handy cheat sheet. We summarized the eight top Democratic candidates’ positions in three major topic areas: public safety, housing, and the economy.
Before we jump in, here’s a quick who’s who of candidates:
Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president who draws on his experience as a Black NYPD officer; Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner who quit after fallout over budget cuts; Maya Wiley, ex-ACLU lawyer and former counsel to Mayor de Blasio; Andrew Yang, an ex-presidential hopeful turned mayoral front runner who’s gotten all kinds of press; Scott Stringer, the anti-de Blasio city comptroller who’s fending off allegations of sexual harassment; Dianne Morales, the far-left candidate who’s battling protests inside her campaign; Wall Street executive Ray McGuire; and Shaun Donovan, Obama’s former housing secretary, whose rich father made a huge splash in the race.
Hopefully, this cheat sheet will help you decide who to rank where on your ballot. (We are focusing on the top eight vote-getters in recent polls. Below they are listed in the order in which they appear on the ballot.) Early voting for primary elections will be open until June 20 (after that, voters will cast their ballots on Election Day, June 22).
¶ Do they support “defunding” the NYPD?
Dianne Morales: Yes. Morales is the only frontrunner who has embraced the “defund police” slogan (it’s literally on her website). She wants to cut the NYPD budget by $3 billion and remove officers from schools, traffic enforcement, and other instances where she believes armed police presence is unnecessary. She proposes redistributing funds to a Community First Responders Department, independent from the NYPD and staffed with personnel trained in trauma-informed intervention.
Scott Stringer: Sort of? As comptroller, Stringer criticized de Blasio’s NYPD budget allocation amid summer protests, calling to slash $1.1 billion from the department to reinvest in community services. But as a candidate he has shied away from the “defund” slogan — there’s no mention of the $1 billion cut on his campaign website or in his public safety report. An investigation revealed that Stringer audited the NYPD twice over his eight-year tenure (for comparison, he audited the Housing Authority 17 times). He favors shifting funding toward social services and strengthening the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
Ray McGuire: No. McGuire is explicitly against it, arguing that the city’s budget ($98.6 billion for the 2022 fiscal year so far) barely contributed funds for the NYPD, which has a proposed budget of $5.4 billion. Instead, McGuire wants better training for the police force; continued use of the experimental ShotSpotter program, the gunshot-detection system which alerts officers of possible gun-related activity; and a 24/7 emergency social services bureau.
Maya Wiley: Yes. Wiley has kept an arm’s-length from the “defund” slogan (opting for the term “right-sizing” instead) but regularly pushes concerns on excessive policing. She pledges to cut the NYPD’s budget by at least $1 billion each year to fund alternatives to traditional policing. Wiley was chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the oversight body for the NYPD, but some say she did little to reform the sleepy agency during her year there.
Kathryn Garcia: No. Garcia is a proponent of police reform, proposing improved mechanisms for transparent discipline against officers and implementing new training. She’s mentioned investing in the NYPD’s Gun Violence Suppression Division to combat gun violence and wants to reassign more officers to the neighborhood policing unit.
Eric Adams: No. Adams, a former NYPD captain, has repeatedly argued against taking money from the department (and drew heat from activists after suggesting that affluent white millennials were leading the “defund” movement). He’s acknowledged abusive policing, having been beaten by police as a teenager, and pushes for reform through improved training, better accountability systems, and a new version of the disbanded plainclothes Anti-Crime unit. While he’s painted himself as the public-safety candidate, don’t expect him to give up packing once he’s mayor.
Shaun Donovan: Maybe. Donovan wants to refocus police priorities on violent crimes but hasn’t stated he would cut the NYPD’s budget. He has pledged, by his second year, to invest $500 million each year in community-focused public safety initiatives, in part by “redirecting funds allocated to law enforcement and corrections,” which includes agencies beyond the NYPD.
Andrew Yang: No. Yang has stated that “defunding” is “the wrong approach for New York City,” and proposes staffing up certain divisions to improve the city’s low-solve rate. He’s argued for diversifying recruiting inside the NYPD (asking New Yorkers to sign up for the police force during a televised debate) and proposed stronger civilian oversight by appointing a civilian police commissioner.
¶ What are they going to do about rising housing costs and homelessness?
Dianne Morales: Morales’s proposal mixes moderate fixes like converting unopened hotels and vacant lots into affordable housing with radical ideas such as replacing the Public Housing Authority with a fully tenant-run management body. She proposes reallocating the $3 billion annual shelter budget toward preventive measures against evictions. But housing advocates have been critical of Morales’s ties to Phipps Housing, an affordable housing developer and one of New York City’s worst landlords.
Scott Stringer: Stringer tries to establish himself as a “watchdog” to de Blasio, criticizing the mayor’s appetite for rezoning low-income neighborhoods to build more affordable housing and emphasizing his record auditing New York City’s Housing Authority. Stringer promises to build 10,000 affordable housing units each year, requiring every new building to allocate 25% of units for affordable housing, and pledges that he will oppose “developer-driven” rezonings.
Ray McGuire: McGuire’s business background is apparent in proposals to reduce construction costs by streamlining approvals and a new tax credit to incentivize construction of senior affordable housing. He wants to invest $1.5 billion in public housing annually and give tenants more control over how those funds are spent through signed contracts with the city.
Maya Wiley: Wiley’s housing policy centers on measures that get at root causes of the crisis, such as creating a “universal community care” ecosystem. It’s an ambitious plan: In addition to committing $2 billion for public housing, she promises to guarantee that New Yorkers making 50% or less of Area Median Income won’t pay more than 30% of their income on rent.
Kathryn Garcia: Garcia’s housing policy is a mixed bag; she wants to move the city away from shelters to permanent housing planning by building 50,000 “deeply” affordable housing units, but suggests creating 24-hour drop-in centers with bathrooms and other services for unhoused New Yorkers. She also supports NYCHA’s Blueprint For Change plan, which tenant advocates have criticized as a step toward privatization.
Eric Adams: Adams wants more housing — and quickly, promising to expedite the city’s initiative to create 15,000 units of supportive housing in 15 years to 10 years. He has low-income renters in mind, with proposals such as streamlining rent-relief applications and adjusting housing vouchers based on market rate, and cites nonprofit Fountain House as a model for wrap-around social services. But Adams has a cozy relationship with developers, raising nearly a quarter-million dollars in donations from real estate stakeholders.
Shaun Donovan: Donovan loves to remind everyone of his stint as President Obama’s housing secretary, and (to a lesser extent) his tenure as housing commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg. A look at his track record brings up mixed reviews. Much of Donovan’s plan relies on state support, like pushing the state to establish a State Public Housing Preservation Trust and to increase annual spending on emergency rental assistance.
Andrew Yang: Yang’s housing approach seems focused on improving existing mechanisms: He would convert the city’s unopened hotels into affordable housing buildings and, as a big believer in Community Land Trusts (CLTs), invest more in existing CLTs. He’s committed to investing $4 billion annually in building affordable and supportive housing.
¶ How are they going to recover jobs and businesses for New Yorkers?
Dianne Morales: Morales has made investing in small and mid-size businesses the center of her economic recovery platform. She wants to eliminate massive tax breaks for wealthy corporations operating in the city and has committed to investing at least $1 billion in a participatory city-wide People’s Budget Project.
Scott Stringer: The city comptroller proposes a $1 billion NYC Recovery Now Fund for small business grants up to $100,000, which can be used to pay off back rent and rehire former employees. Stringer also proposes developing a stronger workforce pipeline for CUNY graduates and an affordable childcare plan for families with toddlers.
Ray McGuire: McGuire’s “Comeback Plan” zeroes in on supporting the city’s small businesses. He wants to bring back 50,000 jobs through items such as wage subsidies — covering half of wages for small businesses over a year — and expanding small business owners’ access to loans through community bank investments.
Maya Wiley: Through her “New Deal New York” plan, Wiley wants to invest $10 billion in a public works program, with a target of creating 100,000 new jobs over a five-year period. Wiley pushes for a “care-based economy” through $5,000 grants for high-need care workers and building community care centers.
Kathryn Garcia: As the “fixer” candidate, Garcia leans into cutting red tape that impacts small business owners, proposing an all-in-one small business permit and a new program offering zero-interest microloans. The highlight of her economic recovery plan is her promise to support working parents and guardians in families earning less than $70,000 a year, with free childcare for children up to three years old.
Eric Adams: Adams wants to create jobs by investing in green infrastructure — establishing the city as the “wind power hub” of the East Coast — and attract businesses by expanding the Relocation Employment Assistance Program of tax credits for businesses if they open in certain neighborhoods. He’s also focused on work development for youth, with a proposal to expand the Summer Youth Employment Program to operate year-round.
Shaun Donovan: Donovan’s economic recovery plan centers on rebuilding the city’s strongest revenue sector — entertainment and nightlife — and work development for the city’s future generation, committing to creating 500,000 jobs in his first term. He promises 10,000 internship placements within the first years of his mayorship through a skills-based training program that guarantees placement for public school and CUNY students, and an NYC Job Corps to train potential workers in high-growth job industries.
Andrew Yang: Yang supports the City Council’s contentious Small Business Job Survival Act, legislation that would essentially help with rent stabilization for commercial tenants, and wants a “universal portable benefits fund” to support expansion of the city’s gig workers’ protections. ❖
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