Your Turn at the Mike: Candidate Question Time

New York’s three city-wide offices—mayor, comptroller and public advocate—are all up for election this year and the outcome of having these key leadership positions filled with new talent could affect city governance for years to come, according to the political pros.

As a result, your vote will be more important than ever as the city deals with challenges as far-reaching and diverse as crime, environmental quality of life, educational opportunities and the business climate that shapes our industry—the backbone of New York.

BOMA/NY has invited all leading candidates to meet with us for our Annual Conference & Leadership Breakfast on Oct. 23 from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Club 101 at 101 Park Avenue. Join us as they present their views and respond to your questions at an extensive Q&A session.

Invited, or having accepted so far, with their positions summarized for us by BOMA/NY Director of Legislative Affairs Sylvester Giustino, are:

Mayoral Candidates

Joe Lhota, Republican, Conservative, Education First Party
www.joelhotafor mayor. com  

Former chairman and CEO of the MTA, Joe Lhota has been a highly successful private businessman with Cablevision, First Boston Corporation and Paine Webber, among other companies. But he has also been a committed public servant who acted as former Mayor Giuliani’s deputy mayor and the city’s CFO as cirector of the Office of Management and Budget. He holds these positions on issues affecting our industry most:

Law & Order: Supports "Stop and Frisk," opposes Inspector General for NYPD.

Jobs & Economy: Opposes tax increases, supports reducing/eliminating regulations/taxes to stifle private sector growth.

Sustainability: Supports implementation of the Building Resiliency Task Force (convened by the city following Superstorm Sandy to recommend how to improve building resiliency and maximizing preparedness for future weather emergencies).

Invited:

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Democrat, Working Families Party
www.billdeblasio.com  

Bill de Blasio has devoted his entire career to public service, with a strong emphasis on middle-class issues including housing, education, and fostering business growth in all five boroughs. He has served in various positions in City Hall, was a city council Member for eight years, managed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s U.S. senate run, served under Andrew Cuomo when the governor was HUD Secretary, and as public advocate, has tackled housing corruption, spoken out against corporate election spending and fought for more local community control over schools. Among his mayoral goals affecting our industry are:

Law & Order: Reform "Stop and Frisk," supports Inspector General for NYPD and increasing NYPD personnel.

Jobs & Economy: Raise taxes on those making more than $500,000 to cover universal pre-kindergarten/after-school programs for all middle school students; eliminate corporate tax subsidy program with notoriously weak pay-offs (like Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program) to save $250 million a year; create a Unified Development Budget to ensure that subsidies creating jobs offer a living wage (with benefits), and that development is spread throughout the city; create Economic Development Hubs in every neighborhood.

Sustainability: Endorses many NYC post-Sandy city recommendations, including safeguarding utilities and hospitals, improving infrastructure with surge barriers and sand dunes; expanding PlaNYC and making every government building as green as possible by 2020; extend more funding to private sector for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

Comptroller Candidates

Invited:
Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer (Dem)
www.stringer2013.com

A three-decade veteran of public service to New York City, Scott Stringer is known for his many accomplishments including generating jobs in underprivileged neighborhoods, relieving classroom overcrowding, launching environmental health initiatives in disadvantaged communities, advocating for improved transportation and infrastructure, and protecting the rights of victims of domestic violence. If elected comptroller, he pledges to:

Law & Order: Reform "Stop and Frisk," support Inspector General for NYPD.

Jobs & Economy: Reduce regulations to accelerate and perpetuate the city’s growing tech industry.

Sustainability: Install solar panels on 1,100 city school roofs to save energy and generate thousands of green jobs.


Public Advocate Candidates

Senator (NYS) Daniel Squadron (Dem)
www.squadronfornewyork.com

This third-term NYS senator from Brooklyn has spearheaded a number of public concerns into state law including ethics reform and tougher gun legislation, which was accomplished by closing gaps in the state’s assault weapons ban. He’s focused on weeding out corruption in housing law, helped secure $3 billion for NYC infrastructure improvement (while assistant to US Senator Chuck Schumer), and helped engineer the NYS law creating Benefit Corporations, or businesses that pursue profit and social good simultaneously. His plans as Public Advocate include:

Law & Order: Reform "Stop and Frisk," supports Inspector General for NYPD.

Jobs & Economy: Appoint an Accountability Advocate to give citizens more of a voice/make government operations more transparent and oriented to long-range needs; puts 99 percent of all data collected by city agencies—from arrests to tickets—online in five years; appoint a Housing Advocate to protect tenant rights.

Sustainability: Through the Accountability Advocate, analyze and publicly report on preparedness progress re: weak areas of environmental/energy preparedness including: energy back-up/overall grid resilience, contingency plans for vulnerable populations, evacuation plans and preservation of the supply chain for essential commodities.

Join us in thanking these event sponsors:

Aquafence, Burnham New York, Conrad Engineers, Donnelly Mechanical Corp., DTM Inc., Firequench, Inc. and Scales Industrial Technologies

BOMA/NY
http://www.bomany.org/