NYC Mayoral Race: Wiley Promises Change, Sweeping Plans

NEW YORK CITY — New Yorkers are casting ballots to decide who will replace Mayor Bill de Blasio after eight years.

The June 22 primary features eight Democratic candidates — Eric Adams, Shaun Donovan, Kathryn Garcia, Raymond J. McGuire, Dianne Morales, Scott Stringer, Maya Wiley and Andrew Yang — looking to lead New York City.

Patch sent out questionnaires to their campaigns to give readers a chance to make a more informed choice on their ranked-choice ballots.

Here's what Maya Wiley had to say:

Maya Wiley

Age (as of Election Day)

57

Position Sought

Mayor

Party Affiliation

Democrat

Neighborhood of residence (i.e., East Village, Astoria, etc.)

Flatbush, Brooklyn

Family

I am married with two daughters.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

My brother Dan is the District Director for Nydia Velasquez.

Education

Dartmouth, Columbia Law

Occupation

Laywer

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Counsel to the Mayor, Chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Chair of the School Diversity Advisory Group

Campaign website

mayawileyformayor.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am running for Mayor because I am a change making leader who can bring New Yorkers together to recover from the COVID-19 crisis in a way that reimagines New York City so that it can be a city where we all can thrive. My philosophy is shaped both by my parents’ civil rights and economic justice organizing, living in a gentrifying Black community and attending a segregated school. Those experiences taught me how government and policy inscribed structural inequities and that people impacted must be authors of new ones that dismantle what’s unjust and co-create what will support dignity and justice.
I went to law school to do that work. As a civil rights attorney, advocate and nonprofit organization leader, I have spent three decades confronting injustice and working in partnerships to create solutions to systemic problems from inadequate public school funding, access to health care, criminal justice reform and digital divide issues, among many others. I am the only candidate in this race that has formulated and built change making with communities outside of government and has also served as a member of the senior leadership team in City Hall where I had to help make real change and became thoroughly familiar with the inner workings of the mayor's office.
There, I delivered for New Yorkers on civil and human rights, women and minority-owned businesses, universal broadband, and much more. And I did it by pulling people together inside and outside of government - from helping break through the log jam on the first Sanctuary City legislation to getting every single unit in Queensbridge Houses free city broadband. After City Hall I was able to get the case against Daniel Pantaleo to the NYPD and retain civilian protection of that trial, which eventually got him off the force.
I am uniquely positioned to be a transformative leader because I know how to marshal all of the government’s resources to serve our people and know who has not been served well by the government and how to change that. I will make history, not deals. From a place of principles, I will transcend business-as-usual tinkering and set this City on the path to transformation so that we develop without displacement, a job with a future, an education system that sees all of our children as exceptional and puts the public back in public safety and more. Justice and dignity require it.
This is within our reach, but it requires bold leadership that fearlessly confronts the realities New Yorkers face in partnership with our communities. I have spent three decades doing just that as a civil rights attorney, racial justice advocate, non-profit leader, and as a member of the senior leadership team in City Hall responsible for civil and human rights, women and minority-owned businesses, universal broadband, and much more. I left city government and became the Senior Vice President for Social Justice and joined the faculty at the New School, and stayed engaged in change-making outside of government employment. I served as the Chair of the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board and also Co-Chaired the School Diversity Advisory Group convened by the Chancellor of the Department of Education.
I will fight for New Yorkers of all races, religions, classes, and sexualities. My vision is a New York that rises from the ashes of twin pandemics — coronavirus and systemic racism -- that deny investment for people of color. New Yorkers cannot afford the politics of least resistance and deserve leadership that will beat a path to shared prosperity — to become one city, rising together, out of the ashes and into a future we build and live together.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

We don’t just need a recovery, we need to reimagine what New York City looks like. COVID has not hit every community the same, and our plan needs to reflect that. While some industries have partially recovered, people of color continue to suffer the worst, economically. As of September, Black and Latinx households had much higher rates of food and housing insecurity, and Asian households were experiencing considerable housing insecurity. Nearly a third of households with incomes below $50,000 were food and housing insecure. These examples make clear that while some in the city are doing okay, entire swaths of New York are struggling just to get by and are in danger of being forgotten.
This is why I announced New Deal New York, a $10B capital investment program to put residents back to work and invest in the future of our communities. My plan will create a 5-year centrally managed $10B capital spending program for public works projects. The program will fund much-needed development, infrastructure repairs, and enhancements. The fund would consist of committed unspent capital funds and new capital dollars financed by City debt. It will also prioritize new kinds of investments that support our recovery while addressing the structural issues that cause racial and gender inequities. New Deal New York will target investments based on a comprehensive analysis of capital needs across five boroughs, using metrics including racial disparities in income, unemployment, capital need and city investment over the past decade, to ensure capital dollars are utilized in the most underinvested communities first. On Day One I will appoint a New Deal Czar who will report directly to me in City Hall and be responsible for implementing the program.

I have also put forward a plan for Universal Community Care -- an ambitious interagency plan that rebuilds economic growth in sectors dominated by women of color and ensures that these jobs are good jobs, addresses the crisis of affordable childcare and eldercare, and fights for fair wages and protections for workers in the care economy. Universal Community Care recognizes that care exists in many forms: from paid childcare and elder care to direct services provided by frontline nonprofit workers to care provided within the home by family, to neighbors helping neighbors. This model will redirect $300 million in diverted resources from incoming NYPD and DOCCS cadet classes to give 100,000 high need informal caregivers a $5,000 annual stipend to compensate them for their labor. Using the Universal Community Care Model, I will also build community centers providing free childcare, eldercare, and other services in each neighborhood. And it will create strong, meaningful worker protections for our city’s care workers.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I am the only person in this race whose entire career has been racial justice AND has served in senior levels of New York City government. I don’t come from a machine; I come from a
community and that community looks like the residents of this miraculous city who are the
essential workers, the unemployed, the victims of gun violence, and the people who make New York the only city I love. I never ran for office before, and I never expected to. But even before COVID, the Trump administration’s blatant hate and efforts to harm our residents and our city’s Mayor focused instead on running for President, I could no longer stay in academia, on the sidelines crying out for justice.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

This is an open seat.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

With regard to school closures, the last-second decisions and poor communications beginning in March of last year from the Mayor and the DOE robbed parents and teachers of any peace of mind in a traumatic time and undermined principals’ ability to plan. In March of this year, I called for schools to be reopened immediately following guidance from the CDC. Public health experts have been clear - schools have not been the source of our COVID-19 spikes. The lack of urgency throughout the response has been glaring, as has been the inadequate support for teachers and principals around effective online learning. In contrast to the current Administration, I would have ensured consistent and clear communication around school closures, as well as prioritizing access to technology for low-income students and families.
In addition, small businesses were hit hard in the pandemic, and the current Administration’s response was lacking. As Mayor, I will launch a new $30 million Small Business Emergency Grant Program, targeting resources to achieve equity goals. The Emergency Grant Funds will prioritize the zip codes hardest hit by the pandemic, most-distressed industries, and those who have not received adequate State, City, or federal pandemic-related aid.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

My campaign is presenting the most comprehensive and substantial police reform proposal ever issued by a major candidate for Mayor—a transformational plan to put the public at the center of public safety by creating true, Mayoral control and across-the-board civilian oversight of the NYPD and developing alternatives to policing that can more effectively address New York City’s most pressing challenges: poverty, mental health crises, and homelessness. It is a sweeping move forward in policing, crime prevention, and police-community relationships. Every New Yorker has a right to be free from police abuse and free from criminal violence. Both are fundamental civil rights that can only truly exist together.
To accomplish this, a Wiley administration will:
-Create real oversight and address police violence at its root and before it happens.
-Rewrite the rules of policing and reimagine the job so police officers focus on problems they can help solve.
-Create real and meaningful accountability and consequences for all forms of police misconduct.
-Bring the NYPD budget in line with our values and priorities.
-Fundamentally shift policing and public safety to a focus on the root causes of crime.
-Renegotiate the contract between the City and Police Benevolent Association (PBA) to end the union’s oversized influence and the Department’s evasion of accountability.
A fundamental shift in policing requires a robust and comprehensive expansion of community-based violence interruption models. My administration will strengthen the infrastructure and communication networks between local nonprofits and outreach workers to ensure teams send New Yorkers to the most relevant, accessible, and effective health and safety organizations. Ending the criminalization of poverty is the centerpiece of my policing policy and is a value that transcends and defines all of my plans and actions as Mayor. This is why my administration will address the crisis of mental health and homelessness with investment, not incarceration.
I am also committed to ensuring that every New Yorker has access to safe, livable, and affordable housing. My recently released Housing platform guarantees that all New Yorkers making under $54,000 (family of three) will pay no more than 30% of their income on rent, ensuring that New Yorkers who make this City run can actually afford to live here. To keep public housing public, my New Deal New York plan makes a $2 billion investment in NYCHA to preserve it as the City’s most reliable source of affordable housing, led by NYCHA residents themselves.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I am a change-making leader. I am a nationally recognized racial justice and equity advocate with 25 years of experience creating change by bringing people together to develop and implement ideas to dismantle structural racism. I have worked as a civil rights litigator and lobbyist, a senior leader in program development in the world’s largest human rights foundation, founded and led a national racial justice advocacy organization and, after 25 years, joined senior leadership in NYC government, showing it could do more and deliver more to New Yorkers, particularly New Yorkers of color.
As Counsel to the Mayor, I delivered for New York City. I helped unblock a city government log-jam to help get the City’s first sanctuary city law passed. I increased minority and women owned business enterprise (MWBE) contracts from $500 million in spending to $1.6 billion in one year (and matching it in the second year) and laid the foundation for what has become the Mayor’s Office on MWBE. I held telecommunications firms accountable to their contractual commitments to get residents broadband services, including the lawsuit recently settled with Verizon on rolling out FiOS. I created the first-ever capital construction budget line in NYC history and found the revenue in the expense budget and created the program that got every unit in Queensbridge Houses free broadband – an internet safety net for those who can’t afford it. I did all that in 2.5 short years and as a newcomer to City government. I voted with my feet in 2016 and left city service because I knew I could do more independently. I became a Senior Vice President in one of the city’s major universities, the New School which includes Lang College, New School for Social Research, the Milano School, and Parsons School of Design.
I became the Chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board to hold police accountable for misconduct and got the case of the police officer who killed Eric Garner over to the police department, finally beginning the process of getting him fired. I also worked to improve public education as a Co-Chair of the School Diversity Advisory Group, where in less than two years we met with over 800 New Yorkers and generated two reports with comprehensive recommendations for fair and equitable schools. At the New School, during that same period, I founded the Digital Equity Laboratory on universal and inclusive broadband and we worked on projects to continue to fight for privacy, create more digital sanctuary, and more broadband access for low income communities.
I am a veteran of both the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the ACLU and was a former Legal Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC — where I argued against Trump’s attacks on our civil liberties and democratic norms — and was the founder and president of the Center for Social Inclusion. I was also Senior Advisor on Race and Poverty at the Open Society Foundations, the largest funder of human rights work the world over.
I am the candidate in this race who has worked as a change-maker outside and inside government, knows how it works, and has a track record of moving big ideas, removing barriers, and doing it in a way that listens, learns, partners, and performs.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Throughout my entire life, I’ve always admired Shirley Chisholm, who said “you don’t make progress by sitting on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.” I have jumped off the sidelines because we aren’t going to become the city I want for my children and all our people, if we allow transactional politics that panders. New Yorkers who have for too long been ignored must have a seat at the table and a say in our future--one that puts our hardest-hit communities in the center of decision-making. Like Shirley, I believe that I am the candidate to make this vision of justice and transformation a reality.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am committed to a New York City where every New Yorker can live with dignity. New Yorkers have dignity when they have a decent, safe, affordable place to live, a job with a future, an education system that has high expectations for every child, and where every resident is safe from crime and from police abuse. Dignity also includes respect for different cultures, languages and beliefs.
I am running for Mayor because far too many New Yorkers do not live here with dignity and that must change. I have spent the last three decades, as a civil rights and racial justice advocate who has also served at senior levels of city government, because dignity for people of color in particular has been a national shame and that includes New York City.
I will bring New Yorkers together to do more than recover from the COVID-19 crisis; we will reimagine New York City's rise together; rising above hate, rising from joblessness to dignity, rising from homelessness to hope, rising from an affordability crisis to communities that are sustainable.
This is within our reach, but it requires bold leadership that fearlessly confronts the realities New Yorkers face in partnership with our communities. I am that leader. I am uniquely positioned to be a transformative leader and I know how to marshal all of the government’s resources to make history, not deals; and transcend the business-as-usual governmental tinkering to make truly transformational progress.