Five NYC Mayoral Candidates to Watch
The New York City mayoral election is fastly approaching on June 22. Here are the top five candidates and their technology policies.
A poll recently published results from a public survey that shows the top five mayoral candidates currently most favored by a sample of New York City registered voters.
The results showed that 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang was in the lead (32%), followed by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams (19%), former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, Maya Wiley (9%), NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer (6%), and former NYC Department of Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia (5%). All candidates are registered with the Democratic Party.
1. Andrew Yang historically led the education and economy sectors with technology-based startups. He even campaigned for the 2020 presidential election to oversee technological innovations via the creation of the Department of Technology. Despite his digital-focused background, Yang backed off his technology-driven approach for the 2021 mayoral platform. Yang’s one technology-related policy is to audit the use of surveillance technologies that aid the New York Police Department in identifying wanted individuals.
2. Eric Adams was a sworn city officer for two decades, served four terms as New York State Senator and fought for marginalized communities, and served as Brooklyn’s President for seven years. Adams will focus technology assets on developing three digital portals to aid civilians in job search efforts, apply for housing vouchers, and streamline the application for government benefits. Adams also promises to increase green technologies, equip city workers with tablets for efficiency, distribute 5G coverage equally and promote online transparency of city-wide access.
3. Maya Wiley led civil rights policies as Counsel to Mayor, was Chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board for police tactics, and Co-Chair of the School Diversity Task Force. She was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) and a former legal analyst for NBC News. She also founded the Center for Social Inclusion and served as Senior Advisor on Race and Poverty at the Open Society Foundations. She will build green energy, solar and wind power generation, new energy grid infrastructure, and energy storage systems. She also plans to restructure the digital infrastructure’s budget to distribute it to businesses’ digital assets.
4. Scott Stringer was elected to the State Assembly in 1992 and protected social justice rights. He worked to decrease asthma rates, strengthen traffic enforcement, and was a critic for the stop-and-frisk police tactic. Stringer also campaigned against state fracking as Manhattan Borough President. Stringer was elected City Comptroller in 2013 and reimagined the city’s pension fund into an ethical approach, and audited every city agency. He also created a tool, ClaimStat, to track civilians’ complaints against the city to provide government transparency. Stringer’s platform has few technological ideas but will launch an “NYC Tech Corps” to ensure the online presence of local businesses and increase access to 5G.
5. Kathryn Garcia was adopted by her multi-racial family and served as the Sanitation Commissioner for 14 years. She banned Styrofoam and implemented a composting system, oversaw the emergency food program during the shutdown, reduced childhood lead poisoning, and provided resources, post-Hurricane Sandy. Her platform vies to house all city services under one digital program, reimagine Rikers Island to harvest and store renewable energy and buy electric charging stations for electric city vehicles. She will increase public car chargers, incentivize residents to buy at-home charging stations, add solar panels on housing authority buildings and install electric heat pumps. She will help seniors access technology and increase traffic infraction cameras.
The New York City primary election will take place on June 22, 2021. Early voting will be offered from June 12 to June 20 through the newly implemented ranked-choice voting.
For more New York City Technology news and culture, follow us on Instagram, Twitter @NYCWired and sign up for our Newsletter below.
