The first televised debate of the New York City s Democratic mayoral primary aired Thursday night.
Policing claims focus as candidates face off in first televised mayoral debate
Maya Wiley and Eric Adams sparred over their records on public safety Thursday night in one of the most pointed exchanges of the first televised debate in the city s Democratic mayoral primary a virtual face-off that highlighted policing, Covid-19 and thorny issues around education.
Wiley a first-time political candidate who delivered a commanding performance took aim at Adams over his recent defense of stop-and-frisk policing during one of several feuds that sought to define the Brooklyn borough president and retired police captain. In 2013, a federal judge deemed the use of the policing tool unconstitutional, based on its disproportionate impact on Black and Latino men.
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Near the end of an endorsement interview with Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Shaun Donovan, New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay asked if he knew the median sales price of a home in Brooklyn. He guessed $100,000, which is off by a factor of nine. Donovan, in an email to the newspaper the next day, said he misunderstood the question as referring to assessed value for property taxes, which is a much lower figure.
Getting that answer so outrageously wrong would be embarrassing for any mayoral candidate, but it’s especially embarrassing for Donovan, the former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development and one-time housing commissioner in New York City.
Could the Barron political dynasty be overthrown?
Charles Barron is vying to win his wife Inez Barron’s New York City Council District 42 seat, which she is leaving this year due to term limits. The majority-Black district encompases East New York and its subsections such as Spring Creek and Starrett City. Charles Barron previously won the same seat in 2001. His wife won the Assembly seat in 2008 and they swapped seats when Charles was term-limited out of the City Council in 2013, with Inez running successfully to replace him and Charles then replacing her in the Assembly.
But some have grown tired of the Barrons’ seat swapping, particularly local politicos who say the district is in need of new leadership, pointing to the neighborhood’s high rates of poverty and unemployment, and a recent upward trend in shootings as some of the most pressing issues in the district. Others remember the iconoclastic, radical couple known for generating their share of controversy, for their