Interview: Mayoral Candidate
BY STEPHEN WITT
There is nothing gimmicky
or grandiose about mayoral
candidate Kathryn Garcia,
Just an excellent public servant
who has successfully led
the city’s Department of Sanitation,
the Department of Environmental
Protection, and
the New York City Housing
Authority.
This thought came to mind
while interviewing her while
having brunch this past Sunday
on Fifth Avenue in Park
Slope. I arrived a few minutes
early fi guring to go through all
the usual hoopla when sitting
down with a mayoral candidate,
but it never materialized.
There was no advance team
to size me up. No burly bodyguards
to sweep the area with
their eyes. When Garcia arrived
it wasn’t stepping out of a
running SUV with tinted windows.
She simply walked up to
me from down the street. We
sat down and ordered the relatively
inexpensive food and got
right down to business.
PoliticsNY: “I used to frequent
a tavern where a fi refi
ghter with fi ve kids moonlighted
as a bartender to
make a few extra bucks. He
used to say that the NYPD
was New York’s fi nest, the
FDNY was New York’s bravest
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, M 18 ARCH 26-APR. 1, 2021 BTR
and sanitation workers
were New York’s richest. Do
you agree with that?
Kathryn Garcia (KG) “No,
sanitation is New York’s strongest.
It’s not that their contact
is more robust than a cop or a
fi refi ghter, it’s if there is a really
bad winter they are on
12-hour shifts for weeks at a
time. This past winter, they
did 12-hour shifts for almost a
month.”
PoliticsNY: So what was
it like running the maledominated
Department of
Sanitation as a woman?
KG: I gave them a vision of
what could be true. That meant
sometimes talking to sanitation
workers at fi ve in the
morning about what you were
doing and where you were doing
it and being able to be the
face of the agency whether it
was during downed trees or
snow.
PoliticsNY: What campaign
challenges do you
see as somebody trying to
break that glass ceiling and
becoming the city’s fi rst
woman mayor?
KG: It’s very interesting. I
come out of running a mostly
male-dominated industry. Out
of sanitation and the DEP and
yet there is this consistent
drumbeat, ‘are you viable?’
“No one says are you prepared
for the job to the male candidates.
They don’t ask that of
men. Could you do the job?
They focus on are you viable,
and I think that’s a real problem
that women in this race
face.
PoliticsNY: Women
make up over half the electorate.
Do you think there
is such a thing as a woman’s
vote?
KG: I don’t think there’s
necessarily a woman’s vote,
but I do believe that women
will be a huge part of the elec-
Kathyrn Garcia
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