20 The QUEE NS Courier • august 29, 2013 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com primary guide MAYOR • DEMOCRATS Name: Sal Albanese Party: Democrat Current Position: Former New York City Councilmember Personal: Born in Italy, Sal Albanese grew up in a working class neighborhood in Brooklyn, where his mother raised him on a garment worker’s salary. The public schools, libraries, and CUNY system—all services provided by the city—helped elevate his family to the middle class. He spent 11 years as a New York City public school teacher and 15 years as a reformer on the City Council, where he authored the city’s first living wage and campaign finance laws. Issues/Platform: Albanese is running for mayor because he believes we need a clean break from a political class that has lost touch with regular New Yorkers. As mayor, his top priority will be keeping the city affordable for those who grew up here and came to make a new life here. That starts with a new approach to our schools, focused on working with kids from birth to ensure they are ready to succeed in school from day one. He will launch an unprecedented expansion of affordable housing, building 210,000 new units over eight years. Most importantly, he’ll create jobs that actually pay the bills by expanding living wage laws and giving small businesses the room they need to grow. Name: Randy Credico Party: Democrat Current Position: Political satirist-impressionist, voice over specialist, civil rights activist Personal: Credico has been in show business for 40 years, appearing on the “The Tonight Show, “Larry King Live,” “Charlie Rose” and countless others. In 1997 he became the director of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, fighting against stop-and-frisk and NY’s racist drug laws. He won four awards for his work and numerous profiles. There are two documentaries on his life including the award winning “60 Spins Around the Sun” by actor Jack Black and writer Laura Kightlinger. Issues/Platform: As mayor, Credico would make wholesale changes in the NYPD, including replacing Commissioner Raymond Kelly with Frank Serpico and eliminating the special narcotics office. He would provide free CUNY education, free health care and free transportation and create a massive FDR jobs program. He would also eliminate the 56,000 homeless people on the streets of New York. Credico would do this by imposing a half percent sales tax on all of Wall Street, which would engender enough to cover all of the above and more. Name: Bill de Blasio Party: Democrat Current Position: New York City Public Advocate Personal: As a former City Hall staffer, school board member, city councilmember, and now as the city’s Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio has spent his life fighting to ensure that New Yorkers across all five boroughs get a fair shot. As mayor, de Blasio will continue that fight and work to end the inequality crisis gripping our city. De Blasio and his wife, Chirlane, are the proud public school parents of Chiara, a college freshman, and Dante, a high school junior. I s s u e s / P l a t f o r m : Currently, 46 percent of city residents are living at or near the poverty line, while 400,000 millionaires also call New York home. de Blasio is committed to ending this “Tale of Two Cities” with a plan to create jobs in all five boroughs; dramatically expand affordable housing; end the overuse and abuse of stop-and-frisk; and fund Universal Pre-K and after-school programs for all middle school students by asking the wealthy to pay a little more. Having lived in Brooklyn with his family for the last 20 years, de Blasio has a firsthand knowledge of the challenges facing New York City families and outer borough residents, including soaring water bill rates and the unprecedented rise in fines on small businesses. As mayor, he will address these challenges and work to build one New York, where everyone rises together. Name: John Liu Party: Democrat Current Position: New York City Comptroller Personal: The first Asian-American to be elected to the City Council and citywide office in New York, Liu has served as comptroller since 2010 and represented Queens’ Council District 20 from 2001 to 2009, according to his campaign website. Before serving in the City Council, he worked in the private sector for 14 years, including as a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. After immigrating to the U.S. from Taiwan as a young child, Liu attended P.S. 20 in Queens, later graduating from the Bronx High School of Science. He currently lives in Flushing with his wife and son. Issues/Platform: In a sit down with The Courier’s editorial board, Liu said if elected, he would seek to “bring back a level of attention to Queens that we have not seen for many years.” He said he plans to overhaul the school system by starting children in school earlier, at age three, giving students better access to computers and the Internet to close the digital divide and better preparing them for postsecondary education. Liu also said as mayor he would not keep Ray Kelly as NYPD Commissioner, and would like to greatly reduce fines and penalties for small businesses and reduce their taxes. Additionally, Liu recently proposed legalizing marijuana in the city for adults 21 and over as a way to generate millions in annual revenue. Name: Christine Quinn Party: Democrat Current Position: New York City Council Speaker Personal: The daughter of a union electrical worker and a social worker, Christine Quinn understands the struggles of New York’s middle-class. As City Council Speaker, the city’s second most powerful position, she has fought tirelessly for the middle class and those struggling to make it there. Quinn passed eight on-time, balanced budgets protecting critical social services, firehouses and libraries. She saved 4,100 teachers from layoffs, fought overcrowding and empowered parents in our schools. She created thousands of jobs, cracked down on bad landlords and built thousands of units of affordable housing. Quinn helped protect our neighborhoods by putting more cops on the street, funding bulletproof vests for every officer, and working to improve police-community relations. She wrote the law banning smoking in bars and the workplace, and passed the Climate Protection Act, requiring the city to reduce greenhouse emissions 30 percent by 2030. Issues/Platform: As mayor, Quinn will continue to fight for the middle class. She’ll focus our schools on college and career-readiness, not test prep. She’ll bring hightech and manufacturing jobs to every borough and launch the most ambitious middle-class housing program in the city’s history. And she’ll ensure New York City remains the safest big city in America. H
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