NYC comptroller’s mayoral campaign paints him as competent manager; here’s a look at his platform

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Comptroller Brad Lander has been a fixture in New York City politics for over a decade, and has run a mayoral campaign framing himself as a competent manager.

A recent New York Times profile of his candidacy saw Lander portray himself as the “decent” alternative to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s led polling throughout the campaign.

Lander has trailed Cuomo and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani throughout the campaign.

Publicly, the Lander campaign hasn’t spent much time on Staten Island, but the comptroller did hold a Brooklyn town hall in late May taking Rep. Nicole Mallitoakis, a Republican representing Staten Island and South Brooklyn, to task for her vote on a recent tax and spending bill.

Lander’s responses to a 17-part questionnaire offer a bit of insight into what his mayoralty would look like. Here are his unedited answers:

Public Safety

Crime continues to drop post COVID, but there’s a constant chorus of people saying they don’t “feel safe.” What can be done to ensure people’s sentiments meet statistical realities?

All New Yorkers deserve to be safe and to feel safe. They deserve to ride the subway and walk home free from fear, a safe school for their kids, and a justice system that treats them fairly. This is not too much to ask–our families and our future depend on it. Even with crime well below historic highs from the 80s and 90s, New Yorkers don’t feel safe and secure, with just 22% of New Yorkers feeling safe riding the subway at night, a sharp drop from 46% in 2017.

I will confront this challenge head on by tackling the city’s record-high rates of homelessness, escalating mental health crisis, persistent gun violence, rising drug overdoses, retail theft, increasing hate crimes, and a surge in traffic deaths and serious injuries on our streets. I will make our communities safer by uniting police, community-based violence prevention and alternatives, mental health and substance use services, and the city’s broader social safety net—resources we’re already paying for—into a more coordinated, data-driven approach that reduces crime, maintains public order, holds offenders and police officers alike accountable, and helps communities thrive without returning to the failed Giuliani era of unaccountable policing and mass incarceration.

To address the root causes of public safety challenges, I will:

-End street homelessness for people with serious mental illness through a “housing first” approach that will actually succeed in helping people get housed, and effectively end street homelessness for people with serious mental illness in New York City, now at a two-decade high.

-Keep Jessica Tisch on-board as NYPD Commissioner. Crime has come down every month she has been leading the department, and she is bringing accountability back to the NYPD.

-Recruit, retrain, and support NYPD officers to get back to the budgeted headcount of 35,000 officers (right now we are 1,500 short), by expanding the NYPD Cadet program, creating a new “Homes for City Workers” program, and adding an incentive for long-time officers with strong track records to stay on the job.

-Reform and strengthen the city’s Crisis Management System to reduce gun violence through better coordination, oversight, and outcomes. Despite a nearly 2000% funding increase since 2012, CMS lacks consistent impact measurement, training, data access, and procurement support.

-Modernize CompStat by scaling up NeighborhoodStat (NStat), a data-driven, community-centered model that brings residents into the crime prevention process through regular public meetings and shared problem-solving. Inspired by Canada’s HUB model, NStat coordinates resources across agencies—from social services to violence interrupters—while integrating data on police misconduct and public perception to strengthen accountability. By ensuring robust community participation and supporting successful models like the Brownsville Safety Alliance, I will make public safety more collaborative, transparent, and effective.

-Expand and strengthen evidence-based, community-led strategies proven to reduce violence and interrupt cycles of retaliatory violence through trauma-informed, culturally relevant interventions. I will prioritize investment in NYCHA communities and historically underserved neighborhoods, ensuring a comprehensive approach that addresses both prevention and enforcement to make all New Yorkers safer. This includes school-based programs that have evidence-based results, such as Chicago’s Becoming a Man program, which helps young people think carefully in tough situations, providing impulse control skills and self-control skills. This program has been shown to decrease total arrests by about a third, violent crime arrests by nearly half, and arrests for other crimes by more than a third.

-Expand the number of public housing developments participating in MAP, which focuses city resources on the NYCHA developments experiencing the highest crime including: CCTV cameras, exterior lighting, and community center upgrades, youth employment and mentorship, urban farms, fitness programs, and health initiatives to address root causes of crime. MAP sites saw a 7.5% drop in major felonies, preventing 600 crimes.

-Guaranteeing summer youth employment: A study of NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program found an increase in earnings for participants for three years after the program, and a decreased risk of incarceration and mortality.

-Better lighting in high-crime areas including transit hubs, parks and public housing.

People in mental health crisis have become a focus with more elected officials calling for increased institutionalization. How do you balance safety concerns with people’s civil rights?

I support additional flexibility for involuntary hospitalization when a person with serious mental illness becomes a risk to themselves or others, along with a commitment to better coordination and a more holistic approach to planning discharge—but this must be accompanied by a new “housing first” approach at the city level that connects people to housing and services, or they will simply keep cycling from subway to street to hospital, and then back again.

I will expand the range of professionals authorized to evaluate individuals for involuntary hospitalization to include psychiatric nurse practitioners, requiring practitioners who are evaluating an individual to take into account the individual’s full medical history, and requiring hospital administrators to notify community mental health providers who have previously been treated as a patient when admitted to a hospital to ensure the people who really need involuntary treatment do not fall through the cracks.

In addition to leading with a “housing first” approach to ending homelessness for people with serious mental illness as outlined in my “Safer for All” plan, I will improve the city’s approach to involuntary and court ordered treatment and secure detention programs by:

-Providing people with adequate mental health services before it reaches a crisis point requiring involuntary treatment, focusing on proactive, coordinated, and compassionate care, which includes:

-Creating a dedicated team at City Hall that drives resource deployment and decision-making citywide, with a focus on stabilizing and housing the highest risk populations of people with serious mental illness living on the street, regularly conducting program evaluations to identify gaps in services and hone successful models to drive program modifications and expansions.

-Eliminating waitlists to the city’s IMT and ACT programs and investing in evidenced-backed step-down services to adjust the intensity of services as clients stabilize, to ensure continuity of care and prevent relapse.

-Improving and expanding proactive subway and neighborhood outreach teams, including SOS, SCOUT, and PATH, ensuring outreach teams are provided with the resources they need to build long-term trust with clients and work to better integrate the city’s data systems to ensure providers are provided with timely data to prevent people from falling through the cracks.

-Restructuring the city’s framework for mental health emergency response to always include mental health professionals, and better distinguishing between crisis and non-crisis interactions, deploying mental health professionals and peer responders to 100% of 911 mental health crisis calls through a new citywide, 24/7 program modeled on the Crisis Assistance Helping Out on The Streets (CAHOOTS) model.

-Ensuring individuals in custody receive adequate mental health treatment, including expediting and expanding the secure, outposted therapeutic beds, starting with the 360 beds at Health and Hospitals (H+H) facilities that the Adams administration delayed by over two years and has still failed to open.

-Increasing the capacity and efficacy of mental health courts, which have proven highly effective, but require stable housing for people to comply with their treatment and sanctions.

A 2023 survey conducted by the Advance/SILive.com found most Staten Islanders were concerned with property theft crimes. What do you think can be done at the city level to better prevent those types of crimes?

NYPD officers are the best resource the city has to deploy against property theft. Too often, we ask the police to respond to situations outside the scope of their training, like mental health crises and street homelessness. The best deterrent against crime is to have a police force that is free to focus on policing by expanding our mental health crisis intervention workforce. From there, precincts can work directly with communities on interventions that deter theft in the first place, and solve the thefts that occur.

As mayor, I will also combat retail theft by launching a simple, one-stop platform to streamline reporting, investigations, and enforcement. We don’t always have to have the toothpaste behind lock and key.

Transit/Traffic

As mayor, I’ll make sure Staten Island gets the transit investment it deserves. For every transit or transportation improvement project in Manhattan, I’ll deliver at least two in the outer boroughs—with a strong commitment to Staten Island.

One great option is to expand bus rapid transit, like the S79, with dedicated lanes and faster service connecting neighborhoods like Eltingville, New Dorp, and St. George to the ferry and beyond. I’ll work directly with Staten Islanders to shape these routes based on what communities need.

I’ll also fight to expand Fair Fares to cover express buses, so low-income Staten Islanders aren’t paying nearly seven dollars a ride just to get to work. And I’ll make sure these improvements aren’t imposed from City Hall—they’ll be planned with real input from Staten Island residents through local town halls and community partnerships.

Most Staten Islanders drive. What can the city do to improve traffic conditions on the Island?

The New York City Department of Transportation can work far more efficiently on road repaving, repairing potholes, and keeping our streets and bridges in good working condition. As mayor, I’ll make sure we prioritize these services on Staten Island.

In addition, improving and expanding bus service and making express bus service in key corridors more affordable via Fair Fares expansion will relieve congestion.

Would you commit to keeping Staten Island Ferry service free?

Yes.

Housing

What is your position on Mayor Adams City of Yes for Housing Opportunity?

While I believe that City of Yes was a step in the right direction to build more housing, it was never going to solve our affordability crisis. One good model for the kind of neighborhood development we need is the effort I led in Gowanus, where 8,500 new homes are rising, 3,000 of them affordable to working-class families. Because we included new open space, new infrastructure, affordable artist studios, repairs for public housing residents nearby, affordable homeownership, and support for small businesses in the effort, a strong majority of the local community boards voted in favor of the project.

What can be done to improve housing costs for homeowners and renters around the five boroughs?

Rents are at their highest levels ever, crushing working and middle class families and pushing them out of the city and the probability of homeownership feels too out of reach. In order to tackle the city’s affordability crisis and close the racial wealth gap, we must deliver results for New Yorkers so they can live and raise their families here while advancing protections for millions of New York City renters.

I’ve spent my career dedicated to affordable housing and community development in New York City, starting as director of the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center, where I helped build hundreds of affordable homes. As comptroller, I invested $60 million to preserve 35,000 rent-stabilized units, helped secure $2 billion for permanently affordable housing, issued New York City’s first-ever social bonds to fund 7,000 low-income homes, and set national standards for responsible housing investment. I also helped establish a $500 million fund to build and maintain affordable housing and issued key recommendations to strengthen HPD’s capacity.

As mayor, I will declare a housing emergency on day one so we can streamline our efforts to protect tenants, create genuinely affordable housing, and restore the pathway to homeownership for working and middle-class families. This will include working in partnership with faith-based institutions to invest in their houses of worship while creating new housing, and identifying large, stalled privately-owned development sites and enabling a new generation of affordable cooperative homeownership, as the city did in the days of the Mitchell-Lama program, and launching “Homes for City Workers” program that will enable our teachers, cops, firefighters, public hospital nurses, and municipal employees to double their purchasing power and become homeowners in the five boroughs.

Where do you see the most opportunity to build housing in the five boroughs?

The Interborough Express – a new rail line that will run between Brooklyn and Queens – offers excellent opportunities for significant transit-oriented development.

Health

What can be done to bring a public hospital to Staten Island?

Staten Island is notably underserved in emergency services and hospitals. I support bringing a public hospital to Staten Island. In the meantime, it will be critical for the next mayor to increase access to preventative and emergency care in the absence of a public hospital. New York City can expand Gotham Health-style outpatient clinics and create a 24/7 urgent care and stabilization center on Staten Island to provide accessible, high-quality care for underserved residents. Mobile health units and partnerships with existing hospitals can fill critical gaps, offering public beds and preventive services while reducing strain on emergency rooms. A borough-wide care navigation program would connect residents to available services and lay the foundation for a future full-service public hospital.

Many Staten Island officials have said the borough hasn’t seen its fair share of the state’s Opioid Settlement Fund. What can the mayor do to see more of that funding directed to Staten Island?

Earlier this year, I sent a letter to the NYC Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requesting additional information on how the city is using opioid settlement funds, while also raising concerns about the lack of transparency. When we receive a reply from OMB or City Hall, I look forward to sharing it with the Advance. As mayor, I will prioritize transparency and work to ensure that these critical funds are distributed equitably across all five boroughs.

Community

What would your administration do to improve environmental resiliency around the five boroughs, particularly on Staten Island?

To build a city truly prepared for climate emergencies, we must invest in resilient infrastructure that not only safeguards New Yorkers but also enhances their daily lives. As mayor I will work aggressively to improve environmental resilience across the five boroughs, with a strong focus on the at-risk communities on Staten Island.

-Create a Comprehensive, Future-Ready Climate Resilience Plan: I will update and streamline the City’s resiliency strategies into a unified, proactive framework—using climate projections to inform project designs, establishing clear standards, and securing reliable funding. This approach will accelerate infrastructure projects, protect vulnerable communities, attract investment, and ensure long-term sustainability and affordability for New Yorkers. In addition to updating our plans for coastal storms and flash flooding, it is urgent that we develop better plans to confront extreme heat; a major heat wave is very likely to hit New York City in the coming years, and it will, alas, likely be the most deadly climate catastrophe when it does, unless we prepare now to save the lives of heat-vulnerable New Yorkers.

-Reform how the city designs and manages delivery of all capital projects by implementing the recommendations developed by the Capital Process Reform Task Force, of which I was a part. Many important resiliency projects such as Living Breakwaters in Staten Island, as well as inland flood resiliency projects like DEP’s Cloudburst Management program, are currently underway across the city, and I will ensure these projects benefit from reforms to the capital process to deliver them faster, better, and often cheaper. Beyond resiliency projects, I will focus on key strategies needed to implement new authorization from Albany to contain project costs, select more efficient project-delivery methods, and streamline internal approvals that stop already-funded projects from moving forward quickly.

-Create Neighborhood Resilience Hubs: I will invest in establishing Neighborhood Resilience Hubs across the city, prioritizing Staten Island and flood-prone areas, providing residents with safe, accessible spaces during emergencies such as floods, heatwaves, and blackouts. These hubs will utilize existing city-owned facilities and nonprofit spaces—including schools, NYCHA developments, and community-based organizations—and fund practical, affordable resiliency upgrades like modular flood gates, solar power with battery storage, cooling systems, mesh Wi-Fi, and supportive community programming.

How can the city improve opportunities for small businesses?

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our city, driving innovation, culture and economic vitality. Yet they face growing challenges that threaten their stability and success, from skyrocketing rents to rising costs of goods, worsened by Trump’s tariffs. l will cut red tape, expand capital access, support NYCHA entrepreneurs, and stabilize commercial rents to protect neighborhood businesses. Read my jobs plan for more details.

With President Trump’s mass deportation strategy, what more can be done to protect our immigrant neighbors documented and undocumented? How would you uphold the city’s sanctuary city status?

New York City is the greatest immigrant city the world has ever known, and I will keep it that way. As a report from my office, Facts Not Fear, revealed, of the 8 million New Yorkers, 40% are immigrants, and 50% live in mixed-status households, including 1 million children – a huge part of the future of New York City.

This is a critical moment for the City of New York to stand up for its values. Donald Trump’s presidency poses grave risks for New York City, including the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. Unfortunately, Eric Adams has scapegoated asylum seekers as part of his humiliating capitulation to Trump.

As mayor, I will stand up to Trump to protect every New Yorker, and enforce the City’s sanctuary city laws. Where an individual has been convicted of a serious or violent offense, the City will cooperate with ICE. Otherwise, however, we will keep ICE out of our schools, hospitals, and shelters; provide connections to immigration legal services, and improve resources for schools serving newly arrived students.

Education

What can be done to improve city schools?

I’m the son of a public elementary school guidance counselor, a public school kid myself, and the very proud father of two New York City public school graduates. Public schools have been the most important institutions in our lives – and I will work doggedly every day as mayor to support our city’s public schools.

I am the first (and, so far, only) candidate to have released a comprehensive public education plan to ensure every child, parent, and educator within our public school system is equipped with the resources necessary to succeed. The mayor of New York City has the responsibility of leading one of the largest school districts in the United States with over 150,000 employees who serve more than 1.1 million students. As such, it is critical to work in tandem with educators, principals, parents, and students alike to ensure our policies are measurable and impactful.

Every child – regardless of neighborhood – deserves access to a high-quality, equitable education and a fair shot at a brighter future. Ensuring access to quality education for every student in New York City is a critical responsibility of the mayor. The highlights of my public education plan include:

-Recruit, support, and retain our educators. New York City’s schools cannot succeed without great educators, yet constant policy shifts, bureaucratic overload, and lack of support have driven talented teachers away; I will work with UFT to fix this by providing teachers with more support in classrooms in schools, investing in mentorship and professional growth, and building a system that respects and retains the educators our students deserve.

-Strengthen school-based support for educators by expanding Teacher Centers to every school, investing in experienced instructional coaches, and ensuring leadership teams have the developmental expertise needed to guide effective teaching at every grade level.

-Build a strong and diverse teaching pipeline by offering free CUNY education to future educators and launching a high school Teacher Corps to recruit, support, and train the next generation of diverse, well-prepared public school teachers.

-Make teaching a sustainable career by improving pay and career pathways for paraprofessionals and helping educators achieve homeownership through my Homes for City Workers program.

-Fully fund New York City public schools with transparency and accountability. New York City’s public schools face persistent funding challenges rooted in outdated and inequitable state policies, which were made significantly worse under the leadership of former governor Andrew Cuomo, who consistently shortchanged New York City public schools. I will fight to fully fund public schools to ensure that every child—regardless of neighborhood—has access to a high-quality, equitable education and a fair shot at a brighter future.

• Win increased state funding for pressing new needs. 
• Improve DOE efficiency to redirect funding to classrooms. 
• Reform PEP budget oversight to ensure transparency and accountability. 
• Provide predictability through responsible budgeting at City Hall.
• Design the school system to enable every child to succeed. For too long, we have built our school system as if most kids are “average” and can be served by a one-size-fits-all approach – and then we could add extra support for “everyone else.” I will change that. Every child has unique needs, challenges and gifts, and our schools must be equipped to help every student thrive. Classrooms designed to serve each child will serve all children better. Achieving this vision will require new investments, exceptional implementation, smart management and committed leadership. 
• Improve student outcomes by fully staffing schools with mental health and attendance supports, expanding real-world learning opportunities, and scaling innovative, culturally responsive instruction across the system. 
• Increase access to enrichment that fuels students’ passion & purpose by expanding access to arts, athletics, libraries, academic enrichment programs, and career and technical paths.
• Guarantee access, equity, and belonging for all students by expanding special education services, improving support for newly arrived and homeless students, and fixing enrollment and transportation system to meet families’ real needs.
• Support families and strengthen family-community ties by expanding universal child care, afterschool, and summer programs while transforming every school into a community hub with wraparound services. 

What is your position on charter schools?

My first priority is New York City’s neighborhood public schools. While charter schools can model innovation, ensuring New York City’s public schools have the support and resources they need will be my top education priority as mayor. I will fight to ensure that Albany’s support for education is equitable and that New York City taxpayers aren’t expected to pay an outsize share of tuition assistance to charter schools or lease payments. I will oppose proposals to increase the charter school cap or require New York City to pay a greater share of charter school expenditures.

What is your position on school vouchers?

I strongly oppose the voucherization of our public schools. Public funding should be invested in public education in a manner that promotes excellence, equity, and equal access for all students. Vouchers divert resources to private schools that are not held to the same standards for enrollment, curriculum, or discipline as public schools. They also drain funding from public schools, which are then left to serve higher concentrations of high-need students with fewer resources. Many private schools do not admit students with disabilities or English language learners, and families with the lowest incomes are often unable to afford the remaining costs beyond the voucher amount.