Former Commissioner Kathryn Garcia Officially Launches her Campaign for Mayor

Kathryn Garcia today formally announced her candidacy for the office of the Mayor of New York City.

“We face critical challenges in New York City—the stakes are almost unimaginably high,” she said. “Our city’s next mayor will either make or break it. In the depths of overlapping crises, we must still have bold vision and be true to the strivers we all are. That’s why I am running.”

Known as the city’s “go-to crisis manager,” Garcia has served the city as Food Czar throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Lead Czar and interim chair of NYCHA, and Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Environmental Protection in the Bloomberg administration. As Food Czar this year, she oversaw the distribution of 130M meals to vulnerable and hungry New Yorkers.
As Sanitation Commissioner, she managed the largest department of its kind in the world. While there, she implemented the most ambitious reforms in its history, from banning single-use plastics to rolling out the country’s largest organics program, to overhauling the way private trash is collected for safer streets.

“Kathryn Garcia is the most talented, hard-working person I’ve ever worked with,” said Harry Nespoli, the powerful head of Local 831, the sanitation workers union. “She managed the largest sanitation department in the world, which by the way is 96% male, and along the way won the respect of every person there. There is no person better qualified to take over City Hall.”

In today’s launch, Garcia said that as mayor, she will deliver economic opportunity and inclusive growth.  She introduced initiatives including creating pipelines from CUNY and SUNY universities to NYC jobs, eliminating wasteful government spending, building universal broadband, and offering free childcare for the most vulnerable families.

She uniquely highlighted the need for NYC to get the basics right, referencing the core services that every New Yorker, in every neighborhood, needs and deserves: clean, safe streets, affordable housing, a quality education, and police reform.

And she is the only candidate who lists the fight against climate change as a top part of her agenda. Her bold vision includes converting Rikers to a composting and renewable energy zone, restoring food scraps collection, electrifying the school bus fleet, and implementing a 5-boro resiliency plan to protect every neighborhood.

“From local jobs and our NYC economy, to everyday life in the city, to long-term climate solutions, we will leave our children a city more prepared,” Garcia said.

Today’s event premiered the campaign launch video produced by Left Hook Strategies, the firm that produced Congressman-Elect Richie Torres’ media in the Bronx and Senator-Elect Mark Kelly. In addition, Garcia’s campaign launched an in-depth video series that highlights Garcia’s platform and lets New Yorkers get to know their future Mayor.

Garcia said her campaign will be based on facts and everyday realities, not ideological divisions. “New York City’s success, at the end of the day, means proper budget management,” she said. “This isn’t the federal government, where they can print money, and it isn’t a database on a Wall Street computer. New Yorkers are looking for a Mayor that doesn’t need to learn on the job and has the nuts and bolts experience to deliver a fast recovery.”

“I’ll say it again,” Harry Nespoli said. “You simply won’t find a better Mayor than I know Kathryn Garcia will be.”