Kathryn Garcia hopes experience in city agencies will prove she’s the choice for mayor

Democrat Kathryn Garcia is hoping that her experience under pressure and as a leader makes her qualified to be the next mayor of New York City.
In addition to being the former city sanitation commissioner, she also was the interim chair of the New York City Housing Authority.
Garcia also recently served as the “food czar” of the city during the pandemic.
“Running large agencies with large labor forces that are unionized is different than most other people’s experiences,” Garcia says.
The mayoral candidate says that the vaccine rollout has been a series of missteps that could have been addressed during the summer when it was clear the vaccine was coming.
Garcia also called small businesses the “heart and soul of any neighborhood,” adding that the city misses restaurants and needs to help them with financial assistance.
“We need to eliminate the bureaucracy that hampers them,” she says. “We need to put in place a vacancy tax for retail and ensure that we are supporting them in every way possible.”
The Democrat also wants to focus on getting broadband accessible to everyone and to have police treat every community as if they are guardians of that community.
“They need to not over enforce on a community just because of how they look,” Garcia says. “And for those that do treat people differently based on the color of their skin, they need to be held accountable.”
She says that she is the one who could get policies enacted more than anyone else who is in the race for mayor.