Official Mayoral Launch Speech: A City That Works For Everyone
By: Shaun Donovan
Tags: New York City, Mayor, Politics, Democrats, NYC

Thank you Rev Dr Youngblood for that powerful invocation. You’ve been a friend and mentor for nearly 30 years, long before i could call you Bishop, and I am deeply grateful for your counsel and the sense of community you’ve built and shared with me.

I want to thank Mayor Mitch Landrieu of my second favorite city — New Orleans, Senator-Elect John Hickenlooper of the fine state of Colorado, Mayor Ashley Swearengin of Fresno, Michael Nutter from Philadelphia, and Manny Diaz of what some New Yorkers call the sixth borough — Miami. Mayors make America run. It was an honor working with you, learning from you, and fighting alongside you to make our nation a better, fairer place. And it’s an honor to call you all friends.

Thank you to Anna Vincenty — your lifetime of work for your community inspired me, and helped lead me to a career of public service fighting for neighborhoods too often left behind.

Finally, I want to thank my wife Liza, and our two sons Lucas and Milo. They are the center of my life. So when public service called me to our nation’s capital, I spent the loneliest year and a half of my life apart from them before they left our beloved Brooklyn to join me in D.C.

I’ll never forget the Saturday morning I was first nominated in 2008. Liza and I woke the boys up early and brought them down to our bed to have the difficult conversation that I wouldn’t be there to tuck them in at night or walk them to school in the morning. I told them I’d make it back on weekends whenever I could.

After explaining everything, we looked down at their small faces — they were six and nine at the time, and a lot shorter. We feared the hard questions or even angry tears. But Milo looked straight up at me and said, first of all, Daddy, congratulations. My public service is our public service, and I can’t thank you enough.

I am honored today to announce that I am running for Mayor of New York City — to​ repair ​the torn fabric of this great city that I love; to bring together all New Yorkers to ​rebuild​ from the damage done by COVID; and to re-imagine​ an innovative city that truly works for everyone.

I am a proud, native New Yorker. For us, this city always has been, and always will be, home.

Growing up here, I saw New York City ​fall short ​as the Bronx burned in frustration and anger. But I have also seen New Yorkers ​stand tall​ and pull together in the wake of tragedy.

Once again, the greatest city on earth has arrived at a defining moment where we will either stand tall, or fall short.

We are in crisis. There is real fear that the New York we love won’t recover; that the damage will be too much to overcome.

I understand that. Walking through our neighborhoods, it’s hard not to feel it when those familiar places that make up our daily life are changed, or even gone.

As someone who had Covid myself, I know personally what this virus is; the panic it causes to hear the word “positive”, what it feels like to pick up the phone in quarantine, and pray the person you love on the other end is safe. My heart breaks for friends and neighbors who set one less place at the family table this Thanksgiving.

But in my bones I believe the people of this city will bring ourselves back. And in my soul; I know that we can come back stronger.

This is the time that the heroes of New York; clad in aprons and masks, boots and gloves, stethoscopes and scrubs, carry us…forward.

I know it can happen because I have seen it happen.

I had the​ unique​ experience of being a native New Yorker called to serve our city in the wake of 9/11, and our nation in the wake of the worst housing crisis of our lifetimes. Working with President Obama and now President-elect Biden, as Housing Secretary and Budget Director, I saw firsthand that we can overcome challenges and blaze innovative new paths forward.

I learned that, in ​every​ case, a city stands tall when it nourishes its civic life with the diversity of its people, and views “inclusion” and “equity” as strengths to lean on, instead of boxes to be checked.

My character has been ​shaped​ by heroes who taught me the meaning of service and what it is to give of oneself for a greater good; men and women like Bishop Youngblood and Anna Vincenty who led their neighborhood’s reimagining​, and John Lewis and Barack Obama who led our nation’s renewal.

My love of this city and this country is inspired by bearing witness to the belief of those who, like them, faced the greatest adversity. The belief that drove the civil rights movement, the fight for marriage equality, the struggle for women to live equally in our world. ​

Their belief in the inherent goodness of our people and institutions, even when — no especially when — those institutions stood in violent opposition to their cause.​ ​Belief that​, even in our dark times, hope and justice will prevail in the end.

My​ lived experience in New York City has been one of hard work and public service, trained as a community organizer at Bishop Youngblood’s urging.

But if that experience has taught me anything, it is the humility to never substitute my understanding of New York for the understanding of our neighbors — its many millions from different races, backgrounds, nationalities, religions, gender identities, sexualities, languages, and customs.

And so with this humility, I ask you to keep shaping my character by meeting and honoring new heroes — in the rush of a hospital corridor…the bustle of a bodega… the quiet of a late-night subway car.

A multitude of honest voices is what we seek.

Our campaign has grown purposefully to now, working with hundreds of community advocates, policy experts, and New Yorkers from every borough and neighborhood to identify the big, innovative ideas that will power this campaign and our administration.

The people, themselves, have made this city great. We’ve made New York a place where the sound of banging pots and pans can mean everything from a kitchen like Collective Fare preparing healthy meals in Brownsville, to an inspiring tribute for tired frontline workers changing shifts in our hospitals, to a spontaneous citywide celebration of a new President. Liza, we haven’t danced like that in a long time!

Our city’s greatness grows from communities joining together to make progress. Via Verde, where I stand today, and am proud to say I helped build, is a beacon of hope in affordable housing.

It is the ​result ​of the South Bronx coming together to say that affordable housing can also be healthy housing; sustainable housing; and beautiful housing. We​ can​ build this type of housing everywhere in New York City.

Yet we haven’t. And it is a lack of political will and vision that has held us back.

For too long now, our city’s leadership has been held back by a struggle between the politics of progress and the politics of blame.

Where our late Mayor Dinkins saw a diverse, gorgeous mosaic in our city’s reflection, Rudy Giuliani saw an endless list of those who needed to be punished.

Where Mayor Laguardia worked side by side with FDR to implement the New Deal, Robert Moses laid out a system of highways that segregated black and brown communities.

Robber barons of the gilded age relegated the city’s immigrant working class to tenements, but today we stand in a place that caused Ruben Diaz, Jr. to say, “where the Bronx once burned, we are building gardens in the sky.”

Dr. King’s quote that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” is well known. Less known are the words that follow: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

Here in New York City, our garment of destiny remains incomplete and torn.

But through the empathy, grit, and ingenuity of our people, we will repair the holes in our city, and see through the moral blind spots that have clouded our vision.

And we ​will​ do it together, as a finally unified New York City with a common purpose, unbound by the politics of blame.

I will be a Mayor for all New Yorkers, working to rid us of division and finger-pointing, and force change in a City government that must represent every resident.

The work we must do together is substantial. And it begins with an acknowledgement that our systemic inequity ​is not​ an accident of history; it is the result of ​conscious​ policy choices over the years that have too often sought to make us separate and unequal.

To truly make progress, we must understand that every issue is an issue of equity. Our administration will leave no doubt that diversity, equity, and inclusion are part of every action we take. We will have the most representative administration in our city’s history.

We will designate a Chief Equity Officer who reports directly to the Mayor. Our measure of success will be that opportunity is spread to ​all​ our people, rather than concentrated in too few.

When President Obama trusted me to manage the four trillion dollar federal budget, I understood that it was more than a ledger of dollars and cents. A budget is a statement of our values. That is why we invested in education, improved health care, and fought to reduce the devastating impacts of climate change.

In New York City, we will no longer budget according to the fallacy that punishment is more moral, or more cost effective, than healing.

Spend an hour in a city arraignment court and you will ​see​ that the system almost exclusively impacts people of color.

It comes from a history of conscious choices — broken windows, stop and frisk — that have created a school to prison pipeline, locked up far too many New Yorkers, and devastated black and brown wealth and community.

We look to examples that guide us as we seek to overcome centuries of injustice. 5,000 Nehemiah homes in East Brooklyn, where Reverend Youngblood led the charge, show us how a place can be transformed, and wealth can be built, through the right investment and community leadership.

Nos Quedamos — We Stay — fought a city urban renewal plan that would have steamrolled the South Bronx and displaced thousands of Melrose residents. They flipped the equation on its head, taking control of their ​own​ community, passing their own​ plan, and fighting for decades to see it grow and thrive. These are the examples that drew me into organizing, and ultimately into public service.

In this new time of crisis we must again invest in ​neighborhoods​, beginning with those that have endured the greatest disinvestment; higher employment and increased earnings in these neighborhoods will bring immediate growth for the entire economy.

But what we leave for future generations will be the true measure of the lives we have led.

Public education in New York City has always been grossly inequitable. We will fix it, and close the yawning achievement gap that persists through failure to act.

We will focus on educator diversity, so that our teachers reflect our student body — currently 42% educators of color teach 85% students of color.

When our budget pays to send police into our schools instead of paying teachers from local communities, we have a values, priorities, and management problem.

But when we repair our civic fabric, the path forward to rebuild is within our sights, and within our control.

We’re now at an inflection point in our city.

We cannot overstate the enormous toll this pandemic has taken, and is taking, on us all.

We have lost more than twenty five thousand of our fellow New Yorkers. We mourn for them, and we vow that their families will always have our support. Even as we mourn, we are bracing for a long, hard winter.

COVID is a unique threat; but many of the problems we are wrestling with today were here long before this pandemic. Like all disasters it has shone a light on the gross inequity in our country.​

When I led the Obama administrations’ response to Hurricane Sandy, or when we witnessed the disproportionate impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans’ Black communities, the curtain was pulled back on a scene that is well known to those who live it every day. So I was outraged, but not surprised, that this pandemic has wreaked havoc in our highest need neighborhoods.

It didn’t have to be this way. Donald Trump destroyed the playbook we built in the Obama administration to stop dangerous threats to public health. As Budget Director, I played a leading role in the Zika and Ebola response, and I have been appalled by the callous disregard for American lives that this administration has shown.

But with the new Biden-Harris administration as a partner, a vaccine now in sight, and the brave commitment of our fellow New Yorkers, I am confident we will overcome this pandemic.

I know the heart, talent, and values of the President and Vice President-elect firsthand. The remarkable, diverse team they are putting together includes many I have been proud to serve with and call my friends. As your Mayor, I would be a unique partner with the new Administration, finally winning the help the people of this city deserve in our time of need.

And with support in place from Washington, we can ​rebuild better,​ beginning with our economy and our quality of life.

The economy is not like the weather — it isn’t something we simply have to accept. In the wake of the last financial crisis, we rebuilt the economy to align with our values by passing the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act, saving homes and the automobile industry — and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

And now, a decade later, we have another urgent job ahead of us.

Before COVID hit, New York City had built the most powerful urban economy in the world, but the benefits of growth have not reached everyone equally.

Black and Latino New Yorkers earn less than White New Yorkers in nearly every sector of the city’s economy, and are underrepresented in middle-income jobs.

Latino business ownership is lower than it was five years ago. Half of all working New Yorkers earn wages that average forty thousand dollars a year or less.

We will work with the Biden administration to rebuild infrastructure and create new jobs, guaranteeing broadband for everyone, building new public parks, and protecting our city from the devastating impacts of climate change.

We will measure success not just by how well the economy is working, but by who the economy is working for. In the first 100 days, we will work with the city council to launch Equity Corporate Commitments to drive substantially greater Black, Latino and Asian participation in high-wage jobs.

And we’ll fling open the doors to City Hall and Gracie Mansion, convening the largest employers, labor unions, community leaders…and New Yorkers from every neighborhood to build support for achieving employment and compensation equity.

And we’ll make a major investment in our social infrastructure by ensuring libraries are open 7 days a week, everywhere across the city. These institutions are lifelines for our children, our seniors, our immigrant communities, and they will finally be funded and managed properly.

Truly effective management isn’t an impossibility and it’s not an ideology. Fiorello Laguardia was right — there is no republican or democratic way to pick up the trash; it’s just hard work, and leadership that gives our diverse, talented city employees the tools and guidance they need to do their jobs.

President ​Obama​ always told us “Never let a crisis go to waste,” and I know firsthand what he meant. I’ve looked in the eyes of too many families that have seen their homes stolen by foreclosure, their communities destroyed by storms, their loved ones lost. In those eyes I’ve seen untold pain.

But alongside the grief that shows our daily lives are fragile, I’ve also seen resilience, an understanding that with fragility comes the possibility of something better. The possibility to reimagine a world as it could be instead of the world as it was.

Now is that time. ​In the wake of our unimaginable loss, we will rebuild so that we can reimagine something better. A more inclusive city, not simply oriented around midtown skyscrapers, but around communities.

Change starts with imagination — we must push ourselves to see a city that works for everyone. If you’ve lived in a wealthy neighborhood, you may never have known a New York where anything you wanted was not immediately accessible to you. We must have a city where the same benefits of New York life are available to all.

And we will prove this is possible by applying a new definition of success; ​15 minute neighborhoods.

Within 15 minutes of your front door, ​every​ New Yorker should have a great public school, fresh food, access to rapid transportation, a park, a chance to get ahead.

Across the world, leading equity planners have begun building 15 minute cities. ​To flip an old saying on its head, if they can make it anywhere, we can make it here…only better.

To achieve this, every New Yorker will be able to access this city through a coherent, multi-modal transit plan that fits their distinct community.

We will build the type of ​true​ Bus Rapid Transit that exists in places like Bogota and Mexico City, while scooters and e-bikes will be legal in communities where access to subways and rapid buses is furthest.

And you can use this metric to hold your Mayor accountable. I’ll be on the subway every day. No matter where you live, you can tell me if you can’t access our core city services in 15 minutes. I will hold myself and my administration accountable. We will work with your community, and we will get it done.

Meanwhile, we’ll reimagine a system where every student who graduates from a public high school will have a fair shot to get ahead.

We’ll create the largest training program in the country for thousands of students through the NYC Job Corps — putting young people to work and creating opportunities for shut-out workers. And as we reimagine the criminal justice system to reflect our values, we will redirect justice-involved individuals to work and skills-training.

We’ll again take the lead on tackling climate change, and reimagine a healthier city that is environmentally just. Big green projects can be built by big blue labor unions; we can reduce emissions while increasing wages.

Yet none of this works if you can’t afford to be here. We ​must​ re-imagine affordable housing.

If we can build Via Verde in the South Bronx, we can build it in South Brooklyn, Southeast Queens, Staten Island, and anywhere else a community wants a new path forward to healthy, high quality affordable housing.

Our city government must focus on the people we are housing, not just the number of units we are building. We lead the nation in affordable housing production, yet continue to be one of the least affordable and most unequal cities in the country.

We’ll work with the Biden Administration to expand the housing choice voucher program, and make it easier to use for both tenants and landlords.

For the hundreds of thousands of NYCHA residents who have been treated like a political football by the city, state, and federal governments, we’ll finally take decisive action to end decades of shortchanging. We can accelerate energy-efficiency and resiliency investments through use of energy performance contracts that hire NYCHA residents.

To address the homelessness crisis we must reimagine a right to shelter as a right to housing. Despite the failures of recent years by the city and federal governments, it ​is​ possible; during the Obama administration, I led the strategy that dramatically reduced homelessness, lowering chronic and family homelessness by a quarter. Driven forward by my partnership with Michelle Obama, we ended veterans homelessness in more than 80 cities and states.

We proved we can house anyone. Now, we must house everyone.

It comes down to effective management and a profound commitment; if you find yourself out of stable housing, due to rents you can’t afford, substance abuse challenges, a mental health crisis, or any other reason, your city will not rest until you have a safe and affordable place to live.

If we can re-imagine a new city with stronger, better-served communities, we can weave it together with all the colorful threads of New York — the city that we all love; the city that we’re fighting for.

Our challenges are substantial, and these next few months will be hard.

Our city is changing. But the kind of change we make is up to us.

We can embrace the politics of progress and reject the politics of blame.

It is within our grasp to repair the torn fabric of our city, to restitch and rebuild, to reimagine the people and places that constitute our lives as New Yorkers. To make a city that works. For everyone.

We have great ​challenge ahead of us, but I am running for Mayor because I also see great promise ahead of us.

There is no other New York but this beautiful, imperfect, irreplaceable place we call home. And there are no other New York heroes but those who make our city run, leap, and fly.

I can see a new business owner opening her door in the Rockaways, a family on Nostrand Avenue carrying moving boxes into a home they can afford, a teacher walking to a school of eager young learners, a nurse, finally, entering Elmhurst hospital with a beat of joy in his heart.

I can see you, and I can see the city that we will build together. With your support, the heroes of New York, wherever you are across this great city, we will make that vision real.