Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Council Member Jumaane Williams would expand affordable housing, though the issue sparked the first feud between them. | AP Photo/Mark Lennihan 10 public advocate candidates spar in first televised debate

In a wide ranging and often hostile exchange, 10 candidates for public advocate, mostly Democrats, sought to differentiate themselves on a range of issues during the first televised debate of the election Wednesday night.

For two hours, candidates tussled over Amazon, city subways, public housing, school segregation as well each other’s records — occasionally shouting, leveling accusations of dishonesty and criticizing perceived failures in leadership.


Broadcast on NY1 and co-moderated by POLITICO, the exchange was the first of two televised debates between leading contenders for the seat in the Feb. 26 special election.

While only a ten-month job, with limited authority, the race for public advocate is a chance for candidates to test their citywide campaign mettle, and, in recent years it has proved a reliable springboard to higher office; alums include Mayor Bill de Blasio and Attorney General Tish James.

With those stakes in mind, the candidates were eager to land punches where they could.

The 10 kicked off the night by identifying what legislation they would introduce in the City Council — one of the few actual powers given to the public advocate.

Perhaps the most controversial was a bill proposed by former investigative journalist Nomiki Konst, who would raise the city’s minimum wage to $30 an hour. Others, including former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Council Member Jumaane Williams would expand affordable housing, though the issue sparked the first feud between them.

Williams accused Mark-Viverito of “failed leadership” for not pushing through a more aggressive policy on affordable housing in rezonings when she was speaker.

Mark-Viverito insisted the policy was the “the most important legislation that we passed.” Williams dismissed it as a “failed policy.”

Council Member Eric Ulrich, the lone Republican on the stage, was also the only to push for expanded powers as public advocate.

“I think that if we want this office to be able to get the job done, then we’ve got to give it some teeth,” he said, advocating for an independent budget and subpoena power.

Mayor Bill de Blasio will likely to be the biggest target of the next public advocate, and most seemed eager to inveigh against his mayoralty.

Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell (D-Manhattan) criticized, “overdevelopment and his lack of response to community concerns,” adding “his approach to rezoning is a real problem.”

Attorney and former Obama administration official Dawn Smalls chided the mayor’s “lack of responsibility over the MTA.”

While the MTA is effectively controlled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, candidates vowed to help fix the decrepit subways, though they differed on how.

When asked for a show of hands on whether they would support mayoral control of the MTA, only Konst and Council Member Rafael Espinal raised their hands; Smalls and Williams raised theirs only halfway.

Many candidates called for changes to be made to the governance structure of the MTA. Assemblyman Michael Blake (D-Bronx) said the public advocate should have a seat. Others said the city should have a greater presence on the 17-member board.

"Decisions made on the subway need to be made by New Yorkers,” said Smalls.

Mark-Viverito said New Yorkers are “tired of the pissing match” between the mayor and the governor, a sentiment Espinal shared. With mayoral control, he said, “We will have someone to hold responsible.”

Ulrich panned the idea of mayoral control outright.

"I actually think it can get a lot worse,” referencing the mayor’s “terrible job” of managing NYCHA.

When asked for a show of hands to support congestion pricing, all but Ulrich raised their hands, saying the concept represented “a tax on the outer boroughs."

Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) proposed relying on corporate money to fund the system. O’Donnell brought up a bill that would allow a millionaire’s tax to fund the MTA. Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez called for a forensic audit of the MTA’s finances, saying the city should pay more, but needed to be more transparent about its dealings.

Another issue that drew the invective of most candidates was the deal struck by de Blasio and Cuomo to bring Amazon’s second headquarters to Queens. The deal would grant the tech-giant $3 billion in subsidies on the promise of between 25,000 and 40,000 jobs.

All but Ulrich opposed the deal. Mark-Viverito, Blake and WIlliams all signed a letter in support of Amazon coming to the city before coming out against the final deal (O’Donnell and Espinal did not sign).

When asked, Mark-Viverito said she’d signed assuming the project would have gone through a public review process.

“I believe it should be completely scrapped and start all over again,” she said.

Konst said the Amazon deal was an indictment of “lying politicians like yourself,” referring to Mark-Viverito specifically, but directing the comment to other elected officials on stage as well.

Ulrich, like the mayor, said the creation of the 25,000 promised jobs made Amazon coming to New York a common sense choice. Kim, however, said he doubted they would materialize.

School segregation proved another area of dispute.

Only three of the 10 public advocates onstage supported the mayor's plan to eliminate the single admissions test at the city's specialized high schools: Konst, Blake and O'Donnell.

Blake said that the Asian community is bring up a "very real concern" but pointed to the small percentage of black and Latino students in the schools.

"I'm a kid that did very well in school but I struggled on standardized tests," he said.

The other seven — Williams, Espinal, Ulrich, Kim, Rodriguez, Smalls and Mark-Viverito — all oppose the mayor's plan.

Mark-Viverito said she would like to explore multiple measures for admission. Ulrich, Rodriguez and Espinal expressed support for creating more specialized high schools.

Kim said "racially balancing schools" is not the same as racial equality

And he took issue with New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza's statement that "buy into the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admission to these schools,” which some interpreted as a jab at Asian students, who make up the majority of the students at the schools.

"These kids are working hard and to label them as a privileged class, as the chancellor did ... is completely racist," he said.

Smalls said, while she she supports a way of evaluating children "that is much more well-rounded than the test we have now," she does not agree with reserving seats for students in the top 7 percent of each middle school "rather than having some evaluation tool."

"This would not be a problem if all our schools were top schools," she said.

Many of the candidates will meet again on February 20 for the second televised debate.