Metropolis Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander stated he’ll refuse to again rival Andrew Cuomo if the ex-governor wins the Democratic nomination for Metropolis Corridor — and didn’t rule out operating because the Working Households Occasion candidate within the common election.
Lander’s allies within the left-leaning WFP stated they might run their very own candidate — probably Lander or Zohran Mamandi or another person — in November if the embattled ex-gov. clinches the Democratic poll line within the June 24 major election.
“I’m very centered, ensuring that Andrew Cuomo doesn’t win the Democratic nomination. That’s my focus proper now. I simply don’t have bandwidth for past June twenty fourth proper now,” Lander stated throughout a gathering with The Put up editorial board Wednesday.
“Andrew Cuomo is a corrupt, contemptible human being, who shouldn’t be allowed anyplace close to Metropolis Corridor and is an unacceptable selection for mayor.”
Cuomo is the clear front-runner in polls for the Democratic nomination, regardless of a blizzard of assaults and his final resignation following quite a few sexual harassment accusations leveled in opposition to him by former Albany staffers and different girls and scandals involving his dealing with of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuomo has denied the accusations.
Whereas ripping into his opponent, Lander didn’t exit of his technique to criticize surging Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Astoria, Queens state assemblyman and mayoral candidate who helps the boycott, divestment and sanctions motion in opposition to Israel.
Lander, a Jew and liberal Zionist, stated he disagreed with Mamdani on a number of points pertaining to Israel.
Individually, the comptroller stated he backs the legislation to shut the Rikers Island complicated and helps changing it with four-borough-based jails with a smaller inhabitants.
He had voted for the legislation to section out Rikers when he was a Brooklyn councilman.
However he admitted Rikers can’t shut if town can’t shrink the jail inhabitants by 1000’s of inmates.
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“If these methods fail, then we will’t shut Rikers utterly. So as to shut Rikers, now we have to have profitable methods for coping with these points,” Lander stated.
For instance, tons of of extra remedy beds are wanted for legal defendants who’re mentally sick and delays in trials should be dramatically decreased, he stated.
The Brooklyn pol additionally stated he supported Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to increase the authority to drive people with severe psychological well being points into remedy following the crazed Soho and southern Brooklyn slashings.
“I’m looking for flexibility for involuntary hospitalization,” he stated.
Lander stated Muslim Brunston, the homeless man who slashed a girl within the neck in SoHo and had been out and in of about 36 mental-health hearings for the violent 2019 theft of a 13-year-old boy — and later slugged an NYPD employee so badly that he broke her eye socket — mustn’t have been on the road.
On training, Lander raved in regards to the Dream Constitution faculty community the place his son, Marek, works.
However he opposes lifting the state cap on constitution faculties in New York Metropolis to copy Dream Constitution’s success.
The cap has been reached and new constitution faculties can’t open and not using a state legislation to lift or eradicate the cap.
He known as Dream Constitution “a incredible establishment,” which has an extended faculty day and college 12 months and presents college students help as much as six years after commencement.
Requested about lifting the cap to copy Dream Constitution’s success, Lander stated he would concentrate on the two,800 conventional public faculties if elected mayor fairly than increasing the favored publicly-funded, however privately managed constitution faculties.
“I might have plenty of different priorities …It’s not a part of my [education agenda],” he stated of constitution faculty growth.
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