When I was growing up, New York represented hope and opportunity to me, that place you were always trying to get to. New York City is the greatest city in the world. It’s a city of opportunity. Too many people who want to live and work in New York can’t. And getting to a place where opportunity is a reality for all New Yorkers starts with a leader we’re proud of--a leader who both lives the excitement and feels the struggle of this city. I want to be that leader for New York City.

At the moment, I see a New York that is slipping backward at a time when we’ve never had more opportunity to go forward. We’re living in an age of possibility, choice, and innovation, yet it seems for some New Yorkers that opportunity is more out of reach than ever.

New Yorkers have the opportunity, resources, and mandate to be the leaders of our collective future. We can and should pave the way in the best technology, in the best education models, in the best policing models. People come from all over the world to look at what is happening in New York, to meet New York business leaders, to meet New York designers, to meet New York education leaders. Why don’t they come today to sit with New York’s political leaders? We need to be a city of hope. New York City and its political leaders can set the tone for our country in this national moment.

We are basing our campaign and our policies around three pillars: education, innovation, and community. By working through these three pillars, we will have the ability to shape and expand upon the values that are essential to our amazing city.

Education

Improvement and Investment: We plan to improve every single one of our schools, from public to private, based on what each community needs and put every school that is not on its “path to excellence” directly on track through the implementation of necessary changes. Our administration will invest in resources drawing out the best education models that already exist in our city and will invest wholeheartedly into those models.
Choice: We believe unapologetically in choice for our children and our families. We live in an age where many people have access to choice in so many aspects of our lives. We believe that this same freedom of choice should be applied to our children’s education. An education is the cornerstone of any promising future, and our city’s children and their families should have the right to choose that education.
Partnering with Children: We will become the first administration to truly partner with children by appointing them to our board. We plan to have a high school-aged representative on our board who will keep us informed on the issues that matter most to the youth of our city. By giving children a voice, we allow them to be a part of our civil process.

Innovation

Partner with Tech Leaders: We will build a partnership with the city’s major tech leaders in order to figure out best ways for them to help our city and for our city to help them. We need to embed the most innovative thinkers and practitioners, the most innovative models into the heart of our City Hall and the heart of our community. We will experiment with new models and make big bets on our future. We will connect our greatest talent to the heart of our city.
Incorporate proven models into our government: We will scale the model of the United States Digital Services embraced by President Obama into all City agencies to extract the ideas and innovation inside our agencies.
Embrace technological advancement: Technology is growing and changing at a rapid pace. We will embrace these advancements in our city, from driverless cars to artificial intelligence and everything in between, in order to ensure our city’s growth and place in the world as a beacon of innovation. New York City will be looked upon as the city of the future. 

Community

Fight homelessness: Our administration will stand up for New York values. We must model the best of those values: kindness and empathy. Currently, our city’s homelessness rates are the highest since the Great Depression. This is unacceptable and out of line with our city’s values. Finding solutions to our city’s growing homelessness epidemic will be our administration’s priority as we enter office. We cannot rely on shelters that are not up to code, hotel rooms, or dilapidated apartment buildings to house our most vulnerable citizens. We must find clear and practical solutions to this crisis to ensure that each and every family in our city has a proper home and continued services. This will take critical public/private partnership. 
Partnering not pandering: One of New York’s greatest assets is our communities. We want our communities to be empowered, to be connected to each other. I believe the Mayor works for communities. Our administration cares deeply about the wants and needs of our city’s communities. We listen to our citizens, not pander to them. While in office, my administration will hold specific office hours, having a public forum every 60 days between all top level agency heads and our citizens. Through open dialogue and communication, we believe we will be better able to create more effective solutions to the issues most deeply affecting our citizens.