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The Six Pillars

by Which to Guide
Albany’s Rejuvenation

Fix blighted buildings, return them to the tax rolls, and revive Albany’s neighborhoods using local labor — not out-of-town developers chasing vanity projects.
Municipal investment should focus on rehabbing Albany’s existing neighborhoods, not on creating new ones. Rather than finance construction of large ambitious projects, we need to mobilize an interagency effort that leverages area contractors to fix up the city with the state’s $400 million investment.
In addition to entrenching Albany as a nationwide destination for higher learning, we need to accept that augmenting public school resources is a matter of public safety.
Our public schools shape the city’s future. Pouring financial resources into teachers, classrooms, and students will dramatically reduce teen violence, expand our local labor force, and help Albany return to its former profile as a safe and vibrant place to raise our kids.
“Before we prosecute the arsonist, we must put out the fire.” Law enforcement is not the solution to illicit drug use, mental illness, and the homelessness that too often results therefrom. But it’s a condition precedent to finding that solution.
Before we rebuild, we must stabilize. We need to strengthen the infrastructure that keeps communities functioning — and safe. That starts with a targeted effort to financially attract personnel to an Albany Police Department in the midst of a staffing crisis.
“Build, buy, believe in Albany.”
Fuel entrepreneurship, tech, and research. Albany should be a launchpad for ideas, not a museum of missed opportunities.
Just because it’s the seat of state government doesn’t mean Albany can’t also be the hub of upstate ingenuity, entrepreneurialism, business, and industry.
Albany’s historical legacy — its myths and machinations, its styles and skylines — is its single greatest resource.
By highlighting the city’s architectural traditions and rehabilitating aged infrastructure, we will rediscover a long-dormant “Albany identity” to orient our efforts. “Progress” can honor the past.
This is the crux of the entire campaign: Policy without compassion fails.
Every decision must consider Albany’s most vulnerable—because a city that doesn’t care for its people isn’t worth revitalizing. And there will be no meaningful economic progress for my business when so many of my neighbors have been left behind.

Albany stands at a crossroads. With $400 million on the line, we must be deliberate in how we spend—or risk wasting a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The solution? A simple R-E-C-I-P-E for change.

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