Jan 22
2025
Vetting wannabe mayors from an East Side perspective

Last week a group of East Side leaders met with declared candidates for Buffalo mayor to quiz them on issues ranging from city finances to investment in the city’s predominantly Black neighborhoods.
The Urban Think Tank comprises prominent Black religious leaders, such as Bishops Darius Pridgen and Michael Badger, as well as business people, lawyers, elected officials and community activists.
City voters will choose Buffalo’s first new mayor since 2006 in this year’s primary and general elections. Samuel Radford III, an Urban Think Tank member, told Investigative Post the group wanted to see where the list of candidates — the front-runners as well as the long-shots — stood on issues of importance to the Black community and the city as a whole.
“We asked them if they had a plan for development on the East Side,” Radford said. “The city is only as strong as its weakest link, and the East Side is clearly the side that has the most challenges — and the most opportunity.”
Our recent coverage of the mayor’s race
- The money behind the candidates
- Chris Scanlon: A political profile
- The acting mayor’s approach to balance the city’s books
- Scanlon’s dilemma involving the police and fire unions
Radford is a longtime activist focused on public education issues, particularly as they affect the city’s Black community. He works as a program director for the Community Action Organization of Erie County.
He said the group interviewed and solicited written responses to questions from seven candidates who have announced they’re running: state Sen. Sean Ryan, former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, former City Court Judge James McLeod, educator James Payne, Buffalo ReUse Action founder Michael Gainer, University District Councilmember Rasheed Wyatt and community activist Terrence Robinson.
Radford said the Urban Think Tank panel asked the candidates how they’d resolve the city’s troubled finances, whether they thought the mayor should seek more power over the city’s school district, how they’d address the city’s lack of quality affordable housing, and about a number of other issues.
He said the panel was “pleasantly surprised” by how prepared and knowledgeable McLeod and Ryan were. Both presented strong platforms, he said.
Gainer clearly was “thinking about all the issues,” according to Radford, though he thought Gainer’s agenda was narrower than the Urban Think Tank’s.
Robinson’s focus, he said, was narrower still. Like Gainer, Robinson is a member of the East Side Parkways Coalition that is promoting alternatives to the state’s plan to turn a portion of the Kensington Expressway into what the group calls a “toxic tunnel.” He’s a plaintiff in legal action that has resulted in a pause in the construction.
“Robinson is only interested in the 33 project,” Radford said.
The panel also asked the candidates about political practicalities: Can you raise money? Do you have a campaign team? Do you have the infrastructure to collect the 2,000 signatures you’ll need to make the ballot for the Democratic primary?
This week Investigative Post reported that the two highest-profile black candidates in the race, Whitfield and Wyatt, were lagging far behind Ryan and Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon in the race for campaign money, raising questions about their competitiveness.
Scanlon hasn’t declared his candidacy, so wasn’t in on the interviews. The acting mayor is expected to announce he’s running this week.
Radford said the panel also pressed candidates on how they would deal with the city’s unions, especially in regard to what he characterized as “the organized abuse of overtime.” Overtime cost the city $41 million last year. That was $22 million more than then-Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council budgeted, forcing the city to empty its reserves to make up the difference.
“It’s organized in a way to maximize the money you get from the taxpayer, independent of the outcomes we get as taxpayers, independent of whether those are services that are actually needed or necessary. And you know, typically politicians go along with it, but it’s really costing the taxpayer,” Radford said.
None of the candidates interviewed said anything to disqualify themselves in the group’s eyes, according to Radford. He said the Urban Think Tank will not endorse a candidate, though individual members may do so.
The group will publish candidates’ responses to its voter education website next week. That will give the group time to put the same questions to Scanlon, should he announce his intention to run in the next few days, Radford said.
The Urban Think Tank last year did a similar vetting of candidates for at-large seats on the Buffalo Board of Education. Radford said a similar, earlier organization, the Black Leadership Forum, quizzed candidates for elected office in the 1990s and early 2000s.