Just six days before Election Day, Buffalo mayoral candidates India Walton, Byron Brown and Benjamin Carlisle took to the debate stage at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, addressing a range of topics from community benefits for a possible downtown Buffalo Bills stadium, to harsh critiques of Walton's plans for police reform.
While Walton and Brown clashed along familiar lines — his record, her policies — Carlisle provided a foil for both.
"Byron Brown has argued that India Walton is not ready to be mayor. He's absolutely correct. Miss Walton has argued that after 16 years of Byron Brown, it's time for a new mayor. She's also absolutely correct," he said.
Both Brown and Carlisle are mounting a write-in campaign after Walton won the Democratic primary in June, leaving Brown without a ballot line. Carlisle joined after the Brown campaign was launched and is also running as a write-in.
Walton and Brown agreed for the first time in public over the need for a community benefit agreement should the Buffalo Bills ever decide to build their next stadium downtown.
"I think though we have to look at return on investment and what it would produce to the residents of the city and the region. I believe a new stadium should be built with a community benefits agreement to benefit the residents of the community, " Brown said, to which Walton countered, "Our alignment on this issue gives me hope for the future."
On the stadium, Carlisle said that both of the other candidates should not be discussing it as a hypothetical that mostly involves the Bills and Erie County.
"I wouldn't just love to see a stadium in downtown Buffalo. I'm going to fight to get a stadium in downtown Buffalo. That's a difference. Miss Walton, Mayor Brown said, 'Yeah, jeez, it would be great.' I'm going to fight to make sure that it happens. Right now the mayor is not at the negotiating table. The mayor needs to get at the negotiating table," Carlisle said.
The three candidates clashed when asked to respond to each of their opponents' campaign ads.
After a Walton introductory ad was played for the audience, Carlisle responded "There's not a lot of substance but I will get into that. That's a nice feel-good commercial. Certainly doesn't make me want to vote for, but nice commercial."
Brown, for his part, went further with that theme, adding a note of sarcasm, saying, "I was going to ask somebody for a Kleenex. It almost brought a tear to my eye," before saying the commercial was inaccurate.
"First of all, India Walton is not a successful nonprofit executive. She is a failed nonprofit executive. She had a plan to build 50 houses. She didn't build a single house when she was the executive director of a nonprofit organization."
Walton has proposed cutting $13 million in police funding and using those dollars to create alternatives so police wouldn't have to respond to — and in some cases, she says, escalate — mental health calls and other more minor crimes. A Brown advertisement suggesting those reform plans would result in layoffs of women and minorities sparked a rebuttal about her plans.
"That 's just false. It's fear mongering and because my opponent has no plan for the future of Buffalo, he resorts to falsehoods, fear and personal attacks on me. It's unfortunate," Walton said.
A Carlisle internet ad also sparked debate and was critical of Walton's plans.
"Mr. Carlyle is right. Miss Walton has said that she wants to cut the police budget. She did for the better part of 2020 run around the City of Buffalo with a bullhorn to her mouth, saying that she demanded that police be defunded, " Brown said.
"I pressed her on this issue in the last debate. She said she had a study that said you could cut more than $16 million from the police department budget. You know how that would be achieved? By taking uniforms from police officers by taking equipment from police officers."
Walton responded to both by outlining more detail of her plan than the commercial did.
"I want to be clear that police respond after crimes have been committed. My plan gets to the root cause of crime," Walton said. "So re-allocations mean that we're spending more resources on things that we shouldn't be expecting police to do in the first place, like respond to mental health calls when there's no threat of violence or harm, like respond to homelessness, outreach, like respond to quality of life issues like high grass and parking issues and loud music. Those are things that we are tasking our officers to do that are slowing response times and distracting them from responding to crimes like burglary and homicides. My plan is a responsible use of taxpayer dollars. "
The student panel peppered the candidates with questions ranging from affordable housing and the public school system to administrative transparency and a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills.
For 37 years the private Catholic School has hosted important local political debates with students asking the questions. Despite being a student presentation, it was only one of two times that Walton and Brown debated, turning down several media opportunities, including one with WBFO and partners at the Buffalo News and WGRZ-TV.
Aaron Hall, a St, Joes senior who is president of the student's Equity and Justice Club, said for him the debate was a great introduction to an important part of the political process.
“As a future voter I was very interested to watch," Hall said. "I learned a lot about how the debate process goes. Again, I think they all gave great answers. I'm excited to vote next year.”
The question of eliminating food insecurity in Buffalo’s under-served neighborhoods stood out for Hall.
“To me personally the most important question was the food insecurity and food desert question. I liked all the answers they gave because they gave very good solutions — things that I actually see possibly happening soon. So that was the most important question to me and I'm glad all three candidates gave great answers,” Hall said.
Another panelist, Kellen O’Connor echoed Hall’s sentiments.
“I feel like food insecurity is a really important issue nationwide and especially in the city, so hearing a question from the mayors about it really was important,” O'Connor said.
O’Connor admitted the prep work that went into formulating questions for the debate was stressful, but was happy with how the debate came off.
