Now there is a race for Buffalo mayor, as city Comptroller Mark Schroeder official threw his name into the mix Sunday. He will challenge Mayor Byron Brown in the September primary and possibly in November.
"Don't count me out," said city Comptroller Mark Schroeder to applause at the Historic Lodge Auction House in South Buffalo.
The incumbent mayor has every piece of political power in his quest for a fourth term, based upon everything he has done in his first three. However, Schroeder made it clear he is running against the mayor and his record.
"I know that people are dissatisfied," he said to a crowd of supporters. "I know that people realize that the Buffalo Renaissance, for some, is occurring right now and that's a good thing and a lot of credit has to go to Congressman Brian Higgins and to Governor Andrew Cuomo for the billion dollars that got us started."
Schroeder said change will start his first day in office, making a city government that works for every section of the city. He called for shifting focus from downtown and its "rich people" to the neighborhoods, including neighborhood business districts.
"Every single business district, including Polonia and Fillmore and Genesee Street and Amherst Street, all of these streets, the business districts have been sound asleep for 50 years, since the advent of the mall," he said. "The only businesses that have a little bit of life going on is the new Grant Street in a very diversified way and, of course, Hertel and Elmwood."
Schroeder said he will make sure individual citizens and business people will get a piece of the action and developers will be judged on what they do in the neighborhoods. He said his Police Department will be one of the best-trained officers around, with department and PBA working together.
The comptroller promised the packed crowd of supporters he will do everything he can, including campaigning door-to-door in this race, to create changes starting his first day in office - from getting minority and women business enterprises a piece of the action.
"I'm looking forward to this," the Comptroller said. "I'm overwhelmed with the support that I have received here today. It's a very diversified crowd, people from the East Side, the West Side, the North Side, Black Rock and Riverside, Grant-Amherst and South Buffalo and Lovejoy. So I'm very, very grateful to the citizens of Buffalo who have faith in me and our vision."
He said voters can look at what he has done as Buffalo's fiscal watchdog, what he called a record of achievement and protecting the public dollar.
As the endorsed Conservative, Schroeder is expected to have a spot on the ballot even if he loses in the Democratic primary in September.
