In continuation with the “Candidate Conversation” series, Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon appeared on Weekend Edition on Saturday June 7, 2025, with BTPM NPR’s Jamal Harris Jr. to discuss his campaign for Buffalo mayor.
Below is a transcription of that interview, it's been edited for clarity:
Jamal Harris Jr.: Last week we had State Senator Sean Ryan. This week we have Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon. Mr. Scanlon, how are you?
Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon: Good. How are you?
Harris: Pretty good. Mr. Scanlon, I know you're pretty busy, so we will get started with this interview here. One of the biggest topics into this mayoral race is a city budget. The city has a projected deficit of $70 million. Your plan to close that gap over time, notably, includes a hotel bed tax, selling city parking ramps for revenue and most notably an 8% property tax increase. You've been on the council for many years. Many of the budgets you have voted in favor of. Why should the taxpayers pay for the failures of the Common Council to pass balanced budgets over the years?
Scanlon: Well, I think the first thing people need to understand is the responsibilities of the Buffalo Common Council, or the limitations of the Buffalo Common Council, when it comes to the budget. The city council cannot raise taxes. I get a lot of people would say 'why didn't [we] raise taxes incrementally over the years?' The Buffalo Common Council cannot increase taxes. That's an executive function. But looking at the budget now and moving forward, we have a great plan. When I landed in the mayor's office in October, we were faced with a $17 million hole in the current fiscal year, but through some vacancy control measures, a soft hiring freeze when we weren't hiring jobs that weren't mission critical or revenue generating, and some spending freezing throughout the different departments, we closed that gap for the current fiscal year. And then looking at a $70 million gap for next year, implementing some similar strategies, we cut $10 million-plus in direct cuts to departments, $16.5 million in vacancies that we're not filling, that we're not funding, and $15 million or so in additional revenues. And then we've got very creative on the revenue side. You know, I was down in Albany a few months ago, and very easily could have gone down there and asked for money, but I did not. I went down there and asked for them to give us the tools to help us rectify the budget ourselves. And those two tools are hotel tax, a 3% tax on hotel rooms in the city of Buffalo, that equates to about $4 a night on a hotel room that will largely be paid by out-of-town visitors to help us pay for the services that they utilize that while they're here. And the other is the establishment of the Buffalo Parking and Mobility Authority, which the city plans to sell our four parking ramps that we own. They're valued somewhere north of $50 million. We were very conservative, though, and budgeting for it, and only budgeted for $40 million. Anything in above, in excess of that would be just an additional revenue to the City of Buffalo. We'll use that money over the course of the next four years while we rectify the budget. But although one of the key components to that is, and a lot of misinformation being spread about it, is that we would lose the revenue that we received from our parking ramps. Now, that is not the case. The deal that's structured, the legislation, paves out the opportunity for the City of Buffalo to still receive a yearly revenue from that. We believe we still will [receive revenue] in the neighborhood of $2-2.5 million a year. In addition to that, it takes the maintenance and capital costs off the taxpayer shoulders here in the city of Buffalo and puts it on the authority. They'll be responsible for that as well.
Harris: Now, one of your opponents in this race, Senator Ryan, has been a stark critic of this plan. You guys estimate about $40 million for the parking ramps. He's saying you don't have any idea what you’ll get for the ramps. Mark Poloncarz, [Erie] County executive, has echoed the same thing. He's also noted that the process of selling it could take quite some time. What's your response to those type of criticisms?
Scanlon: Well, we are moving quickly, moving forward very quickly, on this process. And we've had groups that have been meeting for quite some time to establish the parking authority. They were meeting before we even had the legislation from New York State. The criticism that's coming out, one from the county executive. He's also part of supporting Sean Ryan running for mayor. And I believe that there's some politics at play. In addition to that, the senator wants to criticize our plan for the budget as some sort of gimmick or one off, it's not. It's situation where we'll receive tens of millions of dollars to help us over the course of the next few years while we rectify this budget. We retain our revenue from the parking authority, and we take the maintenance and capital costs off of the city's responsibilities, off of the city's shoulders. That's not all we plan to do moving forward. If you look at our four-year plan that we've submitted, it shows how we ultimately receive, or ultimately arrive at a place where the city's fiscally solvent. The gimmicky and irresponsible thing to do is what the senator wants to do with deficit bonds. Deficit borrowing should be the absolute last thing you do. That's like if you can't pay your mortgage [and you] put it on a credit card and borrowing $75-150-200 million. That is a payment. That is money that the taxpayers directly will have to pay back over the course of the next 20 [to] 25 years. It would keep the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, the control board, in place for years to come. And if you compare that plan to mine that is again, hundreds of millions of dollars the taxpayers of the city of Buffalo will have to pay back, whereas the money that we are bringing in that is not taxpayer money. That is parking users that have already used the ramps, but it's not an additional tax or burden on our taxpayers, not one additional dollar. And if you look at that, over the course of the 20 [to] 25 years of borrowing $100-$200 million as opposed to the parking authority, bringing in $80 to $100 million you're talking between a $200 [to] $300 million financial swing there.
Harris: Let’s move on to the Kensington Expressway, which has been, quite a hot topic around this area. You know your former colleague on the council, Ms. Leah Halton-Pope, along with Majority Leader of the State Assembly Crystal Peoples-Stokes, they were not too thrilled when the state did not challenge [a] judge’s decision to not do an EIS [environmental impact statement]. They wanted the state to go forward with the project already in place. You said at this past forum The Buffalo News hosted on Thursday, that the state doing an EIS was the best thing that could have happened that came out of this. Do you want to further explain that statement?
Scanlon: First of all to the assembly majority leader, the council majority leader, these two incredible women representing that community, and looking forward to working with them on this moving forward. But I think we all are very aware of the long-standing issues and the impacts the original project had to that adjacent community. And I think that having the full environmental study and all the information at our disposal is very helpful. What it also does is gives us an opportunity to bring everyone back together and have a conversation. Obviously, there [are] people very passionate on both sides of this equation. But once we have that full environmental and all the information, I plan to operate as convener, as the mayor. Where we bring everyone together and arrive at a consensus. And the two people, two of the people that will be at the head of that with me, will be the Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and the Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope, because they represent that area, and we want the people who are immediately impacted by that to come together, and we'll bring them all together to have that conversation.
Harris: This past Tuesday marked the first televised debate, which was quite combative. During that debate you came under immense attack, specifically for claims of you taking money from Carl Paladino. Now BTPM NPR has confirmed that is not the case. You have taken money from William Paladino. Still, there's some voters that have concerns, given what Carl has said and William’s ties to him. What do you say to those voters who may be on the fence voting for you because of that?
Scanlon: Yeah, well, I'm glad that you've established that I've not received money from Carl Paladino. I've been saying that on a regular basis when it's been brought up, and despite the fact that that's the actual facts. Senator Ryan continues to throw that out there in an attempt to just, you know, fear monger and scare some people. And I have received money from William Paladino. William Paladino is not Carl Paladino. William Palladino is someone I've known a long, long time and is supportive of our campaign. Someone who's doing tremendous things here in the city of Buffalo. And as I pointed out the other night, someone who donated free of charge land to the City of Buffalo, where the 5/14 permanent living memorial will reside. Someone who's working with the City of Buffalo to establish a new location for Buffalo Animal Shelter. And that's just two things he's done to help improve life here in the city of Buffalo. And so again, William Palladino is not Carl Paladino.
Harris: Now this led to a little bit of awkward moment on the debate stage. I just want to let you get a chance to explain yourself here. Sean Ryan kind of went in for a handshake towards the end of the debate. I don't know if you didn't see him or whatnot, but it led to a little bit of a crowd reaction. Was that intentional?
Scanlon: No. Someone showed me the video. I was bent down getting things from underneath the podium, my paperwork, my bottle of water, things like that. There's nothing to that.
Harris: Your opponent [Ryan] made a little bit of news last week claiming he would not stay in the race if he didn’t win the primary. You said even if you lose you would stay in the race. Do you care to explain that?
Scanlon: Yeah, absolutely. So during the Democratic endorsement process, I think if you asked almost everybody that was involved in that, I don't think it was a fair situation. I think that you're forced to kind of create a third line because you don't get a fair shake a lot of times. You have an inherent conflict between people representing the Erie County Democratic Committee and the Erie County Board of Elections. So we went out and established an independent line. I think that it would be disrespectful to the hundreds of people who carried petitions for me and my team to establish that line, to not see this thing through till November. I believe that we'll be successful in June. We have had hundreds of volunteers, hundreds and hundreds of volunteers out. 1,700 different donators, 3,000 people request lawn signs. There's a groundswell of support for our candidacy by Buffalonians. You know, 97% of our donors are Buffalonians and Western New Yorkers, as opposed to some of my opponents, whose money comes from special interest groups and other organizations like that in Albany and New York City. We are a campaign being fueled by Buffalonians. And again, because of the effort that people have put in. The hundreds of people who have carried petitions, submitting and securing more than 10,000 signatures, I think it'd be extremely disrespectful of me to not see this through to November, considering the amount of effort that they've put in.
Harris: Now, we got about a minute here. I just want you just to further explain on you said, the process going into picking the nominee. Was their a little bias in that process? Senator Ryan was the pick.
Scanlon: I think this has been well documented, and every other person that's went through that process pretty much feels the same way. That the senator was the hand-picked candidate by the chairman and some others that lead the party. But, you know, the goal post was moved throughout the entire process, but it's not something I'm focused on. We've moved forward. We've submitted 7,500 signatures, Democratic signatures. Another 3,000 independent line signatures. It's more than 10,000 people that signed their name to put us on the ballot and want us to see this thing through. And I think based on the amount of effort, the amount of support we've received from Buffalonians, we’ll be successful.
Harris: There you have it that was Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon here on Weekend Edition, thank you for joining us Mr. Scanlon.
Scanlon: Thank you very much.
Tune into Weekend Edition next week, to hear a conversation with former fire commissioner and now Buffalo mayoral candidate Garnell Whitfield Jr.
