In continuation with the “Candidate Conversation” series, former New York State Assembly legislative staffer Anthony Tyson-Thompson appeared on Weekend Edition on Saturday June 21, 2025, with BTPM NPR’s Ryan Zunner to discuss his campaign for Buffalo mayor.
Below is a transcription of that interview, it's been edited for clarity:
Ryan Zunner: Talking about city leadership. Here we have a candidate for the Buffalo Democratic mayoral primary now joining us here in studio, Anthony Tyson-Thompson. Many candidates, including yourself, talk about a great vision ahead for the City of Buffalo. How can you tackle that trajectory in light of massive financial issues at City Hall, which are not necessarily new? Do you have to start with the budget there? What's kind of your idea to tackle that?
Anthony Tyson-Thompson: Yeah, so you have to start holistically. I mean, this has been just decades of leadership that has been overestimating revenue and underestimating costs. So what we have to do is we have to do an audit of all of our city operations. From there, find ways to eliminate inefficiencies while keeping frontline services to people open, and then we have to find ways to expand our tax base with new revenue streams, whether it's coming from new industries coming to Buffalo, both public and private, trying to find ways to expand tourism or a host of other ideas. But we won't know until we do the full audit.
Zunner: Your career has taken you a lot of different places. You went to some Ivy League schools, and you have numerous degrees and things like that, as well as working different jobs around. How do you draw on that experience that you see throughout the country? How does that play into your potential leadership here in Buffalo?
Tyson-Thompson: Yeah I’ve been blessed to navigate my life. [I’ve] virtually experienced almost every form of education in this country. Between Buffalo public schools, I went to HBCU, where I started off, but I finished at Canisius which is a private religious [school]. Then two Ivy League degrees, so majorly blessed and humbled by it. But I also got experience from just being in Buffalo, born and raised on the East Side. Like living the challenges that so many families face in this city. So not only do I have the lived experience, but I have the expertise and the plan to move the city forward. All those things that caught some culmination of different things has brought me to the place where I can be the best leader for the City of Buffalo to attack most of our systemic and structural issues.
Zunner: Public safety and quality of life, two major topics that you know, lots of voters have questions about. What's your plans in terms of police oversight? For example, police services, the effects that those have on residents?
Tyson-Thompson: Law enforcement and public safety is a municipal's like, biggest job, right? It’s one of our most, you know, strongest functions. So, we have to make sure that we're addressing it. You know, with empathy and compassion. We have to listen to both sides. Being a cop is not an easy job by any means necessary. But also being a citizen, being burdened by law enforcement is not an easy go either. [We] have to find ways to listen to both people, make sure perspectives and perceptions are hopefully changing in a positive manner, critique with love, so that ultimately we can all be better. When law enforcement and people residents feel safe together, they feel like they can collaborate together that helps a lot of public safety, a lot of trust and a lot of collaboration to making sure that crime stays down.
Zunner: I know other cities in New York, other cities around the country, have composed police oversight or police control boards? Would that be part of your public safety plan at all?
Tyson-Thompson: I'm open to it. I really am. It just depends on what the people want. How strong is the oversight? I have to say that, by and large, the city of Buffalo, I mean, it's not free of criticism with our law enforcement, but relatively to other cities, I think we do a really good job. And like I said, being a police officer, you have to make life altering decisions within a split of a second, so have empathy for that, but also have empathy for the fact that they carry a lot of burden. I mean, they carry a lot of discretion, and that can sometimes make a mistake. So you have to listen to make sure that everybody is properly trained, make sure they have all the resources to be a viable candidate, and they actually know the people within the community. So I'm much more in favor of neighborhood policing, of community policing, making sure people who are serving in Buffalo know the community, [and] know it well. They're walking in the traffic, [just] ways in which that we can make everything more equitable. And you do that not just from policy, but you do from policy implementation, making sure that they have all the right things to be successful. And if something happens to a citizen, they feel it heard and seen when it does right?
Zunner: This is your first run for political office, but you've been a public servant before. You served on the staff of Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, she endorsed Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon. But I just want to know kind of the effect that service had on you as you're making a run for office yourself.
Tyson-Thompson: Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, I'll continue to pay her admiration. She is a trailblazer in every sense of the word. She is the first Black and the first woman to hold her title as Majority Leader of the New York State Assembly. She's the person who legalized marijuana, and not for the sake of legalizing a drug, meaning recreational cannabis, but to correct the injustice of the war on drugs that disproportionately impacted Black folks and people of color So this is her opportunity, and the state's opportunity to correct that injustice, make sure that people records are expunged, that they have first shots at making generational wealth and a whole host of other things. Beyond that, she just been the leader, not only for the city, but for the state. So you know that time in her office, it was a very good learning period for me. I mean, you know, I joined that after working at the vaccination site as being one of the leads there, and she gave me the cold call to join the team. And through all those years being our conference director, really just beginning to see behind the scenes of not [only] honing how you know policy design works, but how governance works, responding to citizens, being there at crises, how you respond to different electives, and how do you work in collaboration? All those things prepared me even more, because I was already a community organizer. Had worked in public service for a decade, and that time helped me to become more of a better scholar, practitioner, in terms of a change agent.
Zunner: You brought up the word injustice, and how at least state government can be an avenue to correct some injustice. Are there things here in the city of Buffalo that you think local government can do to better help at combatting injustice?
Tyson-Thompson: Oh, 100% I mean, that's one of the reasons why I'm running. You know, there's no bigger catalyst for me than the 5/14 terrorist attack, the massacre that happened at Tops. You know, the city of Buffalo suffers from being one of the most segregated cities in the country, this northern city that in this liberal state, is one of the most segregated. We must really think about that, and that systemic racism is killing our people. Literally. Ten people lost their lives, and a lot more were harming them and families, and that creates more and more trauma. So these are the injustices we're talking about. You multiply that with under serving or underperforming schools, underserved communities, marginalization. There's so many things that we have to address that just goes beyond policy, but policy implementation. You need the right leader to understand the nuance of it. I know you spoke to me earlier about policing. You know, I think in this time we're so polarized, you have to be either this or that, for police, against police. You got to be for racism or against racism. But there's so much nuance in the middle. You know, there's a saying that a difference in opinion is not a difference in principle. At the end of the day, we all want the same things. We all want to have a viable life, [a] dignified life. How do we get there working together? We have to have civil discourse. I might not agree with everyone all the time, but I have to be open to the idea of being wrong, bold enough to fail right, because I'm not afraid of political capital or re election. I just want to make sure the system is moving forward in the needle so injustices is at the heart, and it's the crux of my leadership.
Zunner: And when you talk about the situation of that life for lots of folks, according to census data, Buffalo's median household income is just a little over $48,000. Many data analysts, they'll talk about how Buffalo is one of the most impoverished, mid sized cities, particularly when it comes to childhood poverty. How can the city, under your leadership, help to improve people's socioeconomic status?
Tyson-Thompson: Yeah, so we have to change. You know, Buffalo's always been a working class city. It’s one of the reasons why my grandparents moved here in the 50s. They went to escape, you know, the South Jim Crow, they were in Alabama or Georgia, respectively. And they moved here because it was more volatility. They came here to work, in fact my grandfather came to work in one of the factories, The Buffalo Forge Company, like so many others who migrated or immigrated to Buffalo to work at Bethlehem Steel or plants across the city, that's when Buffalo had a really thriving economy. But now that we're part of the rust belt and those factory jobs are gone and cease to exist, we have to find ways to modernize our cities and our economy, and that means that we have to find ways in which we have to educate our people, first making sure that they are up to date in the competitive workforce, but then also making sure that when we bring private industries [in] that fits Buffalo's ecosystem. That people can apply to the job, because it makes the most sense. We have to make lifelong learners. That means not just educating kids, but also adults. Making sure that they are up to date on the newest technologies [with] you know, the best education possible, because people are not only competing for jobs in the city of Buffalo. It’s not only statewide or countrywide, it's global. So how can we make sure that our residents have the right resources and they can tap into that at any time, and it's accessible, which is one of the biggest problems in Buffalo, that a lot of our resources aren't or feel like they're not accessible, that they can get to it, navigate through the system, get what they need to have a more thriving and viable life.
Zunner: And as far as attracting those businesses, it sounds like part of that is making sure that there is a skilled and trained workforce here in Buffalo. But the other fact is, you got to actually get those businesses to come into Buffalo. Is there a combination there of, I guess tax breaks, right? You have the IDA that's supposed to support businesses. It's infrastructure too. You know, you'll hear these large businesses, they need roads that work to get their trucks in. They need all that, right? Is that part of it?
Tyson-Thompson: So, you know, if I had to, like, summarize my platform. Which is very complex, I would say that the biggest three things that we need to address is infrastructure. So like the potholes, the roads, the crumbling homes, the housing stock, the vacant lots, the food deserts, right? The infrastructure that we need to fix. Childhood poverty is one of the worst, and so is our underperforming schools, you know. And then lastly, economic opportunity that, once again, like, you know, this is a Rust Belt city, so how do we kind of revolt our economy? So all those things are very closely related. You really can't touch one without the other. So you can't talk about, you know, economic opportunity if people can't get to work because the roads are so horrible, right? You can't talk about childhood poverty if people parents don't have access to good jobs that pay a dignified wage, and you need schools, because our children are [our] most valuable resources. So we need to have leadership that's bold enough to play a part in making sure our kids are educated. You have to make sure you're adjusting issues holistically. So not just saying, you know, I want to do this because it sounds good, or because I'm gonna give a big company to come to Buffalo that you know, that I made a win. It’s how does it affect the system? How are we making sure that whatever we do, and it's ultimately making sure people in Buffalo have a better life?
Zunner: All right, great. We're just about out of time here. So that's Anthony Tyson Thompson, thanks so much for joining us here in studio today.
Tyson-Thompson: Hey, thank you. Take care.
Tune in Tuesday at 8 p.m. for "The Primary Path: Buffalo 2025," BTPM NPR's flagship coverage show for primary election night, boasting a four-hour, commercial-free broadcast.
