Foley’s Bid for City Council

When the city’s attention was fixed on the Democratic Party primary races last year, Upper East Side resident Mark Foley was watching too. In a candidate forum for Manhattan Borough President, Foley’s Council member, Ben Kallos – who eventually lost that race – said he voted against the city’s budget because it did not cut enough money from the police. Opposed to any funding cuts to the NYPD, that line made Foley’s ears perk up. So he checked all of the campaign websites for the Democrats running on the UES to succeed the term-limited Kallos, finding they all in some way called for subverting funds from the police. That’s when he decided to offer voters an alternative.

Foley subsequently launched a campaign to become District 5’s next City Council member, making policing the focal point of his messaging. Not registered with either party, Foley will appear on both the Republican and Liberal lines on Nov. 2’s general election ballot. His politics, however, are certainly conservative compared to the Democratic nominee, Julie Menin.

The first-time candidate will have an uphill battle trying to defeat a Democrat in Manhattan, where the voter registration heavily favors Menin’s party, but Foley feels as though his message is breaking through with voters. He’s raised enough money to qualify for the city’s public matching funds, with a balance of $108,225, according a financial summary from New York City’s Campaign Finance Board. Foley, who has lived in District 5 since he earned an MBA from Pace University in 1987, also believes his newcomer status is an advantage rather than a liability.

“I’m in the business world. If you fail, you go out of business, you lose your job,” said Foley, who runs a real estate and financial consultancy group. “In the public sector, you just bounce from position to position to position – and that’s wrong. That is why we need change, not the same old same old we’ve had for the last eight years. I’m running because I’m fed up.”

Foley is running on three key issues: policing, quality of life and economic recovery from COVID-19.

‘Refund & Reform’

After talking with police officers and detectives, both active and retired, Foley said he came up with a galvanizing slogan: “Refund, restore, reform and respect.” It’s also, of course, a reaction to the protests following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, and the City Council’s vote cut $1 billion from the police budget (though, by November, the police budget was modified, making the actual 2021 spending cut around $322 million. The 2022 adopted NYPD budget increases spending by $465 million).

“Anytime there’s an action – the action being in this case, something like a George Floyd, which was, horrifying, demonstrably egregious ... I don’t think anybody disagrees. The perpetrator is in jail. He was convicted of murder, correctly – we had a vast overreaction, in my opinion,” said Foley, pointing to the demonstrations he characterized as “riots” following Floyd’s death and the view of some activists and young people that the police force is wholly violent and corrupt. “Are there bad apples? Of course. In any field any occupation ... there are, but you don’t throw out an entire team because one player is a bad guy.”

Foley said he first wants to restore qualified immunity, a decades-old legal doctrine that often shielded officers from civil suits for use of excessive force. He believes officers now are too afraid to react in possibly dangerous situations out of fear they will be sued, adding he would only bring forward legislation that has police approval.

In terms of reform, Foley said he would be in favor of more extensive training and would want an oversight review board that is a mix of civilians and police officers. He also wants to bring back the controversial plainclothes anti-crime unit.

Pandemic Recovery

When it comes to economic recovery from the pandemic, Foley has seven-point plan to help small businesses.

His plan to make the neighborhood a place where small business owners can open shops, and keep them open, includes keeping streets safe, keeping streets clean, easing up on regulation, keeping taxes low, making rules clear and easy to understand, establishing a city office to help small business procure loans from the federal government, and to reform the zoning code to encourage small business development.

“The Upper East Side ... people have this image that it’s this fancy place; it’s really a bedroom community with mom and pop stores. Many of [the owners] are immigrants, many of them are first generation ... they come here, they worked they scrimp, they save, maybe they took out a loan – and then all of a sudden they’re out of business,” Foley said of the now-many vacant storefronts in the neighborhood and borough. “And they didn’t go out of business, the government put them out of business.”

With 77 percent of the city’s adult population fully vaccinated, and 84 percent having at least one dose, Foley believes that the city needs to start thinking about letting up on mandates put in place by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“I say open up the restaurants – let people go out,” said Foley, advocating the city drop its policy that customers must be vaccinated in order to dine indoors. “New York and San Francisco are the only two cities that have a mandate. And it has hurt business.”

Quality of Life

Key to his economic plan, Foley said the Council needs to ensure a better quality of life for New Yorkers, meaning clean and safe streets. Foley pointed to overflowing garbage cans, rat problems in some neighborhoods and an increase in street homelessness as issues that need to be resolved in order to improve the quality of life on the Upper East Side.

“The vast majority ... have addiction and or mental problems,” Foley said of the unhoused people who currently live on the street. “They need to be looked after. It’s not fair that people live there, but it’s also not fair to [the homeless]. They’re human beings. They need to be treated.”

Foley advocated for changing the law so that the city can admit homeless individuals to treatment without their consent.

“Somebody who’s literally not in their right mind is not going to self-admit, they can’t,” said Foley. “It’s not a way for human beings to live. That’s not humane; humane is getting them treatment.”

Early voting for the Nov. 2 general election begins on Oct. 23 and end on Oct. 31. Visit findmypollsite.vote.nyc to find your poll site.