Questions to Ask Mayoral Candidates

The questions

Open any question to see why it works.

1. 1

   What does the mayor of this city actually control, and what do you have to ask someone else for?

   City charters differ enormously. In a strong-mayor city the office runs the departments and writes the budget, while in a council-manager city the mayor mostly persuades. A candidate who blurs that line is either new to the job or planning to promise things the office cannot deliver.

2. 2

   What are the first three things you would do, and which of them needs a council vote?

   Splitting the list this way exposes how much of the platform depends on other people saying yes. Follow up on who those people are and whether the candidate has spoken to any of them, since a first-year agenda with no vote counting behind it is a wish list.

3. 3

   Where does the city's money come from, roughly?

   You are checking basic literacy about property tax, sales tax, fees, and state and federal transfers. Candidates who cannot describe the revenue mix cannot evaluate the ideas people bring them, and they tend to promise services funded by grants that expire.

4. 4

   What would you cut or raise to pay for what you just proposed?

   Almost every candidate has a spending list and no funding list. Look for a named source rather than efficiency, waste, or growing the tax base, which are the three standard ways of declining to answer. If the answer is a new tax, ask who approves it and whether it needs a ballot measure.

5. 5

   How many homes do you want built during your term, and where would they go?

   A number plus a location is a real position, because both halves cost something politically. Answers about supporting housing at all levels commit to nothing. Ask which neighborhoods, since the gap between citywide zoning change and building only along the highway is the whole debate.

6. 6

   What specific change to the zoning code or the permitting process would you make in year one?

   This is where housing promises meet the mechanism. Useful answers name a step: parking minimums, approval timelines, discretionary review, height limits near transit. If they cannot name one, they have not read the code, and the code is the job.

7. 7

   On homelessness, what would you fund, how many people would it serve, and who would run it?

   All three parts are needed. Programs get announced without operators and beds get counted without services attached. Ask what happens to people who decline shelter, because that answer separates approaches more honestly than any label a candidate uses for themselves.

8. 8

   What would you change about the police budget, and what would you expect to change as a result?

   Ask for a direction and a number in one sentence, whether up or down. Then ask for the outcome they expect, since a budget change with no stated result cannot be checked later. Response times, clearance rates and use-of-force complaints are the measures worth naming.

9. 9

   What will you ask for in the next police union contract?

   Much of what a city can and cannot do about discipline, overtime and staffing is set in that contract rather than in policy statements. A candidate who has not thought about bargaining positions may find the agenda was negotiated away before they took office.

10. 10

    Which street, transit or infrastructure project would you finish, and by when?

    Cities are full of projects that have been studied for a decade. Naming one and attaching a date is falsifiable, which is why most candidates avoid it. Ask what the holdup has been, since the answer shows whether they understand their own bureaucracy.

11. 11

    What is the deferred maintenance backlog on water, sewers and roads, and what is your plan for it?

    Every city has a figure for this, usually in the capital plan, and it is usually alarming. Candidates who know it are reading the documents. The plan matters more than the number, because pipes and pavement quietly consume the money promised elsewhere.

12. 12

    Who is funding your campaign, and is there a donation you would return?

    Contribution reports are public, so this tests candor rather than gathering information. Listen for whether they distinguish between developers, unions and firms bidding on city contracts, and ask how they would handle a vote involving a major donor.

13. 13

    Who would you keep from the current administration, and who would you replace?

    Mayors govern through department heads. A candidate with no view on the city manager, police chief, planning director or budget office is describing an agenda without describing anyone who would carry it out.

14. 14

    What has the current administration gotten right?

    Refusing to name anything is a tell. Governing means working with people you ran against and inheriting work already in motion. A candidate who can credit a rival on one item is likelier to keep a functioning program running than to cancel it for symbolic reasons.

15. 15

    When the council disagrees with you, what do you do?

    Ask for a method rather than a temperament: negotiate item by item, take it public, trade votes, or let it fail and campaign against them. All four are real strategies with different costs, and the honest answer predicts how the next four years will feel.

16. 16

    What happens if the state legislature blocks something you campaigned on?

    States preempt cities on rent rules, wages, firearms and taxes, and this catches new mayors by surprise. A candidate who has a relationship with the state delegation, or who at least knows which preemption applies to their promise, has done the homework.

17. 17

    The next flood, fire, heat wave or storm arrives in your first year. Walk me through the first forty-eight hours.

    This is a competence question dressed as a hypothetical. Look for named roles, an emergency operations structure, cooling or warming centers, and who speaks to the public. Candidates who answer with resolve rather than procedure have not read the emergency plan.

18. 18

    How will residents reach your office, and what happens to a complaint after it is filed?

    Service requests are most people's only contact with city government. Ask about the tracking system, the target response time, and whether the data is published. Constituent services are unglamorous and are the part of the job residents actually judge.

19. 19

    What are you promising that you might not be able to deliver, and why are you promising it anyway?

    Asked late in a forum, this occasionally produces the only unrehearsed moment of the night. Candidates who can name the gap between ambition and authority tend to govern with fewer broken promises than those who insist everything is achievable.

20. 20

    What will you publish so voters can check on you, and how often?

    Accountability is a measurement question. Ask for the numbers, the location and the cadence: a dashboard, a quarterly report, an annual scorecard. A candidate willing to publish figures that might embarrass them is making a promise you can hold them to.