Editorial: For Albany mayor: Dorcey Applyrs
In a four-way primary race, the current city auditor would bring a mix of independence, empathy, vision and experience.
By Times Union Editorial Board,
Opinion
June 13, 2025
Albany voters have an enviable array of choices in the upcoming Democratic mayoral primary: four good candidates who each bring clear strengths to the race.
Indeed, if someone could blend the quartet’s best qualities into one person, they might well create a pretty great candidate. But since a single choice must be made in a race that usually determines who the next mayor is in this heavily Democratic city, we think one candidate rises above the rest: Dorcey Applyrs.
Ms. Applyrs, who holds a doctorate in public heath, comes to the race with a strong resume, having had the opportunity for the past five years to study the workings of city government as its independent auditor. The office’s most recent and arguably most consequential audit, on Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s implementation of the city’s Equity Agenda, found progress but uncompromisingly identified nearly two dozen areas in which the city could be doing a better job.
As a candidate for mayor, Ms. Applyrs offers a multifaceted “First Term Action Plan,” starting with public safety strategies that include a stronger recruitment effort, with internships and mentorships for young people to attract and develop potential candidates for police work. She has plans for better analyzing, addressing and solving crime through data and artificial intelligence, reducing illegal firearms, and “doubling down” on community policing. She sees safe streets as integral to economic development, too.
On housing, she’s particularly focused on fostering more homeownership through financial education, down-payment assistance and first-time-homeowner tax abatements, along with increasing code violation penalties for landlords. She wants code enforcement to be more proactive, rather than wait for complaints.
Her agenda also includes expanding the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, developing an Arts and Culture Master Plan, and putting city officials in the community for “neighborhood office hours.” To deal with the city’s problem with homelessness, she wants City Hall to take a greater role in addressing it and not leave the issue so much to county government.
Underpinning her policy plans is a sense of empathy and compassion, and a spirited belief in Albany’s potential. Ms. Applyrs impressed us with an ability to listen to what people have to say and not assume she already knows the right answer to every question.
To be sure, Ms. Applyrs’ opponents share some of her policy aims, to varying degrees.
If Albany offered ranked-choice voting, Carolyn McLaughlin might well be our second choice. With more than three decades in public service as both a member and president of the Albany Common Council and as a county legislator, she’s clearly no stranger to government, though she lacks the kind of executive experience we prefer to see in a strong-mayor form of government like Albany’s. She has passion and affection for the city, and her dedication to its people is evident.
Ms. McLaughlin, who earned a doctorate in public administration in 2021, says she sees an opportunity to put theory into practice for the betterment of Albany. She wants to create a city office focused on addressing homelessness, and says it would be a high priority to rehabilitate some of those derelict buildings marked with red “X’s” to help address that need. She, too, wants to tackle housing affordability — possibly by introducing “tiny houses” that a few other cities have allowed. She wants to do more to address police morale and vacancies while also ensuing that training focuses on sensitizing officers to the diversity of the city’s population. She talks inclusively of being the mayor “for the sum of us.”
Dan Cerutti, a businessman who comes to the race with no government experience other than stints in high school and college, says he wants to address poverty, homeownership, literacy and employment issues. He has a goal of increasing the city’s population, now estimated at around 102,000, to 135,000. He talks of doing more with the city’s “fantastic” historic buildings and the possibility of better river access. But he tends to paint a darker picture of the city’s current state than his opponents do, leaning into a portrayal of Albany as “ground zero” of “a culture of lawlessness” based on a few high-profile incidents. There’s no question that public safety is indeed a topic of concern, but his depiction seems disproportionate and alarmist. Mr. Cerutti strikes us as someone who’d make a capable city manager, but not the blend of ambassador and executive that the job of mayor demands.
Corey Ellis has years of service as a Common Council member and two terms as council president, and during his time in office the city has made some strides, including the drafting of the Equity Agenda and creation of an independent Community Police Review Board. He was a founding board member, too, of the Albany County Land Bank. He wants to foster a perception of Albany as “an up-and-coming, thriving city,” and prides himself in proposing solutions like a community college, aquarium and tram system. But we’re not persuaded that if he couldn’t get these ideas moving as council president, he’d have more success as mayor.
As we said, this is a field of able candidates. What distinguishes Ms. Applyrs is the balance of the assets she brings to the job — a realistic agenda, the experience to make it happen, and a sense of caring and enthusiasm for the city she wants to lead. When she says that Albany is a city where “you can still write your own story … a place where there is opportunity for you,” it’s a genuine message of hope.
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