NEW YORK CITY—Mayoral candidate Paul Massey made the case for his candidacy Tuesday in front of an audience of peers, namely the real estate community. Co-founder of Massey Knakal Realty Services, which he and Robert Knakal sold to Cushman & Wakefield in 2015, Massey told a Young Men's and Women's Real Estate Association audience that his background in commercial brokerage put him in “a very lucky position to have been trained by the business we're in to know what I need to do next for New York City.”

Specifically, the mayoral hopeful pointed out that Massey Knakal operated in 53 submarkets around the city. “We told our team, 'get out there, sell properties, finance properties, but be community involved,'” said Massey. “I personally have been to every one of those neighborhoods, and I know community leaders in Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Flushing, Staten Island. That's a great asset; you've got to know your business and know your market, in any business or any organization.”

Massey criticized incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio as aloof and uninvolved. “The current mayor acts like he doesn't want this job,” he said. “He acts like he wants to be the President of the United States and/or the head of the progressive movement for the country, as evidenced by the fact that he's been out of the city 135 days over the past three years, helping Hillary Clinton get elected, and she might not have wanted his help. Chasing a national progressive agenda is not in the job description of the mayor, in my book.”

Furthermore, “Our mayor has stated openly that he's not going to be a pothole mayor,” he said. “I'm going to be a pothole mayor; I'll get out there and fix the pothole myself. I'll be the snowplow mayor; I'll be out there driving the snowplow so that everyone in Queens who's been ignored will get their streets plowed.

“I'll be the fun mayor,” he continued. “I think everyone who works at City Hall should have fun and have pride in what they're doing. Every member of the police, every nurse, every firefighter should have a leader who recognizes them, who makes them proud that they work for the city. That's how a great organization, a great city, can operate.”

He took a shot at de Blasio's famously frosty relationship with the New York Police Department.

“Thanks to former mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, we have the best police force in the country, maybe the world,” Massey said. “But the mayor's relationship with them is strained.”

Following a recent meeting with the mayor of Jerusalem, Massey devised plans for a world tour to glean ideas on managing the city. “I'm going to 10 cities that are well-run—and have high mayoral approval ratings—to see what's going on during the campaign to bring back best practice ideas to bring back new ideas about how to fix our schools, how to make us safer, how to bring these big infrastructure projects,” he said.

He took a shot at de Blasio's famously frosty relationship with the New York Police Department.

“Thanks to former mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, we have the best police force in the country, maybe the world,” Massey said. “But the mayor's relationship with them is strained.”

Instant Insights /

Massey: 'I'll Be a Pothole Mayor'

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