Elijah Robinson, the general manager of WBNY and opinion editor for The Record, had an opportunity to interview Mayor Byron Brown at his campaign headquarters to discuss the mayoral race.

Brown has been the mayor of Buffalo since 2005.

One accomplishment he said he is proud of was his administration’s inclusion of women and people of color.

He is running a write-in campaign against democratic socialist India Walton after her upset victory in the primaries.

In their respective interviews, it was clear that each candidate holds a different view of the term, “democratic socialism.”

Brown said that it’s solely socialism and “will create infighting with the democratic party.”

“We’ve seen the extremes of the far right and how bad that has been for the country,” Brown said. “It’s the same with the extremes of the far left. That would be bad for the country as well.”

Her policy agendas would lead to undesirable consequences, according to Brown.

“She has ideas like raising taxes coming right into office that would cause the cost of living and doing business to go up for every resident of this community,” he said.

During her interview with WBNY and The Record, Walton said that it is important, in her opinion, to remember that the first part of “democratic socialism” is “democratic,” and she considers herself a Democrat first.

“I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it best: ‘All Democrats are not created equal,’” Walton said. “Being a democratic socialist to me, means that I am going to lead and govern for and by the people that I am serving. That is the role in my opinion in government, and I look forward to de-democracy and co-governance with the residents of the city of Buffalo.”

After the interview with Brown, the student-created episode featured an interview with both major candidates for Buffalo mayor.

This was the second episode of the student run series “Let’s talk Buffalo” and aired on 91.3 FM radio ahead of the mayoral election.

The program was hosted by Brittany Whalen, Joana Leamon, Cait Malilay, Tanya Gamble and Elijah Robinson with advisement from Dorothea Braemer, and editing by Joseph Scordo.

Listen to the interview above.

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