Times Union
By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer
First published in print: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
ALBANY — Nathan Lebron is a Republican you've probably never heard of, but he has a message he's confident even Democrats will like.

"When you buy a lawn mower, brand new, it's the best lawn mower you've ever had in your entire life. It starts (with) half a pull, a tank full of gas will last you the entire summer. It cuts the grass perfectly," the 38-year-old information technology specialist told the Times Union Tuesday in his first interview.

As the machine ages, he said, "it starts breaking down, you start fixing it ... and before you know it, that relationship where the machine is serving you flips, and you end up serving the machine."

That's the scenario Lebron — who will launch his campaign for mayor today — hopes to make to voters in this overwhelmingly Democratic city over the next six months.

The lawn mower in this case is the city's once-vaunted Democratic machine, which Lebron said continues to work counter to the interests of most residents — spending too freely, relying on state aid, flooding neighborhoods after crime sprees with cops who are essentially strangers and pushing for a convention center that "could be Albany's Big Dig," a reference to Boston's infamously bloated and behind-schedule highway project.

Born in Harlem and raised in Puerto Rico and the Bronx, Lebron has lived in Albany for two decades since he enrolled at the University at Albany. He is a director at Garnet River, an Albany technology firm, and previously was director of information systems for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Lebron, who lives off Whitehall Road and has never run for office, received a master's degree in information technology from Harvard in 2006.

But it's his childhood, born into a self-described broken home and spent in neighborhoods choked with crime, that he said showed him how "irresponsible government" can fail those who most need its help. After surviving spinal cancer at the age of 13, he lived in a Bronx group home until he was 18.

Lebron said he would seek a new police chief and recommit the force to forging ties with neighborhoods.

He said a 2006 restructuring of the department, which folded patrol beats into a strategic deployment unit, has contributed to an erosion of trust of the police while more "daring" crimes have spread throughout the city.

"You don't send beat cops to a neighborhood when crime is raging," he said, and "when crime disappears then leave and think the problem is solved."

Lebron said he also wants a two-term limit for all citywide offices and pledged to be an advocate for the public schools and push for creation of an ex-officio post on the school board for a representative of the mayor's office to improve the sometimes fractious relationship.

"That's the right balance where you force City Hall to engage in policy discussions with the schools," he said, "and the school now has input from the office that actually has responsibility for the safety of the school system."hised voters that normally stay home and I want to be able to convince them that they have an agent of change right here in me,” said Lebron.

Lebron enters a race awash in Democrats, with six, including the four-term incumbent, Jerry Jennings, trading barbs and jockeying for position. Republicans face a staggering enrollment disadvantage in the city — 38,160 to 3,380. Their last mayoral candidate, former city GOP Chairman Joseph Sullivan, garnered 1,465 votes in a 2005 third-place finish.
Lebron, however, said his candidacy isn't about party affiliation but about whether voters, who may have thought they were ditching the machine when they elected Jennings in 1993, believe the city can do better.

"I'm running against stale leadership," Lebron said. "I'm running against someone who wants a fifth term — and a bunch of other candidates who have not made a passionate case for being the one to replace him."

Jordan Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com.