Mayor Carmella Mantello
Supports
- Understaffed City ServicesHer budgets pay for the city jobs Troy needs, then leave many of them empty. Her next budget has 51 jobs with no one in them, most in parks, code enforcement, water, and sewer. She paused hiring for every job outside police and fire.Read the record
- CensorshipShe blocks Troy residents who criticize her from the Facebook page where she speaks as mayor. In 2024 her office promised the city's pages were open to everyone, whatever their views.Read the record
- Party over peopleIn 2024 her office promised that the city's pages were open to everyone, whatever their views. Since then it has used city channels to call the council liars and its bills "Pro-Criminal." She also told a court under oath that the residents who came to object were "three dozen or so paranoid souls."Read the record
- Emergency PowersEleven emergencies in under three years. Declaring one lets the city buy without taking bids and tear down buildings without the hearing an owner is owed.Read the record
- Flock SurveillanceTwenty-six cameras photograph every passing vehicle — about 159,000 a day in a city of about 51,000 people. Police as far away as Houston, plus Border Patrol and ICE, have searched Troy's records.Read the record
- Developers over residentsShe backs developers building hundreds of market-rate apartments with tax breaks, while most Troy renters can't afford the apartments already for rent. When the council passed a law to protect those renters, she vetoed it.Read the record
The Mayor’s Track Record
- Mayor Carmella's tax increase is on your water billMayor Carmella Mantello announced a small property tax increase. Most of her new money comes from your water and sewer bills instead, about $1.6 million more. That charge falls the same on every family, whatever their home is worth.
- Mayor Carmella saves money by leaving city jobs emptyMayor Carmella Mantello is saving money by leaving city jobs empty instead of paying enough to fill them. Her next budget has 51 jobs with no one in them. When she wanted police jobs filled, she raised the pay.
- Mayor Carmella's housing crisisMost Troy renters can't afford the apartments for rent, and empty ones already sit unrented. Mayor Carmella Mantello's answer is more new apartments, and she vetoed the law that protects renters already here.
- Blocked from the mayor's pageThe page titled "Mayor Carmella R. Mantello" blocks residents who criticize her. The city holds no record of which accounts speak for the Mayor's Office, and only a 2022 draft of a policy on what they post.
- Troy's Flock contract never went to the City CouncilA police captain signed Troy's first Flock contract in 2021 and the department signed again in 2022. The City Charter gives that power to the Mayor, the Purchasing Agent, and the Council. No Troy agenda or minutes document mentions Flock until 2026.
- Party over peopleIn 2024 Mayor Carmella Mantello's office promised the city's pages were open to everyone, whatever their views. Since then it has called residents paranoid, the council liars, and its bills Pro-Criminal. It did so on city letterhead and under oath.
- What Troy's Flock audit logs showTroy's police department handed over its Flock audit logs after a records request. They show 26 cameras that photographed 25 million vehicles in five months. They also show 5,309 outside agencies searching the data, 12 of them federal.
- "Our pages must be made available to everyone"In April 2024 Mayor Mantello's office set a policy: Troy's city pages belong to everyone, whatever their views. Her office later called the council president a liar.
- "Dead when my administration took office"Mayor Carmella Mantello's campaign lists five first-term accomplishments in Troy, NY. The city's own archive dates all five to before she was sworn in.
- One emergency every two monthsMayor Carmella Mantello of Troy, NY signed eleven emergency declarations between January 2024 and April 2026. She signed six in her first year alone.
- Mayor Carmella Mantello supports FlockMayor Carmella Mantello spent nine minutes defending the Flock license plate cameras in Troy, NY. Thirteen days later she declared an emergency to keep paying for them.