Queens City Councilman Tony Avella launched his run for mayor Sunday – promising a grass-roots campaign for lower taxes, less development and better schools.

“This is the beginning of a revolution. We are going to change the way city government operates,” Avella said on the steps of City Hall, surrounded by more than 100 sign-waving supporters.

“Even though my name is on the ballot, the campaign is not about me,” he said. “It’s about all of us – and everybody in this city – truly having a say and a stake in what happens in their own neighborhoods. And right now, they don’t.”

Avella, a 56-year-old Democrat, has represented Bayside, Whitestone and College Point in northeastern Queens since 2002.

He heads the Council’s zoning subcommittee and has pushed to make it harder for developers to tear down buildings and replace them with bigger ones.

“We are allowing the real estate industry to control the agenda,” Avella said. “Overdevelopment is destroying the residential character of every single community in every single borough, and that absolutely must stop.”

Avella joins a crowded field of Democrats expected to include Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Controller Bill Thompson and U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Others mulling a run include Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, also a Democrat, and supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, a Republican.

Avella had raised just $180,940 as of the last filing deadline in January, far less than Thompson’s $4.2 million, Weiner’s $3.6 million, Quinn’s $2.5 million and Markowitz’s $900,000.

He said his campaign is underfunded because the real estate industry doesn’t back him but predicted New Yorkers will support him because he isn’t backed by special interests.

“I admit it – I’m the underdog,” he said. “But we can win.”

Source: NY Daily News