In the privacy booth: How New Yorkers should vote on key ballot questions

We loudly repeat trite advice you may remember from civics class: Whichever direction you lean, pleeeaase take a half hour to go to the polls today to vote for governor, attorney general, comptroller, U.S. House, Senate and the Legislature (if you haven’t already voted absentee or early). If you don’t know your poll site, visit findmypollsite.vote.nyc.

If you consider yourself ill-informed, read a bit about candidates’ stances, statements and records — particularly in the high-stakes gubernatorial race between incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul and Republican challenger Lee Zeldin. Per a new newspaper policy, we aren’t making a recommendation in that contest. But we urge all citizens to participate.

In this election, New York City voters will also see four questions on the back of the ballot. Our guidance is to vote yes on the first, which would authorize $4.2 billion in borrowing to fund infrastructure to help the state transition to a more climate-change-resilient, cleaner-energy future. Investments include upgrading pipes to safeguard drinking water, improving sewers and roads, reducing flood risk, planting street trees, electrifying school buses and more. It’s been a quarter-century since our state funded such improvements, and we’re worse for the wear.

The other three items voters in the five boroughs will weigh in on are brought to us by a Bill de Blasio-appointed Racial Justice Commission. The first would put a preamble on the City Charter committing government to combating inequities, which is fine. The third would dedicate city government to measuring the true cost of living in the city, which could also prove helpful.

Sandwiched between them is the most consequential and dubious: creating a permanent panel and office dedicated to advancing racial equity throughout local government. We don’t understand why it makes sense to hand this to a new $10 million-a-year mini-bureaucracy; many existing offices are well-equipped for the task. We also think New York doesn’t lack for people committed to untangling entrenched disparities. The problem, yesterday, today and tomorrow, is that solutions are necessarily complex and wrapped up in thorny politics.