New York, New York - New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has announced his candidacy for mayor, teeing up a showdown with scandal-wracked incumbent Eric Adams.

"This city... we fall in love with it over and over again. Everyone on every block deserves that feeling. But why does a city that means so much to so many have leadership that delivers so little for so few?" Lander asks in an announcement video released Tuesday.

"We travel too long to work too many hours to pay too much rent to worry so much and feel so unsafe," the 55-year-old Park Slope resident adds.

"Nothing can replace New York City. But we can replace a leader when they fail the basic tests of the job: to be honest with us, to keep our families safe, to make sure our kids learn," Lander says in an apparent dig at Mayor Eric Adams.

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Adams, a former NYPD captain, has faced a string of controversies in his first term at the helm of the New York City government. Sexual harassment allegations and a federal campaign finance investigation have amplified discontent stirred by the mayor's response to migrant arrivals and pursuance of pro-cop policies.

Lander has become the first Democrat officially to challenge Adams for his seat in next year's ranked-choice primary. As comptroller, he has restricted Adams' emergency spending powers over a problematic contract with a medical services provider for migrants, prepared to take legal action to move congestion pricing forward, and published a report on the city's stark racial wealth gap – a key moment in the push for New York State's newly inaugurated reparations commission.

"We're in this together, and together we can write the next great chapter on the sidewalks of New York," Lander says to close out his campaign announcement.