Mayor Adams enters his re-election year with a pretty mixed record, facing a federal corruption trial and denied (at least for now) public matching campaign funds, and so at clear risk of defeat in both the June 24 primary and — should a viable Republican challenger emerge — the Nov. 4 general election.
Yet he may well emerge victorious, since his declared opponents so far are a pack of lefties who only promise to be worse, pushing utter nonsense like legalizing prostitution, banning rent hikes and making public transit free.
They’re hoping the prosecutors take him down, though what’s known so far of the evidence against him seems thin and the case itself quite possibly inspired mainly by the (outgoing) Biden administration’s anger at his complaints over the migrant crisis it caused.
And his clear love for the city and consistent centrism could certainly lead voters to decide he’s still their best choice.
His rhetoric has largely been spot-on, whether on public safety and education or the “pro-Palestinian” radicals and the migrant crisis.
It’s his policy execution too often falls short.
Start with public safety: He’s now delivered years of modest drops in overall crime (down 5.4% this last year), but failed to get Gotham back to pre-pandemic levels.
And everything from all the locked-up toothpaste to the numbers of addicts and severe mental-illness cases plaguing so many public areas not only slams New Yorkers’ quality of life; it signals the city is seriously unsafe.
Though the worst villains on crime are state and city lawmakers, Adams’ approach to NYPD leadership has been highly problematic.
Deputy Mayor Phil Banks was plainly calling the shots until his recent exit, prompting Commissioner Keechant Sewell to depart rather than continue the farce, only to be succeeded by Edwin Cabán, who himself left under a criminal cloud, even as also-now-tainted-and-gone Jeffrey Maddrey rose to chief of department.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch is off to a great start, but it took Adams nearly three years to get a commish with both real power and real promise — and he’s also allowed the force to shrink when it should be growing.
Another public-safety concern remains at the Administration for Children’s Services, where Adams has allowed Jess Dannhauser to impose politically correct policies that put kids’ lives at risk.
The mayor’s also been an uncertain leader on the public schools: Now-fled Chancellor David Banks failed to fully reverse a host of anti-merit de Blasio-era policies and never trimmed the bureaucratic fat he himself spoke out against.
Even the wise introduction of a phonics-based reading program was compromised by Department of Education mismanagement, while promises of a ban on student cell phones have imploded.
Meanwhile, the United Federation of Teachers has regularly run circles around City Hall, using its sway in Albany to weaken mayoral control and to impose a ridiculously costly class-size law.
At least the mayor got the city Panel for Education Policy to OK the contract for the race-blind admissions test for Gotham’s specialized high schools — which, to his credit, he supports as centers of scholastic excellence.
Yet for all our cheers when he called out Washington’s role in creating the migrant crisis, Adams’ handling of it has been uneven, treating it as an “emergency” for contracting purposes long after the initial shock was over, and taking far too long to challenge the assumption that the city should apply the same “right to shelter” rules as for traditional homeless.
Yes, the mayor’s had some clear successes, booting vendors from the Brooklyn Bridge when the unlicensed peddlers created a serious safety problem, shutting down more than 180 illegal smoke shops, implementing 24/7 speed cams and moving over 7,000 vagrants into shelters via his Subway Safety Plan.
The city’s recovered all the private-sector jobs lost during the pandemic, and added 300,000 new jobs since 2022; tourism is back to pre-COVID levels, too.
And he’s updated the city’s zoning code for the first time since 1961 via the $5 billion “City of Yes” plan, which promises to support new industries, revitalize vacant storefronts and boost new-housing construction.
We appreciate that Eric Adams is a “grown-up Democrat” who’s not reluctant to cross the party line, even as his coalition stretches to New Yorkers with very different views than ours.
But he’s also spent too much of his tenure acting like a mayor is just a slightly jumped-up borough president who can rely on a small circle of longtime cronies.
As he makes his case for re-election, we hope he’s honest about what he’s learned from experience and gives the city solid reason to believe he’ll deliver more and better in a second term.
Mayor Adams’ heart has always been in the right place; we hope he can convince voters that his hands are only getting steadier.
