How’s He Doin’?

It’s time for the first quarterly report card on New York City Mayor Eric Adams.  I’m going to lay out my thoughts on his first three months in office and I want you to give him letter grades in the comments section.  

Like a child at the Passover seder, here my four questions.  

1. How’s he doin’ making the City safer?
2. How’s he doin’ on improving the quality of life?
3. How’s he doin’ on COVID?
4. How’s he doin’ on being a leader?

OK lets start…public safety, reality and perception.  

Crime is bad. In February, there was a 60 percent increase across all major crime categories compared to February of last year.  A couple of weekends ago, 29 people were shot on the mean streets.

If you thought crime in the subways would go down once more people started riding post-COVID, you were wrong.  This past week, a report released by the Manhattan Institute found that violent crime is increasing with ridership.  From 2020 to 2021 subway ridership rose 19 percent and violent crime also rose, up 8 percent.  

I could go on but none of the crime stats are good and people know it.   A poll conducted for the Partnership for New York found that 40 percent of Manhattan residents want to move and 48 percent in the other four boroughs want to get the hell out too.

Adams knows things are bad.  But, why is this Mayor different from other Mayors?  Because he’s operating in a much different environment than his predecessors Giuliani, Bloomberg and Deputzio and, he’s a black man.  He knows he needs to get NYC back to being the safest big city in America.  But he’s dealing with a weak Governor who can’t get anything passed that pathetic pair of NY State Legislative leaders Carl Heastie and Andrea Stewart-Cousins.  He’s brought back a kinder, gentler version of the NYPD’s Anti-Crime Unit, trying to get illegal guns off the streets.  He’s repeatedly supported the NYPD and it’s mostly minority women and men.  

So, how’s he doin on the crime issue?  I await your grade with breathless anticipation.

Next question, how’s he doin’ about the quality of life in Gotham?  First, let’s define “quality of life.”

For me it includes homeless on the streets, general lawlessness, a disregard for rules and regulations.  I’ve written repeatedly about the anything goes attitude.  And guess what? (That’s not a fifth question), Mayor Adams agrees!  “Anything goes in the City of New York” Adams said at an NYPD event last week.  “The most important city on the globe has become the laughingstock of the globe.”

Uh huh and uh huh. 

So he’s instructed his Police Commissioner, Keechant Sewell (remember her?) to bring back broken windows policing— just don’t call it by that name, it gets the progressives all riled up.

He’s also launched a crackdown on homeless encampments.  Deputzio said they were “unacceptable” (his favorite overused word) but did nothing about them.  Adams has started the initiative, let’s see how far he gets.  It’s the humane thing to do.  We can’t let NYC turn into LA.

If I’m reading him right, farebeaters, shoplifters and packs of deafening dirt bikers should also be on notice that Adams the enforcer has them in his sights.  I hope that includes the open-air illegal weed sellers from Washington Square Park to Times Square.

Let’s not forget the filth on the City’s streets.  I walk around Manhattan a lot and I can tell you the streets are disgusting.   Garbage is everywhere. Rats run rampant.  Hey Eric, tell your sanitation commissioner, the guy you held over from the previous administration, to get on it.

Okay, so what grade will you bestow upon him for quality of life issues?  Don’t be shy…I won’t tell anyone.

For many months, NYC was the epicenter for COVID-19.  There was a lot of disfunction between Deputzio and Prince Andrew of Albany.  Changing mandates, uneven enforcement, lockdowns, shutdowns, social distancing, outdoor dining, it was a big mess.

Eric Adams has helped clean up the confusion somewhat but has also been inconsistent.

He wanted to get NYC back to normal as quickly as possible and he overruled the COVID establishment on mask mandates.  He needs to get workers back to midtown because it’s crucial to the City’s economy.  He needs tourists back in town to support Broadway, hotels and restaurants.  And he realized that if left to themselves, COVID-conditioned New Yorkers would keep on living like it was March 2021 and not March 2022.

But he also messed up. He said he was going to lift the mask mandate for NYC public school kids under five but now has backtracked and parents are pissed. 

Last month he fired more than 14-hundred municipal workers who refused to get vaxxed but he’s allowing non-jabbed athletes to play in New York arenas and stadiums.  In other words, he caved to pressure from team owners.  

It’s an inconsistent policy and it’s insulting to everyday New Yorkers who refused to get vaccinated and who lost their jobs as a result.

So what’s his grade on COVID, you devoted followers of Friendwithoutbenefits.com?

And now to the last question.  Mayor Eric Adams’ leadership style…good, bad, no opinion?  Come on you have to have an opinion.

Adams is a party animal. Maybe I will start calling him “Party Animal Adams.”

He loves going to restaurants, clubs and galas.  He’s out late.  He’s the complete opposite of Deputzio whose idea of a fun night was bonging with Chirlane.  Did I say bonging?  I meant bonding.

Adams is a great cheerleader for the City.  He parties with model Cara Delevingne and hip hop artist A$AP Rocky at One Vanderbilt.  He isn’t shy about eating in the most expensive and trendy restaurants.  That’s fine. He enjoys New York and his presence around town sends a message that Fun City is back and open for business.

But leadership doesn’t only mean cheerleading.  Adams has purposely positioned himself at the center of the storm.  Other Mayors, especially on the crime issue, shared the spotlight with their Police Commissioners.  The Mayors certainly took credit when crime was down and when crime spiked, it was the PC’s fault.  Adams has made himself the expert on crime fighting.  He’s said it over and over to many different audiences.  He was in the NYPD, he was a Captain, he knows more about fighting crime than any other politician in the State.  That may be but now, Mr. Mayor, you own the entire problem.  Succeed and you will be a hero.  Fail and you will be a one-term mayor.  

And I don’t get the sense Adams allows too much TV time to his other commissioners.  It’s all Adams, all the time.

It’s an interesting way to lead a very complicated and cumbersome city bureaucracy.

So what say you all?  A-F, what’s Adams’ grade on leadership?

As I wrote in my very first FW/oB blog back in January, it is much easier to campaign than it is to govern.  My advice then was for Adams to hit the ground racing, not running.  The people in NYC needed to see change.  I think Adams finally heeded some of that advice.  He now talks about the importance of making people feel safe.  He’s now starting to realize he’s pretty much on his own and he won’t be able to crack the progressive cabal in Albany on bail reform.  I think he’s realized that Governor Kathy Hochul is just trying to get elected and won’t help him in any meaningful way on anything controversial.

We need Adams to be the modern day Moses of New York City.  He needs to confront the Pharaohs in the state legislature and the city council who perpetuate our enslavement to a system that makes our city, in Moses, er, Adams’ words “a laughingstock”.    Instead of telling them to let his people go he needs to tell them to allow his people to come back…from Miami, Delray Beach and Boca Raton!  Anyone game for some frogs, locust or boils?  Couldn’t be any worse than what we’ve got now!

P.S. Totally unrelated to NYC and Eric Adams: 

This past week 11 innocent people were murdered by terrorists in Israel ( terrorists, not militants as The NY Times called them)—Jews, Ukrainians, a hero Arab-Israeli police officer…and the carnage continues in Ukraine by Vlad the Invader.  That’s the really important stuff to be focused on and all we can talk about is Will Smith and Chris Rock?  Give me a break.