Race to the top: The 2021 mayoral campaign must be a contest of big ideas and concrete plans
Last week, seven candidates attending the first 2021 mayoral forum agreed: They would fire NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea. Almost to a person, they decried budget cuts, even in the midst of a generational fiscal crisis. They offered themselves as bolder and more effective progressives than Bill de Blasio.
What they did not do is try eclipsing one another with comprehensive, pragmatic plans for rescuing a city now staring at more profound challenges than any we’ve faced in a half-century.
The field doesn’t want for contenders, or for diversity of sex or race or ethnicity or experience. Alphabetically, get to know: Eric Adams, Shaun Donovan, Kathryn Garcia, Dianne Morales, Carlos Menchaca, Scott Stringer, Loree Sutton, Maya Wiley.
But what New York City needs, as next June’s almost-certainly-decisive Democratic primary rapidly approaches, is candidates who care less about proclaiming de Blasio a failure in many respects (duh) or checking the boxes drawn by left-wing interest groups and more about answering Herculean tasks that will confront any chief executive beginning New Year’s Day 2022.
The COVID-19-induced shift to working from home will wallop the tax base as companies shrink their footprints. Pile that atop the relocation of many high-income individuals, and municipal government demands a massive right-sizing. What to cut and how?
The pandemic has eviscerated low-income hospitality and service jobs. Poverty is proliferating — food stamps, welfare and Medicaid enrollment is soaring. How will the working class survive?
Crime trend-lines look less bloody than a month ago, but are hardly heartening. Besides vaguely promising to reform or defund the NYPD, what are their law enforcement strategies?
Right on cue, Thursday, Wall Street executive Ray McGuire joined the field. We have no idea whether he’ll meet the moment, but at this point, business acumen from someone who thinks differently can’t hurt.
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