De Blasio Report Card, by Mark Shames

The de Blasio administration has been in office for nearly a year. It is an appropriate time to give a progress report. I plead guilty to being an early and passionate supporter of the overall goals of the administration. I make this disclosure up front but I make no apology. The administration’s ambitions for a broadly progressive program were and remain great and with such ambitions come the high expectations that are nearly impossible to meet. The accomplishments of the administration are inadequately appreciated while a largely hostile press hypersensitive to a disgruntled establishment has magnified its shortcomings.

Oh, there were complaints right from the get-go. The snow was not removed on the upper east side of Manhattan before it hit the ground as had been past practice. Snow removal, however, was handled professionally and just a little bit more equitably. Listening to the criticism reminded me of the outrage of billionaire bankers facing criticism over the banking crisis.
First and foremost in the accomplishment column is the fact that there are now over fifty thousand children in full time pre-k programs. This is likely to be of lasting benefit to the kids and of equal benefit is the ability it has given to parents to maintain full time employment. We will no doubt find that not all those programs are well run and the programs will need continuing scrutiny but that should never be allowed to overshadow the enormity of this accomplishment.

Then how about paid sick leave? This has very little relevance to most of the people I know but this is a major improvement for people at the lower end of the wage scale. I was out at a subway station with other volunteers doing outreach for this program. The gratitude of those who could benefit from this program made it a pleasure to volunteer.
Municipal labor contracts that had been expired for years were finally negotiated and approved by the unions. The contracts are generally acknowledged to be fiscally responsible. Contracts for the various uniformed employees unions remain to be worked out and those negotiations are likely to be the hardest to conclude.

Wasn’t there a show down between the Mayor and the Governor over charter schools? And didn’t the Governor get what he wanted in that exchange? Yes, however, the Mayor was standing by the position that he had advocated throughout his election campaign. Another promise kept. He ought not be criticized for keeping his word particularly when it remains to be seen whether the insinuation of for profit corporate interests into education will ultimately benefit the common good. I suspect it will ultimately hurt public education. Speaking of campaign promises, although I am no fan of the implementation of “vision zero” or of the proposed horse carriage ban, these are items upon which the Mayor campaigned and it should be no surprise that he is following through on his agenda.

As long as there are racial and class tensions (and these are likely to remain into the foreseeable future) there will be disputes over proper policing. The Mayor ran on a critique of past stop and frisk tactics and a further enhancement of community policing. Policy has changed, retraining has started, a pilot project using body cameras has begun, and a policy of decriminalization with regard to possession of small amounts of marijuana has been instituted. Significant funding is being allocated over the next four years for additional diversion programs, with emphasis on the mentally ill, as an alternative to incarceration. This is all in line with what had been promised. Meanwhile crime is still trending down. There is reason to hope that public safety won’t suffer while police community relations start to improve. The Mayor has hired an experienced Police Commissioner who is sensitive to statistical changes in patterns of crime and who will still mold policy to maintain public order. Yes, they will be criticized from all sides but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing the job well.

The administration has done a major overhaul in homeless practices. The homeless population continues to go up with fewer people being turned away from the shelter system (a good thing in my view) and affordable housing remaining ever more difficult to find. In response more family shelters have been opened even as problem shelters were closed with the prospect of being reformed. The State is permitting a program for financial aid for permanent placement to be reinstituted. The City has created a “Living in Communities” (LINC) tri-level program that anticipates landlord concerns in order to encourage private landlords to rent to homeless families. Most importantly an affordable housing initiative is finally underway. Housing programs were easier to devise when there was vacant land and abandoned properties. The concepts coming out of the administration are solid, but to my mind there needs to be even greater urgency in implementation.

There has been increased investment in our parks as well as in green infrastructure and a continuing emphasis on sustainability post hurricane Sandy. These are areas where the current administration is building on the substantial achievements of the prior administration. As I see it these are each major achievements.

On the negative side I am still waiting to see positive change at the building department. The small and medium size architects and contractors that I talk to complain bitterly about virtually every aspect of the process and small business owners still say there is little improvement in ticketing practices. Given de Blasio’s emphasis on the need to maintain appropriate health care in the City and particularly in Brooklyn during his primary campaign , it was very disappointing that he was unable to move the Governor on the LICH closing and even more disappointing that there has not as yet been a broad assessment of health care and hospital needs for the City going forward.

All in all there is a record of promises kept up and down the line. I believe that this has overwhelmingly been for the betterment of our City. There is always more to be done in a constantly changing City and I suspect that even our quibbler in chief Comptroller Stringer would acknowledge our positive trajectory. The slow pace of fully staffing the administration does not seem to have set back policy planning but if not corrected will set back implementation and the handling of day to day business. When all appointments are finally made and agencies operate at full efficiency those who are hoping for a one term Mayor will likely be disappointed.

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