Wanted: Smart NYC GOP ideas
Republicans face a stiff uphill battle for city offices this fall, with GOP candidates for mayor, comptroller and public advocate lagging well behind the Democratic incumbents in money and name recognition. But even against long odds, Republicans can play an important role by offering thoughtful, sober policies to correct some problems the progressive majority has failed to solve.
Even though the city’s 3.4 million registered Democrats vastly outnumber the 522,000 registered Republicans, the party can attract votes by promising — and offering credible plans to deliver — a fair, prosperous and well-run city.
We’ll all benefit if urban Republicans embrace the party’s roots as fiscal stewards, rooting out government waste and inefficiency. Mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis, a state assemblywoman, made a great start recently by holding a press conference alongside her fellow Republicans to complain about the Staten Island Animal Care Center in their borough, which broke ground in 2013 with an estimated cost of $3 million budget that has now nearly tripled to $8 million.
Malliotakis took the opportunity to point out that Staten Island’s 121st Precinct, which opened four years ago, was supposed to cost $3 million but ended up $10 million over budget by the time the job was done.
There’s no shortage of examples of waste that need to be spotlighted and eliminated. Last year, the website DNAinfo compiled a catalogue of municipal waste including the NYPD’s new Central Park Precinct, which opened in 2013. It cost a reported $61 million; estimates had indicated it would only be $26 million.
The Department of Sanitation’s Spring Street Salt Shed, built to store salt spread on the streets during snowstorms, was originally priced at $10 million, but cost $23 million when it opened in fall 2015. The price of the Hunters Point Library, long plagued by delays, went from $20 million to $30 million.
Malliotakis has properly identified the Department of Design and Construction as a place that needs a thorough overhaul. She should also take a close look at NYC Health + Hospitals.
New York boasts the largest public health system in the nation; it serves 1 million New Yorkers each year. But the de Blasio administration warned in April 2016 that the agency is “on the edge of a financial cliff.” At the time, City Hall earmarked $2 billion over the next few years in a restructuring bid — that promised no layoffs or closures — to help the budget gap, projected to reach $1.8 billion by 2020.
Democrats aren’t saying much about where this yawning deficit came from, or how they plan to move beyond quietly shoveling more taxpayer money into a clearly troubled system. Budget-conscious Republicans should take the opportunity to tell the truth about the hundreds of millions currently vanishing into the agency — and offer a plan to stop the bleeding.
We are spending money by the bucketful on projects and agencies that appear to be, fiscally speaking, completely out of control. If Republicans can figure out how to reform or restructure DDC and HHC, more power, and votes, to them.
Another area ripe for GOPstyle reforms is the voting system itself. J.C. Polanco, the Republican candidate for public advocate — who formerly served as president of the Board of Elections — is campaigning for smart changes like allowing early voting and making it easier to cast absentee votes.
New Yorkers of any party, or no party, should all support efforts to make it easier to vote.
And finally, a smart Republican platform should focus on boosting the city’s economic prosperity and making it available to more families and communities that badly need jobs. The fall elections happen to coincide with a prime opportunity, as retailers like Amazon seek to expand in New York.
Amazon already has a Brooklyn warehouse, along with a new Staten Island fulfilment center that is supposed to hire 2,250 new workers. Add to that the company’s hunt for a second national headquarters and its plan to spend as much as $5 billion to house 50,000 employees in tech, finance and other needs.
Republicans can be a pragmatic, pro-business voice arguing for the right equation of tax breaks, incentives and development opportunities that can bring warehouse and shipping jobs to low-income neighborhoods.
Over the next few weeks before Election Day, we’ll hear a lot of talk from Mayor de Blasio and other Democrats tying local Republican politicians to the worst policies emanating from Washington. That’s entirely fair — but it’s up to Malliotakis, Polanco and other New York Republicans to redefine the party’s local priorities in a way that expands the discussion beyond slogans and cheap name-calling.