Nixon blasts her pal Blaz
Hits NYCHA lead woes, Rikers plan
ALBANY – Cynthia Nixon took her good friend Mayor de Blasio to task Wednesday for his administration’s handling of public housing lead paint crisis and Rikers Island as well as his lukewarm position on a congestion pricing plan to help fund needed subway repairs.
Nixon, during a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board, said while the city has started to step up when it comes to New York City Housing Authority overall, “the lead paint crisis was unforgivable by the de Blasio administration.”
She also said for the first time she would as governor provide a $1 billion state payment to NYCHA for needed repairs.
In a rare instance, she also agreed with Gov. Cuomo, her Sept. 13 Democratic primary opponent and a frequent foe of de Blasio, that the city’s 10-year plan to phase out Rikers Island is too long.
“I think de Blasio is wrong,” she said of the 10-year timetable. While replacing Rikers is not something where “we can wave a magic wand,” Nixon said, “I think we need priorities.”
She does disagree, however, with Cuomo’s comment last week to the News Editorial Board that the city can build community jails based on the current Rikers population rather than wait for it to go down.
Having larger community jails would provide incentive to fill them, she said.
Nixon said the idea is to reduce the inmate population by enacting bail, speedy trial and other criminal justice reforms while also ending the arrests of mostly black and brown people on minor offenses.
“We need to do all these things so we can bring people through the system more quickly,” she said.
Nixon also said she believes de Blasio should be vocal in supporting a congestion pricing plan to help fund the subways while at the same time Cuomo should back a millionaire’s tax that would also help raise revenue for the needed repairs.
“I think that any elected leader who has a vested interest in rescuing the New York City subway has to understand, from my point of view, that congestion pricing is the center piece of this,” she said.
She added that “I think de Blasio needs to embrace congestion pricing; I think the governor needs to embrace a millionaire’s tax, and I think we need to get serious about the revenue that needs to be raised.”