State of the city in the state

In January 1979, at the start of his second year as mayor, Ed Koch decided that like the president has a state of the union message before the Congress, and the governor has a state of the state address in front of the Legislature, he was going to have a state of the city speech to lay out his program.

Over his next 10 years in office, Koch was very spotty with the new and made up state of the city tradition, sometimes giving a speech, sometimes not bothering. But his successors have made it an annual occasion and yesterday was the third such presentation by Mayor Adams.

On three of the major objectives of Adams, we couldn’t applaud any harder: Going after illegal cannabis shops, creating more housing and keeping mayoral control of the schools.

He wants the authority to shut down the ever-spreading proliferation of illegal pot shops selling cannabis and marijuana. There are so many, in the thousands, that no one even knows the full extent of their coverage of the city, with some blocks having several, even as the number of legal shops is just 17 citywide.

Albany, which set up this very stupid system, tried to give the power to shutter the illegals to the state New York State Office of Cannabis Management (the dopes who created the problem) and the Department of Taxation and Finance. It has failed.

Said the mayor, “To get them shut down once and for all, we need Albany’s help. I want to thank Gov. Hochul and all our elected partners who are fighting to give us the power to shut down these illegal smokeshops. Give us the proper authority, and we will get the job done.”

Adams also wants to build housing, a lot more housing. Again, he is right. And again, he is stymied because he needs changes in laws and renewal of proven and successful incentives for private builders. But all that needs to happen up the river, in Albany.

Here is his plea: “That is why we have a moonshot goal of building 500,000 housing units over the next decade, and we need everyone — developers, citizens, community boards, and our partners in Albany and on the City Council — to help get us there.

“Gov. Hochul was right in her State of the State address: New York City must build. And we need Albany to clear the way for the housing we need now. Let us build.”

Athird critical goal for this new year is for Adams and his schools chancellor, David Banks, to have continued responsibility for the city’s public schools. The permission expires on June 30. At that point, leadership of the schools reverts to the discredited political Board of Education, with each borough president having a member and the mayor having only two.

Said Adams: “Let’s continue the success we’ve seen in our schools so far — with higher reading and math scores — by extending four more years of mayoral accountability.”

Unfortunately, the three people with the ability to grant him his three wishes of a pot shop crackdown, building housing and keeping school accountability, Gov. Hochul, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, were not at Adams’ speech yesterday.

Hopefully, they will still get the message.