Eric Adams for mayor
POST ENDORSEMENT:
NEW York City stands at the crossroads. Will we continue to surrender our streets to homelessness, filth, crime and guns, to betray our children’s future, to push away residents, businesses and wealth?
With the end of the disastrous Bill de Blasio era, the challenge will fall to our next mayor.
The New York Post believes Eric Adams is the candidate with the best chance of solving the issues bedeviling our whole city.
His top priority has to be reversing the rocketing rise in crime, from shootings to subway safety.
Having been a police officer for 22 years, Adams understands the crisis. He articulates a clear, firm and common-sense route to cleaning up our streets.
While Adams has been a fierce critic of the NYPD, he does not believe in defunding the police.
Yes, improve police conduct. But we agree with him when he told us “nothing angers me more” than when the force as a whole — and the symbol of public safety it represents — is allowed to be endlessly trash-talked.
Adams understands the challenges officers face and the overwhelming good they do.
No one wants fewer cops.
The public wants officers who are more engaged with residents and properly trained to deal with tense situations.
Adams would reinstate an anti-crime unit to crack down on guns and gangs.
He’d also push Albany — where he served as a state senator — to reform the no-bail law to allow for judges’ discretion to lock up dangerous, recidivist criminals.
On education, he speaks common sense.
While so many Democrats rail against charter schools, Adams knows that they provide a life-changing opportunity for poor minority kids — and a living challenge to our public schools to improve.
He has pledged to push the state to raise the charter-school cap.
As for public schools, Adams shows justified frustration with the state of our educational system and the bureaucrats who run it.
“If you don’t educate, you’re going to incarcerate,” he says, pointing to the shameful fact that more than half of New York City’s children don’t meet basic proficiency in reading and math. While we don’t agree that what he calls “high-stakes testing” is part of the problem, Adams does believe in the constant evaluations of students. He knows that results are what count. Adams has shown a willingness to cut regulations for small businesses and encourage new startups. Unfortunately, he also proposes tax increases that could push even more high earners south. We hope that he appreciates that retaining businesses and the wealthy — in short, the tax base that pays the lion’s share — is as important as making our streets safe if New York City is to thrive again.
Adams shows a measure of fiscal responsibility. He would call for a 3 percent to 5 percent cut at agencies to rein in some of the wasteful spending of the de Blasio administration.
At $98 billion, our city budget is now bigger than that of the entire state of Florida.
From riding the rails with a badge, to serving in state government, to his current job as Brooklyn borough president, Adams has a depth of experience that would serve him well in City Hall.
We enthusiastically endorse Eric Adams for mayor.
A note on the primary in general: Preferential voting makes everyone’s second and third picks vital.
We like much of what outsider Ray McGuire has proposed, and appreciate Andrew Yang’s enthusiasm. Kathryn Garcia did an excellent job at the Department of Sanitation.
They did not get our endorsement, but we hope they land in places where they can help the city.