City CEOs in Panic
Cop crisis has biz leaders frantic
THE city’s business elite may finally be waking up to the fact that Mayor de Blasio’s policies are as bad for the local economy as they are for everything else in Gotham.
This normally timid group is frantic over the toxic state of relations between the mayor and the police. They’re freaked by the specter of a paralyzed police force, afraid to enforce the law because to do so risks the wrath of the mayor, violent protesters and deranged cophaters.
These folks are old enough to know this could plunge us back into the chaos of the late 1960s and early 1970s, where New York’s economy imploded and the city nearly went bankrupt.
Sure, Comrade Bill can point to statistics that show crime’s still down, even after a year of his efforts to curb what he terms abusive police tactics. And the city economy, at least for now, is fairly healthy — because crime is so low, people feel safe to shop, go the Broadway show, etc.
The fear is that all this merely reflects the overhang of assertive policing from the Giuliani-- Bloomberg years. What if de Blasio’s attacks on the police, which began nearly the minute he started running for mayor, are eating away at that progress?
The business elite point to the near riots that erupted after the nonindictment in the death of Eric Garner, along with the assassination of two police officers by a maniac looking to kill cops for revenge, as ominous signs. They worry that the recent slowdown in arrests will soon manifest into something more serious — because cops know the mayor doesn’t have their back.
These folks admire Police Commissioner Bill Bratton (after all, he got the whole crimedrop ball rolling under Rudy Giuliani), but believe he’s no match for his committed leftist boss — who either doesn’t care or is utterly clueless about the fact that high crime rates cripple economies.
One key moment was a Dec. 18 meeting between Bratton and the leaders of the Partnership for New York City — a lobby group comprising the city’s business elite. (Full disclosure: 21st Century Fox, the parent of Fox News and Fox Business, my employer, is a member.) The sitdown was at the offices of Viacom, whose CEO, Philippe Dauman, chairs the Partnership.
Shocking many of the 300 in attendance, Bratton said that the mayor has his back in cracking down on qualityoflife crimes. Despite de Blasio’s anticop rhetoric and opposition to “stop and frisk,” he’s a proponent of the “broken windows” theory of law enforcement, Bratton claimed. That is, he believes that cracking down on smaller qualityoflife crimes makes the city safer and more economically vibrant because it helps get the really bad guys off the street.
Bratton argued, according to people present, that de Blasio is closer to Giuliani and Bloomberg on this front than most people think.
The business crowd warmed to Bratton’s assurances that de Bla sio understands the importance of having a safe city — until the next shoes dropped.
In the days that followed, de Blasio never backed off his criticism of the police — making a mockery out of what Bratton told the Partnership. Protests were turning more violent, with officers attacked and crowds chanting, “What do we want? Dead cops!” Next came the assassinations of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
The latest terror attack in Paris also hasn’t gone unnoticed by the business elite, I’m told. They have no doubt today’s NYPD could handle a similar situation — but they wonder how a mayor who all but in cited the recent riots might respond.
Now the business leaders are plotting their next move. The New York City Partnership is weighing how to address de Blasio and his policies, and when they should do so. Its president, Kathryn Wylde, is walking a tightrope: I’m told she is discussing with her members and leaders how to respond to the rift between the police and the mayor.
But for all their worries about crime and Comrade Bill, many of her members don’t want to cross City Hall, which hands them so much largesse in the form of tax breaks and (in the case of financial firms like Larry Fink’s Blackrock) the opportunity to manage city pension money.
In other words, the last thing these folks want to do is bite the leftist hand that feeds them.
But other business leaders think the shortterm gain from staying in the mayor’s good graces will lead to a lot of pain as de Blasio’s relationship with the polices remains toxic and crime increases. They are plotting to launch a new group, fearing that the Partnership and its members have too many business ties to City Hall to do anything dramatic to counter de Blasio’s lunacy.
The rumbling is that hedgefund manager Dan Loeb, who has already taken on de Blasio by funding charter schools, may soon jump into the fray. Stay tuned.
Here’s hoping Loeb or someone else does something quick. As long as relations between the mayor and the police remain toxic, the 1970s are closer than you think.