The financial crisis and economic recession have compounded what was already a brutal squeeze for so many New Yorkers. Rising rents, stagnant wages and the high cost of living—aggravated by tenant harassment and an emphasis on building mega-developments rather than livable neighborhoods—have triggered the displacement of poor and working class families throughout the city.
In the past year, more than 4 in 10 low-income Latinos either had their wages or hours reduced or lost their jobs—or both. Food banks cannot keep up with the demand for food. The number of homeless New Yorkers in shelters is at a record high. New York City has more than a million people living in poverty.
After a decade misspent lionizing the rich and their excesses, too many New Yorkers are paying the price for the decisions made in Washington, on Wall Street and in City Hall. What New York City needs is an executive with a balanced perspective towards development and growth, where families most in need are a high priority. This leader is Bill Thompson.
Thompson has a sterling record in both the private and public sectors. For nearly eight years, he has served this city as its comptroller, successfully managing billions of dollars in pension funds, highlighting deficiencies and disparities in critical city services, and emphasizing communities that have historically been absent from the table when it came to asset management and city contracts.
With a clear understanding of the pressures on tenants, Thompson has called on Albany to return control over local rent laws to the city, instead of leaving it in state hands. As mayor, Thompson would advocate for this and other changes in laws that leave tenants with the short end of the stick. He would promote affordable housing in the context of the specific needs of neighborhoods. Thompson also wants to bring small businesses to the front and center of the city’s economic development strategy.
Thompson respects the vehicles that New Yorkers have for government accountability, including the office of the public advocate. He has won the backing of highly regarded elected officials, including Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Congressman José Serrano, Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr. and Assemblymember Adriano Espaillat. The city's largest municipal employee union, District Council 37, and Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Uniformed Firefighters Association all support Thompson.
The incumbent, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, steered the city safely through post-9/11 fears. He won mayoral control of public schools, a prerequisite for improvement. He presented NYC 2030, a sustainable plan for the city. But his administration has acted in ways that fly against the spirit of his own plan. Community concerns have too often fallen on Bloomberg’s deaf ears —from the South Bronx, where residents feel that the new Yankee Stadium that his representatives so passionately defended left neighborhoods with a raw deal, to Brooklyn, where 40 black, Hispanic and Jewish organizations have been shut out of his administration’s development process for the Broadway Triangle site.
While Bloomberg deserves credit for putting poverty reduction on his agenda, the persistent, increasing homelessness during his administration, the years of delay in responding to day laborers, the undercutting of home-based child care workers and the threat posed by hiring pricey consultants to replace low-paid city workers offer a different message to struggling families.
But Bloomberg’s legacy has been most tarnished by the blatantly undemocratic maneuver he pulled on term limits. Twice, New Yorkers had voted to limit the service of local elected officials to two terms. Instead of respecting that, Bloomberg and his associates peddled the idea of overturning term limits to the editorial boards of local newspapers; pressured the heads of nonprofit organizations that rely on private donors and city funding to speak before the City Council in support of undoing term limits; and contrived to run out the clock on a referendum.
All of this is not simply slick scheming—it is a gross abuse of power. Even Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez conducted a plebiscite on his extended stay in power. New Yorkers were not even given that chance.
With city government already tipped to favor the executive branch, Bloomberg’s power grab delivers a clear message: the ability of constituents to challenge power and shape decisions at the top is seriously in danger. The prospect of a mayor with an emperor-esque approach to New Yorkers bodes poorly for our city.
Bloomberg had his eight years. It is now time for the city to move forward with new leadership. On November 3, we strongly urge New Yorkers to cast their ballots for Bill Thompson.
