The commitment of assuming office is a commitment to serving New Yorkers with the utmost integrity.
I feel compelled to say this because over the past several weeks, there have been some media reports questioning Mayor de Blasio’s conduct. This isn’t surprising. After all, when you confront the status quo, powerful people are likely to be upset. And when you do more than any other mayor has for New Yorkers who live in the forgotten of the Two Cities, people are going to take notice.
Legal scrutiny of the Mayor’s office has existed since the birth of our city. Mayors before this one faced such reviews, and mayors after Mayor de Blasio will too.
I’ve worked with Mayor de Blasio for a long time and I know he has always held himself and his team to the highest standards of ethics and integrity. He deserves the same benefit of the doubt that you yourself would expect to receive under these circumstances.
It is up to us progressives not to let the shrieking headlines distract from the real work we’ve all been doing – the work to create a safer, fairer, and stronger city.
It’s work that’s been happening in our community and all over the city.
Since the start of Mayor de Blasio’s term, the City has become safer than ever while stop-and-frisks have gone down more than 90 percent.
We’re now home to the most ambitious affordable housing plan in the country — a blueprint that demands that developers build affordable if they build in our communities at all. All of this has led to a record pace for building and preserving affordable apartments.
More than 68,000 four-year olds are in free, full-day pre-K. That’s not just life-changing for children — it’s transformative for thousands of caregivers who work.
In 2014, the City Council worked with the Mayor to provide paid sick days to ALL private-sector workers. The Mayor has also instituted paid parental leave, raised the minimum wage for City employees and contracted workers to $15 dollars an hour, and is working to help every employee access a retirement plan.
This is what matters — the real change that actually makes people’s lives better and easier, like the ability to pick your child up from school or open a bank account using an IDNYC.
All of this shows the honorable action of someone who is fulfilling the mandate we gave him two-and-a-half years ago.
We need to protect this progress — and keep working to make more to address what Mayor de Blasio has called the Tale of Two Cities — one for those with opportunity, and one for the rest of us. That’s the only way we’re going to stay the greatest city in the world. It’s the only way we can make Two Cities, one.
