Mayor Bill de Blasio used a “Save Our City” theme for his seventh State of the City speech — prompting confused New Yorkers to wonder, “Save us from what — your leadership?”
“We need a plan to save our city because that’s where we are right now,” Hizzoner told a crowd of hundreds at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan Thursday.
“We’re at a point where we have to be saved. This city and everything it stands for must be saved and we are the ones who have to save ourselves,” the mayor said in the first few minutes of his more than hourlong address.
“His theme was ‘save the city!’ He has been mayor for six of his [full two terms’] eight years Who does he think it needs saving from?” asked Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) after the speech.
De Blasio also cited “a particular fear out there, a particular anxiety.
“People are afraid New York City won’t be New York City anymore. They’re afraid that our heart and soul could slip away,” he said, blaming “greed” for making the metropolis unaffordable.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is running to succeed the term-limited de Blasio in 2021, agreed about the feelings of anxiety, but panned Hizzoner’s overall message.
“People are anxious about things like housing and homelessness, and worried that they can’t afford to live here,” Johnson (D-Manhattan) told The Post.
“But I wouldn’t frame it like the city needs to be ‘saved.’ It needs vision, big ideas and serious investment in things like NYCHA, our transportation system and affordable housing,” Johnson said.
In a rebuttal speech following the mayor’s address, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said de Blasio’s shortcomings are the reason the city needs saving.
“The mayor spoke of the need to save our city, and he may be right — but in many cases, at critical points, past opportunities to take on issues have been met with policies that were either insufficient to address the scale of need, or further deepening it,” Williams said.
He pointed to “misplaced money and priorities” in de Blasio’s handling of mental-health policy, mismanagement of NYCHA, and missed targets for homelessness.
De Blasio’s “Blueprint to Save Our City” includes adding 100 cops to a new NYPD “Vision Zero Unit” to crack down on speeding, expanding pre-K-for-all to 26,000 3-year-olds, and legalizing basement apartments and tiny houses in backyards to create 10,000 affordable homes.
In his two remaining years in office, he also wants to invest $500 million of city pension funds into small businesses, create a landlord vacancy tax and cut fines for mom-and-pop shops in half.
In addition to the tiny homes and basement apartments, de Blasio will build 2,000 more units of affordable housing for families making under $50,000 a year.
He said he’ll help the city’s youth by expanding hours at Parks Department recreation centers, reopening six shuttered community centers and building seven new ones in the outer boroughs.
As part of de Blasio’s efforts to tackle climate change, the city will assist homeowners in installing solar panels on 50,000 homes and end the government’s use of plastic bottles by 2021.