Mayor Eric Adams is picking the brains of his past two predecessors on how to govern America’s largest city.
Adams told The Post it’s senseless not to solicit input from former mayors Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg.
“My relationship with [them] should send a signal to leaders throughout the country that even when we have differences of opinion, we can learn from those who have gone before us,” he recently said.
Adams added, he’ll “reach out to both of them, along with a broad cross-section of leaders inside and outside government, whenever I am looking for advice or guidance on an issue.”
At a time when the city is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising crime and other crises, Adams repeatedly sought advice directly from Bloomberg and de Blasio in the weeks leading up to him taking office Jan. 1 and has continued since, multiple sources said.
Adams’ 750-person transition team is also relying on a half dozen former aides of both ex-mayors to help get him prepare for running the Big Apple, and sources said de Blasio administration officials provided Team Adams with detailed written briefs outlining city operations.
It’s a far cry from de Blasio’s icy relationship with Bloomberg, the billionaire he replaced as mayor in 2014. Both men barely talked throughout the entire transition period, sources said.
The relationship especially soured after guest speakers at de Blasio’s inauguration harshly criticized the Bloomberg administration while the departing mayor was sitting in the audience — including a government worker calling the city a “plantation.” A day later, the progressive de Blasio doubled down on the divisiveness, telling reporters, “I am very comfortable with everyone’s remarks.”
Howard Wolfson, a close advisor to Bloomberg and a former deputy mayor, recalled agency commissioners under Bloomberg preparing a “detailed briefing book” to help guide the de Blasio administration that collectively totaled thousands of pages. He now wonders if the effort might have been a waste of dead trees.
“The sad performance of the last eight years would suggest they never opened any of those books,” he said.
He declined to say what Bloomberg and Adams, both moderate Democrats, have discussed during the transition period. However, he said “we believe the new mayor is off to a great start and will continue to do what we can to be helpful.”
Peter Ragone, a longtime de Blasio advisor, said de Blasio’s senior staff interacted with Adams’ team “from the day” Adams was declared the winner of the Democratic primary last July “until the day we handed over the keys” to City Hall.
He declined to elaborate on what issues Adams and de Blasio have discussed during their private talks throughout the transition.
When asked about Wolfson’s remarks, he said they’re “not worth a response.”
While Adams plans to continue reaching out to de Blasio and Bloomberg, don’t expect him picking up the phone to call Republican Rudy Giuliani, the only other ex-mayor still alive, sources said.
Both men regularly clashed in the 1990s when Giuliani was mayor and Adams, then a cop, led an advocacy group that spoke out against police misconduct called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.