mousekeeping t1_izjlvrd wrote
People hate on Adams (and he does seem very corrupt, that place he spends his time at and his two friends are super sketchy) but at least things are happening in NYC gov.
Under 12 years of Big Bird all we got were more ferries in rich neighborhoods (owned and operated by Hornblower, a company started by his long-time friend), a fake mental health initiative that allowed his wife unmonitored access to millions in city funds that got lost somewhere along the way and never reached mental health providers, and the worst Covid response/outbreak/recovery of any city in the world (except Wuhan I suppose)
About the only positive thing he did was end stop & frisk. Even if you hate Adams at least changes are being proposed and conversations are being started about the decline in quality of life and various crises that the city is facing.
drpvn t1_izkoylf wrote
Stop and frisk was basically ended before de Blasio took office.
mousekeeping t1_izkp9b1 wrote
Ah so he doesn't even get credit for that then lol. So I guess only corrupt ferries, helping his wife embezzle millions of dollars of City money, and the worst Covid outbreak outside of China.
actualtext t1_izl1341 wrote
Universal Pre-k. And Vision Zero. The latter I'm not sure whether it was successful or not but it attempted to reduce traffic-related deaths.
mousekeeping t1_izl5rz2 wrote
Traffic deaths have increased, though some factors he couldn't control. Lots of people bought cars bc of Covid and the increased use of scooters and e-bikes has created a whole new source of danger for pedestrians - injuries tend to be less severe but you can't hear them coming and they often ignore traffic laws/act recklessly. Though he did let the subway go to shit which has encouraged people to keep the cars they bought during Covid.
Universal pre-K - forgot about that, worth mentioning for sure. Tho he also tried to force thru massive changes to the public schools' gifted programs (which tbh Adams also supported until the public turned against it). Fortunately he was too unpopular at that point to do anything. His last two years seem to have mainly been spent being driven to and from the Park Slope YMCA and trying to avoid encounters with the public as much as possible.
actualtext t1_izl8gp1 wrote
> Though he did let the subway go to shit which has encouraged people to keep the cars they bought during Covid.
The governor is responsible for the MTA. The mayor can help with some aspects like DOT helping out with bus lanes and the NYPD patrolling the subway system. But ultimately the subway is controlled by the governor.
mousekeeping t1_izljw15 wrote
True, but de Blasio certainly did nothing to help.
Picking a childish fight with Cuomo while the city was the global epicenter of the pandemic was…well, not great.
Cuomo shares blame, but at least he was communicating with the public. Seemed like BDB was in some unreachable bunker somewhere stewing over his grievances/worrying about how Covid would affect his dreams of being President. And yes I know Cuomo was lying at times but at least he acted like a leader.
BDB openly allowed the subways to become shelters for sick homeless people who couldn’t get into the shelters, which turned the subway into Covid Express and led to a massive (and unfortunately somewhat permanent) increase in car ownership and use.
He was late (and weak) on requiring masks. He closed schools wayyyyyyy too late which may have been the single largest factor in why NYC had such a uniquely bad outcome. Refused to admit that maybe mass protests weren’t the greatest idea in the midst of an extremely infectious pandemic. Did pretty much nothing to help hospitals and EMS…I could go on.
Realize this isn’t all subway-related, but he was truly a once-in-a-generation awful mayor.
actualtext t1_izlxqfm wrote
I’ll agree to disagree. I wasn’t his biggest fan mind you but I don’t think anyone was particularly perfect with the handling of COVID. My memory isn’t the best but I’m also not about to go on googling the timeline of events during 2020 and 2021. I’d like to forget those yrs if possible lol I don’t believe he was horrendous to the point where his policies increased the rate of COVID infection. I think given NYC is the major international entry point into the US, it makes perfect sense why we’ve gotten hit the worst every fall/winter. Don’t believe that’s changed and don’t see how anything BDB would have done could have improved that short of maintaining lockdowns which I think we can all agree are imperative.
Meanwhile I can’t tell you a single good damn thing that our current mayor has done in his first full year. Lots of platitudes and showboating but nothing to show for it. And he’s stopping universal pre-k which just seems idiotic when you want to attract families/keep families in the city and get parents to work outside their homes. I’m still rooting for him and hoping some of his ideas bare fruit though. He’s got 3 yrs left and realistically probably 7 unless things get horrendous.
mousekeeping t1_izm7crv wrote
There is no way to defend BDB. His actions directly led to the preventable deaths of thousands of people.
Remember NYC wasn’t the worst city in the country. It wasn’t the worst outbreak in North America. It wasn’t even just the biggest outbreak in developed countries. It was the worst in the world and not by any small margin - no other city, many of them much more crowded with larger numbers of people using public transit and much lower hospital capacity - came even close to what happened in NYC. Our case levels were stratospheric.
BDB should be in prison. He wasn’t just incompetent. He lied, repeatedly, over and over and over. He lied about masks claiming they wouldn’t work. He lied about schools claiming children couldn’t spread the virus even after thousands of teachers were already sick.He lied about the risk of keeping businesses open. He lied about the risks of attending mass events and protests. He lied about providing emergency aid to hospitals.
Then he lied about how bad things were. He lied about how bad it was in hospitals. He lied about it not affecting young people. Repeatedly.
I say “lie” bc it wasn’t him being inaccurate or ignorant or misinformed. He knew things were dangerous and said they weren’t. He knew keeping the schools open was extremely risky but thought he would lose popularity by closing them, even when so many staff were sick that most chose to stop working rather than risk death. Science officials were begging him to close things. Education officials were begging him to close the schools. The state government had to put the first large testing facility in Westchester bc he wouldn’t allow one in the city (bc he knew what it would show). He actively prevented aid from the federal gov, state gov, healthcare experts, and charities from getting to sick people and hospitals. He did nothing to get extra healthcare resources.
Never once did he accurately convey the science. He has never (and will never) take any responsibility, bc he never cared about NYC or being mayor. He just needed a springboard for a presidential run and knew he couldn’t defeat Cuomo, bc he had no experience and no qualifications and no charisma.
I was a nursing student during Covid. I will never forget what I saw. It was like a portal to hell opened up. I couldn’t believe I was still in the USA. Nurses were going in with garbage and sandwich bags as PPE. Not that there wasn’t just enough biohazard gear - there wasn’t anything. No surgical masks, no 95s, no goggles or face shields, no gowns, no infection control procedures, no ventilators, absences of basic medications - there was a shortage of everything. Nurses were dying left and right. Then the doctors started dying too. People were re-using PPE for weeks. Nobody went home to their families if they had anyplace else to stay - we all knew we would get sick.
I’d say I’m proud that I didn’t run away but really I was too shocked and scared to even think about it. I just did what I was told, like most healthcare workers. I should have left - in retrospect I was at insane risk and had basically no ability to help people. Not that people wanted help anyways. They didn’t want to wear masks. They didn’t want to be tested for Covid. And god forbid De Blasio require those things - I mean, what if he lost voters? That would be the real horror.
The city’s inaction allowed people to act like monsters. My hospital’s director committed suicide a few weeks into the peak pandemic - I’m sure many others wanted to. The trauma that healthcare professionals faced was devastating and most still can’t talk about it. It’s like being exposed to a radiation by your government.
Biggest modeling study found that if he closed schools two weeks earlier (when the CDC and city health recommended, there were tens of thousands of cases, and most large cities had shut schools down) there would have been 500,000 fewer cases in the first wave and probably more 15,000 fewer deaths.
Even a week earlier (when he was the only person who wanted them to stay open and his advisors could not even understand his thought process) would have led to 300,000 fewer cases and almost 10,000 fewer deaths. Then think of how many fewer deaths if he had required patients to wear masks, or provided testing services, or given healthcare providers PPE. I will never forgive that man. He’s evil. The fact that he can live with himself shows that he has absolutely zero moral compass. The city won’t recover from what he did in our lifetimes.
Oh yeah and before that his wife stole like $30 million dollars intended to go to mental health clinics for the homeless. The money has never been found, probably bc it’s in the Cayman Islands or Cyprus or Switzerland. Nice little nest egg for their retirement.
Comparing him to Adams is insane. Adams has some corrupt friends and has proposed some controversial policies. De Blasio lied his ass off while the city burned around him and then tried to run for President and created a fake mental health initiative so that his wife could steal millions from a program meant for free mental health clinics - I guess she was tired of doing nothing and needed some work to keep her busy and supplement what he felt was unfair compensation for his job. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say he should be in prison. His wife should be as well.
Thousands of people and hundreds of businesses would still exist if he had not been a pathological liar whose only concern was his own popularity. I don’t see how Adams (or anyone) could possibly do a worse job. He is easily the worst mayor of any city in American history and was far more corrupt than Adams. But bc he’s a liberal Democrat and his wife is Black, he’ll never face any consequences and somehow is still seen as a decent guy.
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