Get ready, not Rudy
COURIER L 30 IFE, DECEMBER 4-10, 2020
OPINION
2020 is a year unto itself,
and hopefully,
it remains that way.
COVID-19 has made masks
required fashion among the
rational. Zoom is now a common
noun and verb. All sorts
of bad economic records are
being shattered. New crises
regularly emerge, compounding
the problems
raised by the old ones. If we
left it there, it wouldn’t feel a
lot like Christmas.
However, on the sunnyside,
President Donald
Trump will soon be out on
the street — the rare eviction
that I can get behind. Highly
effi cacious vaccines seem to
be progressing toward distribution.
That is far better
for healthcare professionals
than the well-earned applause
they were getting.
Topping it off, the hell night
of SantaCon is canceled. All
that, and we’ve still got nearly
30 days of “noggy” goodness
left. To be clear, the previous
two sentences were a bit of
Simpsons-tinged gallows humor.
Let’s face it — 2020 has
been booze, beer, and winesoaked
to ease the awful, but
2021 doesn’t have to be.
After 2021 our city will fi nd
itself heading toward new
management. Like defeating
Trump, making the right policy
and personnel choices for
mayor on down is an opportunity
to reinvigorate our city.
The fi rst step to doing that is
being registered to vote and
if you want to be involved in
the decision in most districts
that means registering as a
Democrat. Our primary will
be held in June and not September
as it was in previous
city elections.
Let’s think of what would
have happened if the city
had reelected the recently
deceased David Dinkins instead
of the now- and alwaysdisgraceful
Rudy Giuliani.
All mayors face criticism
for problems beyond easy
resolution and that linger
after they leave the office.
For example, when Dinkins
started murder rates were at
record highs but were dropping
over the course of his
time in office only to have
his successor take an undue
amount of the credit.
“America’s Mayor” or
more accurately “White
America’s Mayor” campaigned
and governed
through the lens of racial resentment
much like Trump
following Barack Obama.
Dinkins, on the other hand,
called this city a beautiful
mosaic, and rebuilt more
housing in a single term
than Giuliani did in two
terms. He also understood
the importance of civilian
oversight of the NYPD while
also developing communitybased
policing. In contrast,
the most conservative and
Rudy-loving place in the
City, Staten Island, still tried
to secede and was rewarded
with a free to ride Staten Island
ferry. Can Rudy say socialism?
Dinkins was much maligned
but had the city
headed in the right direction.
Even if he had faded into life
as a private citizen after a
second term, he’d never have
become a New York laughing
stock, the object of Borat
based ridicule with dye running
down his face as he debases
democracy and pleads
for a pardon.
Elections have lasting impacts.
As the city continues
to deal with the COVID-19
crisis, those impacts are
more important than ever
and will define the city we
love. I’m not telling any
readers who to vote for (yet),
but I am saying please take it
seriously.
Mike Racioppo is the District
Manager of Community
Board 6. Follow him on
Twitter @RacioppoMike.
MIKE DROP
Mike Racioppo
It might be time for a clean break
Many people know of
Shakespeare’s “Friends,
Romans, Countrymen”
speech, but not as many know
its third through fi fth lines:
“The evil that men do lives
after them;
The good is oft interred with
their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.”
A lot of bones have been interred
this year in New York
City, cremated and buried in
private graveyards and our potter’s
fi eld. (How odd we seem to
have an island for everything.)
It seems to me that the shame
of working for Mayor Bill de
Blasio — surely not the worst
government executive in America
this year — will live on for
many different people for many
years.
Mayor is important. It affects
the schools and the transportation
and the NYPD and that’s
even before we start thinking
about land use and housing.
There are lots of reasons to be
angry at de Blasio. Three of
next year’s mayoral candidates
worked for him — two women
of color and a white lesbian general
(ret.), and they will all have
to account for their time in the
de Blasio administration.
Adverse selection is the concept,
basically, that when an organization
sucks long enough
and hard enough, all the good
people leave and the people who
gain more power are the bad
people.
Take Oxiris Barbot. A gifted
pediatrician and administrator,
she was the fi rst Latina to
head the Department of Health.
She lasted less than 20 months
in her position before she resigned
in the middle of 2020,
fed up with constantly dealing
with the mayor’s lack of reality.
Personally I think the NYPD
is too large, too aggressive, and
too top-heavy. But now we’re
losing the wrong people at the
top.
Fausto Pichardo was not
only the highest-ranked Latino
in the NYPD, at 43 years
old and by most measures the
third-highest-ranking uniformed
offi cer in the city, he
was responsible for all the cops
on patrol. Exactly the sort of
young white shirt (police commander)
who could become
commissioner one day. Lori
Pollock (Chief of Collaborative
Policing), Theresa Shortell
(Chief of Training Bureau),
and Nilda Hofmann (Chief of
Transportation — not Transit
— Bureau, handles highways
and traffi c) all departed in the
last two years because they
couldn’t deal with de Blasio’s
ridiculousness.
Almost everyone who
started with de Blasio seven
years ago has left. Of his inner
circle, I think only Emma Wolfe
remains. Many left a long time
ago. I am not sure how many
years you have to have spent
high-up with Mayor de Blasio
before you are culpable for him.
Two? Three? Four?
Loree Sutton, the ex-brigadier
general and former commissioner
of Veterans Services,
has relatively little to answer
for but is unlikely to be a top
fi ve candidate. Kathryn Garcia
lasted a while with de Blasio
but mostly at a distance from
City Hall.
Nick Rizzo is a former Democratic
District Leader and a
political consultant who lives
in Greenpoint. Follow him on
Twitter @NickRizzo.
WORDS OF
RIZZDOM
Nick Rizzo
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