Stepping forward to govern New York IRL – New York Daily News

Stepping forward to govern New York IRL  New York Daily News

New York City has always had a strong mayor system. Usually, it works well — one person is responsible and accountable for results. However, we’re now in a unique situation. We have a mayor in Zohran Mamdani who lives far more on social media than in real life. Mamdani is extremely inexperienced, interacts mostly with other people who already share his ideology so there’s no diversity of thought, and his No. 1 issue seems to be the actions of a country 6,000 miles away. It shows over and over again in his work from the endless failures in their child care rollout to their disastrous pied-à-terre tax rollout to their screwups in the rent freeze push.

That all creates a void of leadership. Fortunately, others are starting to fill it. Take Julie Menin, the City Council speaker. Menin is working to overturn the mayor’s refusal to allow Citi Bike to use technology to verify the age of e-bike renters, even in the face of kids dying in e-bike accidents. She’s now the adult in the room. Or take Councilmember Virginia Maloney. Maloney has put forward a plan to convert older office buildings into new, lower cost residential spaces by changing the building code to allow for shared amenities like bathrooms and kitchens. City Hall talks a lot about the problem