De Blasio's Agenda: Here Are The Mayor's Goals For His Final Term

NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Bill de Blasio says his re-election on Tuesday gave him a "mandate" to make New York "the fairest big city in America." His plans to do that ought to look familiar — they largely aim to finish work he started in his first term.

De Blasio said his existing goals are "transcendent vision items," big changes that take a long time to produce. But his plan for the future has few new programs and many of its pieces will extend beyond his tenure.

"I’m optimistic because I’ve brought my vision to the people twice, and I’ve said we need to make big and serious changes and bold changes, and both times I got a very strong mandate," de Blasio said at a news conference after his election victory.

De Blasio said his priorities for the next four years include revamping the city's public schools, continuing work to keep housing affordable, boosting trust in the NYPD and raising taxes on the rich to help pay for it all.

Much of that requires help from state lawmakers in Albany — including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, de Blasio's political nemesis. The mayor pledged an "Albany agenda" of state-level changes that will help the city's policy goals.

De Blasio will continue pursuing his local goals as he continues waging war against Republican President Donald Trump. But despite his big-picture talk, de Blasio's plans reflect a more "incremental" approach than many of his predecessors, said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

"He is cautious in a lot of ways," Gelinas said. "If you think about people who ran in the past … he hasn’t done that much that’s new or different. And the progress that we see, it’s just kind of like continued progress."

Fixing NYC Schools

Improving New York City's 1.1 million-student public school system will be "the issue I put my greatest passion and energy into," de Blasio said Wednesday.

A major piece of that effort, he said, will be getting every student to read at grade level by the time they finish third grade. Kids who don't are far more likely to drop out of school later, de Blasio has said.

That's a big hill to climb in a city where more than 57 percent of third-graders didn't pass this year's state English language arts exam, though test scores have improved under de Blasio.

De Blasio tried to address reading problems in his first term by deploying reading experts to second-grade classrooms. But he offered no specifics this week on how he'd make it happen in his second term.

"If you talk to educators, the notion that we’re going to get every child reading on grade level by third grade is a huge stretch goal, profoundly important, incredibly difficult – probably more difficult than any of the other plans, but absolutely necessary," de Blasio said Wednesday.

The mayor also wants to expand one of his administration's flagship achievements – universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds. More than 70,000 4-year-olds are currently enrolled in free pre-kindergarten classes. The program for 3-year-olds is set to expand to a total of eight school districts by 2021, the last year of de Blasio's second term.

Keeping Housing Affordable

De Blasio aims to build and preserve 300,000 affordable homes by 2026, which he says will keep 750,000 New Yorkers in the city. The mayor recently expanded the initiative from its original goal of creating and protecting 200,000 units.

But last week, de Blasio said it will be crucial for the city to have "self-determination" over its rent laws to keep more homes affordable. He signaled that changes in Albany to rent regulations affecting New York City will be a key part of his state policy agenda.

The mayor said he wants to close a loophole that allows landlords to hike rates for rent-stabilized apartments after "major capital improvements. He also wants to raise the rent price at which stabilized apartments leave rent regulation.

"Too many apartments are being lost because the legal dynamics allow them to be lost from affordability," de Blasio said Wednesday. "We have to change that."

A 'Fair Share' From The Rich

Another piece of the mayor's Albany wish-list is a blessing from the state to hike taxes on the richest New Yorkers.

De Blasio still wants a 2.5 percent city tax on home sales worth at least $2 million — known as a "mansion tax" — that he said would help support affordable housing for seniors.

The mayor also plans to continue his push for a so-called millionaire's tax to fund repairs to the city's aging subway system and subsidies to MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers.

But both ideas face strong opposition in Albany from Republicans and Cuomo, who favors a "congestion pricing" plan to fund the MTA. It would impose tolls on cars crossing the East River bridges into Manhattan, which de Blasio has called a "regressive tax."

De Blasio argued that his millionaire's tax is "tremendously popular," but when asked, he offered no short-term alternatives for fixing the city's transit woes. The state has the money to address the subway's immediate problems, he said.

Criminal Justice

De Blasio has often touted New York as "the safest big city in America." His first term has seen historically low crime and he says his community policing initiatives have strengthened trust in the NYPD.

Putting body cameras on all 22,000 patrol cops in the next two years will grow that trust even more, de Blasio said this week. The cameras, for which the city is reportedly paying $6 million, are "a crucial part of really bonding police and community together once and for all," he said.

A federal court ordered the NYPD to test body cameras on a sample of cops for one year. That was part of a 2013 court ruling that declared the department's "stop-and-frisk" practices unconstitutional.

De Blasio will face the challenge of making progress toward his 10-year plan to close Rikers Island, the city's infamous jail complex. The mayor wants to reduce Rikers' population before opening four new jails closer to the courthouses in every borough except Staten Island.

Activists have pressured de Blasio to shutter the prison more quickly, given its history of violence and abuse. He argued this week that his policies have driven down crime and arrests, which is "affecting the flow into the correction system."

The first step toward closing Rikers is bureaucratic, de Blasio said — officials must pick sites for the new jails and get each one approved through the city's land-use process.

(Lead image by Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office) Bill de Blasio addresses reporters on Wednesday, the day after he won a second term in the Nov. 7 election.