Those of us who have lived in New York for a long time remember the all-too-recent days when crime was rampant, infrastructure was crumbling, services were diminishing and, indeed, the city itself seemed ungovernable.
But today, the trend in all these — and so many other — spheres of public life is exactly the opposite, thanks to the steady, independent, visionary leadership of Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
As such, the Community Newspaper Group, of which this newspaper and its Web site are a part, heartily endorses the mayor for re-election.
Granted, Mayor Bloomberg’s quest for a third term has not been the prettiest thing to watch. First, the billionaire mayor, a former Democrat, renounced his Republican party affiliation during a flirtation with the presidency in 2008 as an independent.
Then, when faced with the obstacle of New York City’s two-term limit, he spent a considerable sum of money to overturn the inconvenient law.
For many voters, that disqualifies Bloomberg from further service.
But for us, it is but a blemish on an otherwise stellar record.
And in a head-to-head race against Comptroller Bill Thompson, there is no question who will serve the city better. Yes, Thompson is an able, intelligent official who has performed well in all his prior service, but Mayor Bloomberg has a vastly superior track record and broader vision for the future.
The Bloomberg record is so impressive that many of his successes are taken for granted by the electorate. As such, they bear repeating:
• Mayoral control of schools: Though the status quo fought it, mayoral control of schools has proven to be the vital first step towards fixing public schools and, more important, restoring middle class voters’ confidence in them. Critics have carped that the Bloomberg-led system fails to give parents sufficient voice — whatever that means — but the current arrangement is a night-and-day improvement over the old Board of Education, which was not only less accountable to the public, but failed at its most basic mission: improving our schools and teaching our kids.
We are concerned that the mayor errs too much on the side of testing to measure school and student achievement, but those tests do show that there has been substantial improvement. Plus, the mayor’s business-like approach to the system has empowered principals to set their own local budget priorities and to demand excellence from teachers. That’s a plus for parents.
• The 311 system: In one visionary sweep, the mayor created what residents needed for decades, a front door to the city’s vast bureaucracy. Of course, it’s not perfect — not every call about a pothole gets that pothole filled by the end of the business day — but never before did New Yorkers have a simple, easy, trackable way of registering their most basic complaints about a failing city service.
That’s why more than 70 million — 70 million! — calls have been made to 311 since its inception.
And remember this: Before 311, calls to City Hall were simply transferred to phones that just kept ringing, and complaints — if they were taken down at all — went on some pile on someone else’s desk. The 311 system ended that buck-passing forever.
• Crime: Mayor Giuliani deserves a great deal of credit for the successes that the NYPD had against crime in the 1990s, but Mayor Bloomberg has done the impossible — he’s actually cut crime even further. Murders are down to such lows that New York is not merely the safest big city — it’s one of the safest places in the country.
It’s almost unbelievable: Crime is down 30 percent since he took office. And his heroic fight against illegal guns has made the mayor a national leader on the issue.
• The environment: Whatever you think about Al Gore, when the former vice president praises someone for leadership on the environment, it’s credible. Last week, Gore, a Democrat, praised Bloomberg in no uncertain terms: “I get a chance to work with mayors all over this country, and mayors in lots of other countries as well,” he said, “and I know real leadership on the environment when I see it, and this is the real deal.”
For us, the mayor’s leadership on the issue goes beyond his tree-planting and adding hundreds of acres to the city park system.
Through his innovative transportation commissioner, the mayor has installed hundreds of miles of bike lanes, worked to reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency in city-owned buildings, and create a solid waste disposal plan that put a cleaner face on the messy business of collecting our trash.
• Protecting neighborhoods: To his ill-informed critics, the mayor is a tool of developers who want to pillage our communities. But on the ground in the neighborhoods we cover, the mayor has moved ahead with zoning changes to preserve neighborhoods or revitalize commercial areas, such as Carroll Gardens and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, Jamaica in Queens or along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. In such cases, we’ve seen the benefits of the mayor’s big picture approach.
