A defiant Mayor Bloomberg took on his critics yesterday in a final State of the City speech where he vowed no retreat from his most controversial policies, including stop-and-frisk.
“I understand that innocent people don’t like to be stopped,” Bloomberg told an audience of hundreds gathered in the rotunda of the Barclays Center.
“But innocent people don’t like to be shot, either,” he added. “Stops take hundreds of guns off the street.”
Sitting within eyesight and unable to hold back, City Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn) shouted from his seat, “You’re wrong! You’re wrong!”
Some of the mayor’s aides were taken aback, but Bloomberg just plowed ahead, declaring he wouldn’t allow politics to “trump public safety, for the next 320 days, at least.”
The message was the same on other hot-button initiatives: locating more charter schools within public-school buildings, rezoning East Midtown and using Housing Authority land to build market-rate apartments. Attacks on the housing agency — which is grappling with a backlog of 420,000 repairs — were described by Bloomberg as “cheap shots.”
The mayor, who celebrated his 71st birthday yesterday, devoted a large part of his speech to his administration’s accomplishments, boasting about new development, rising employment, a record-low murder rate and improvements in public education.
With opponents pushing back on the administration in its final year, the mayor pledged he wouldn’t “allow obstructionists to run out the clock.”
Even critics gave the mayor high marks for leapfrogging the state and ordering the NYPD, as of next month, to release suspects caught with small amounts of marijuana after they show an ID and clear a warrant check.
A new high school with grades 9 through 14 was planned in the South Bronx to train students for jobs in health care. Another was destined for Long Island City, Queens, this time with the energy industry in mind.
“Our goal is not to spend the year cutting ribbons,” Bloomberg said. “We’ll take on the toughest jobs — and the most politically difficult jobs.”