Taking the oath of office as only the fourth person in history to win three terms at City Hall, Mayor Bloomberg declared yesterday that he would defy the historical third-term jinx by carrying the city to new heights through innovation.
“Conventional wisdom holds that by a third term, mayors run out of energy and ideas,” Bloomberg said yesterday before a crowd of 4,200 assembled on folding chairs in City Hall plaza.
“But we have proved the conventional wisdom wrong time and again, and I promise you we will do it once more.”
The mayor was sworn in by Jonathan Lippman, the state’s chief judge, as his daughters, Georgina and Emma, stood by and held a 101-year-old family Bible. Diana Taylor, the mayor’s longtime companion, was also alongside him.
Only as the oath was coming to an end did the mayor realize that his left hand had been at his side the entire time instead of on the Bible. So he touched it just as Lippman was concluding.
With city money tight, the mayor’s 14-minute speech was skimpy on new initiatives.
He announced plans to form a bipartisan coalition to press for national immigration reform and said he’d assign every first deputy commissioner to work for three weeks as a deputy at another agency to come up with news ideas that would “break down bureaucratic barriers that often impede innovation.”
“Innovation” also became the byword for how the city would create jobs, improve schools, reduce crime and fight terrorism as it faces a $4.1 billion deficit in the next fiscal year.
But there were no specifics on what might those innovations might entail.
Nevertheless, the speech was generally well received.
“I think it was a good speech on many levels,” said Bill de Blasio, the new public advocate.
“I appreciate very much his commitment to immigrant rights. I think that’s an important new initiative. I actually like, as someone who has worked in government, the notion of moving around deputy commissioners.”
In each of his three-term predecessors’ cases, historians have assessed the last terms as weaker than the first two.
With an eye on the past and in an unusual show of humility, Bloomberg said he realized he had been given a “special opportunity.”
“I realize, too,” he said, standing on a specially constructed stage before City Hall, “that the building behind me is yours — and the job in front of me is to listen and to lead.”
Additional reporting
by Sally Goldenberg