New Yorkers had best take note of Mayor Bloomberg’s strong words yesterday — because they hint at the challenges that await after he leaves office.
Bloomberg excoriated critics of the department’s stop-and-frisk program — citing The New York Times by name, and accusing legislators of “courting disaster.”
The context is his opposition to two acts of recklessness from the City Council: a bill to impose an “independent” inspector general on the NYPD, and another that would forbid it from racial profiling (which is already illegal). As Bloomberg observed, despite making this America’s “safest big city,” the NYPD is “under attack, probably because this is an election year.”
We’ve defended these policies before. And we share Bloomberg’s outrage over the fecklessness of those who threaten to take New York back to the days of crime and decay. But what worries us even more is what comes next year — when we will have a new mayor and a new council.
Take Chris Quinn, the front-runner in the Democratic primary for mayor. The speaker’s trying to shore up her left flank by letting the two bills proceed to a vote. Does anyone think she’d be a mayor who’d defend cops and back the commissioner as forcefully and consistently as Bloomberg?
Then there’s the council. Whatever you think of Quinn, she’s likely to be replaced by a more liberal speaker leading a far more liberal council. If you think its mischief will stop with paid sick leave and an IG for the cops, you’re dreaming.
The city has its problems today. But come next year, New Yorkers are likely to regard these as the good old days.