Never mind having the city deliver municipal services well. Forget about keeping costs down and saving taxpayers money. City Hall has given its agencies new marching orders: to reduce inequality.
And that goes for all its agencies.
This should be interesting.
As Capital New York reported, agency summaries used in the Mayor’s Management Report must now note the progress departments have made in fostering greater “equality” in the city.
The new language in the report will supplement the data-driven charts and other information agencies usually submit to highlight their accomplishments.
It should be no surprise to anyone that Mayor de Blasio’s top priority is addressing “inequality.”
He reminds New Yorkers of that every day. But what he has failed to grasp is that government’s job is to assure equal opportunities — not outcomes. And Gotham already does a fairly good job of that.
At the same time, it’s hard to see how his diktat to city agencies will work in practice, at least at some of the agencies.
True, the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s green-taxi program — which, by the way, de Blasio opposed — boosted “equal opportunity” for outer-borough folks when it comes to hailing a cab.
But it’s the city’s medallion system that made things unequal in the first place. Greater equality might mean scrapping the whole system.
For many other agencies, though, this ideological agenda seems wholly inappropriate. How does the Fire Department spread equality through the city — by responding faster to fires in low-income neighborhoods?
Will the Law Department make more settlements like the ones it agreed to in the Central Park Five case? There, it redistributed millions in cash to plaintiffs whom cops continue to believe likely took part in that hideous rape that night.
How about the mayor’s film office or his tax collectors or parks department? Are they going to be expected somehow to make wealth and incomes less disparate?
There is a way, perhaps , for de Blasio himself to address inequality on a personal level: by reimbursing taxpayers — as most other local political officials do — for personal transportation costs, like the use of a Mercedes on family vacation.
If he really wants greater equality, maybe he can lead the way.