Brooklyn Borough President and Mayoral Candidate Eric Adams today put to rest Mayor Bill de Blasio’s often used ‘Tale of two cities’ campaign slogan and rhetoric.
Both Adams and U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Queens, Long Island) hammered home the theme of one city working together at a press event in front of the Tony Beechurst Deli in Whitestone. At the event, both Suozzi and the Italian American Political Action Committee endorsements Adams for mayor.
“We’re going to move forward, but the only way we do that is by unifying our city, not divided our city. It’s not us against them. It’s not, who’s going to one-up the other, it is who’s going to come here together to make sure that this is a city for all New Yorkers. Make sure that it’s affordable, and is safe, and that as a government we are held accountable,” said Adams.
In introducing and endorsing Adams, Suozzi also struck the one city united theme in referencing Adams’ working-class background and his being a former New York City Police Captain.
“He [Adams] understands and respects and admires the police. We hear this whole thing about Black Lives Matter versus Blue Lives Matter. You know what? It’s both. It’s not one of the two. You can respect and admire the police department as Eric did as a former police officer, but you also could look for reform to make sure it looks out for people’s interest to make sure that it treats people fairly, you can do both of those things,” said Suozzi.
Suozzi also pointed out that Adams, a Bayside High School graduate, also would come to the mayor job with years of government experience as both a state senator and borough president.
“He [Adams] understands how government sometimes doesn’t work as well as it should, or we need to get all the different pieces of government all the different silos to work together to work as one to help little kids who are trying to get through school, to help families to help people to find jobs to help small businesses work, and to bring businesses, big businesses back to New York,” said Suozzi.
The Suozzi and Italian-American PAC endorsement also gave Adams a chance to expound on his small business recovery plan.
“We’re going to help our small businesses with loans, back-office help and tax breaks, so they can keep New Yorkers employed. We’re going to suspend this commercial rate tax for small businesses that need extra help to survive, such as bars and restaurants. We got to eliminate the fees for starting or restarting a small business, we’re going to cut the red tape by eliminating bureaucracy, for small businesses,” said Adams.
Other planks of his business plan include creating a warning system for fines that are not an immediate health or safety risk and launching “Tax-free Tuesdays” to support local businesses.
This story first appeared on our sister publication politicsny.com.
