Op-Ed | As newly appointed senior leaders in the Adams administration, here’s what we plan to deliver

This month, the four of us walked into our new offices at City Hall and began the job of a lifetime: helping Mayor Eric Adams run the most important city on the globe.

 

In our new roles as deputy mayor for health and human services, deputy mayor for housing, economic development, and workforce, deputy mayor for operations, and deputy mayor for public safety, we are helping lead some of our city’s most important agencies and the public servants who power them.

 

From the country’s largest public housing authority to the largest municipal hospital system, from hundreds of firehouses to a state-of-the-art emergency management center, from 2,000 sanitation trucks that start hauling trash before dawn to thousands of shelter beds that give people a safe place to sleep at night, our city government is just like our city: it does not sleep.

 

We know this work will not always be easy. We know that New Yorkers will depend on us to keep them safe, help them find an affordable home, support our city’s small businesses, and more. But we would not have accepted these jobs if we did not feel confident that our careers across public service had prepared us well for this moment.

 

Between the four of us, we bring nearly 100 years of experience to City Hall. We have worked for the city, state, and federal governments. We have served our country abroad in the military and at home in the largest police force in the nation. We have led organizations as diverse as the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission and the New York state Office of Children and Family Services, transformed the way the FDNY inspects buildings, and created record amounts of affordable housing across the five boroughs.

 

But despite the diversity of our records, what unites them all is a commitment to improving the communities around us — a commitment we are excited to bring to the Adams administration and our city’s dedicated public servants.

 

We know that we have big shoes to fill. When Mayor Adams appointed many of our predecessors, New York City was shuttered, our economy was plummeting, and crime was skyrocketing. In just three years, Mayor Adams and his administration turned recession into resurgence, shattering the records for the most jobs and small businesses in city history, and bringing crime down to historic lows. The four deputy mayors who came before us helped bring us out of COVID and manage an international humanitarian crisis, passed the most pro-housing zoning reform in city history, and launched historic efforts to move millions of trash bags off our streets and into containers. They worked every day to create a safer, more affordable city.

 

But in assuming our new roles, the mayor was clear: He did not just want us to build on their legacies; he wanted us to determine our own and bring new, innovative ideas to City Hall as well.

 

Each of our jobs are different, and so those ideas will be, too.

 

For our public safety agencies, that means deploying new technologies to build on historic drops in crime and keep New Yorkers safe. For our operational agencies, it means steeling us against long-term threats like climate change and creating a more sustainable city at every juncture. For our health and human service agencies, it means continuing to get New Yorkers on our streets and subways the help they deserve while building a more equitable health care and social services system that strengthens low-income families. And for our housing and economic development agencies, it means building more family-friendly neighborhoods across all five boroughs where New Yorkers have access to a good-paying job and an affordable home.

 

We are assuming these roles at a critical time for our city. There is no denying that people are anxious about the future; many are questioning whether government at every level from New York City to Washington, D.C. can meet the challenges of our time, from safety to sustainability to affordability.

 

But if the work of the Adams administration and our own careers across public service make anything clear, it is that government can still act with audacity and ambition to improve people’s lives.

 

City government can help families find affordable homes and good-paying jobs. City government can keep our streets safe and deliver care to those who need it. City government can put money back in people’s pockets and help them afford rent, groceries, and health care. As Mayor Adams often says, we can be a city of “yes.”

 

As we settle into our new offices at City Hall and begin the work of helping lead these crucial portfolios, we promise to continue the mission that has motivated our entire careers and the work of the Adams administration every day — to create a safer, more affordable city that is the best place to raise a family.