Of the four candidates vying to govern New York City, only Eric Adams, the current mayor, is able to run on his record of having done just that. And with less than seven weeks to go till Election Day, a new trove of information on that record is now public.
On Wednesday, the city released the annual statistical extravaganza known as the Mayor’s Management Report — 544 overstuffed pages of charts, tables, critical indicators and arrows pointing up and down, covering the performance of just about every city agency, from the Business Integrity Commission to the coroner’s office.
As with every edition of the report, this one, covering the fiscal year that ended in June, is a decidedly mixed bag, offering the mayor much to crow about and plenty of fodder for his critics.
Even the same statistic can be interpreted as good or bad, depending on your perspective. The number of potholes repaired, that classic index of local government responsiveness and competence, topped 180,000, up 17 percent from the previous year. But it is down more than 20 percent compared with 2019, when Bill de Blasio was mayor. Summonses for illegal dumping are up 21 percent. But is that a sign that the city is cracking down, or that public spaces are becoming dirtier?
Here is a sampling of highlights and lowlights from the report:
Public Safety
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Crime rates: Mr. Adams, a Democrat running as an independent in November, boasted in a news release accompanying the report that his administration is “dropping crime to historic lows,” noting that six of the seven major felony crime categories decreased this year, with robberies falling 17 percent. But crime is up across the board compared with 2019, the last year before the Covid pandemic: Murders are up 22 percent, felony assaults are up 30 percent and car thefts more than doubled.
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Jail violence: City jails have become much more dangerous: The rate of serious injuries sustained by inmates in violent incidents involving other inmates has increased 440 percent since 2019 — to 13.5 serious injuries per thousand inmates per month, from 2.5 per thousand per month in 2019.
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Police misconduct: Complaints substantiated by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent oversight agency, topped 1,000, up from 768 the year before and 295 in 2019.
Transportation
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The post Buses, Rats and Math Scores: Mayor Adams Had a Mixed Year, Report Says appeared first on New York Times.
