From riding the subways with a cop’s badge, to serving in local government in the capacity of state senator, to his current job as Brooklyn Borough President, Eric Adams has a depth of knowledge and experience that would serve him well in City Hall. Adams, however, does not only possess a firm grasp on the myriad of problems facing the city, but he truly comprehends the abysmal failures of government that can lead to the destruction of peoples’ lives and futures.

Having been a New York City police officer for 22 years, retiring at the rank of captain, Adams understands how deep the crisis in this metropolis has become. He gives a bold voice to a clear, firm, and common-sense route to cleaning up our streets of rampant crime that is desperately needed to restore the city’s economic engine, including a revival of the tourism industry.

The New York Post endorsed Adams and wrote that NYC stands at the crossroads. “Will we continue to surrender our streets to homelessness, filth, crime, guns and betray our children’s’ future? The Jewish Voice agrees with the Post. Adams has the skills and the experience to do the job!

Adams’ top priority must be reversing the skyrocketing crime statistics that have shaken us to the core. He understands that the city’s economy will not rebound until crime is under control. As a former subway cop Adams understands that riders will not return when crime and homelessness are no longer a problem. As one of six children, born in Brownsville and raised in South Jamaica by a single mom who cleaned houses, Adams understands that the dramatic escalation in criminal activities has disproportionately hurt children residing in minority communities.

Adams has pledged not to defund the police but has plans to restore the NYPD plainclothes anti-crime unit that was disbanded by the department last year. His objective is to refashion it to focus on removing guns from the streets.

As a dedicated law enforcement officer, Adams was introduced to the Orthodox Jewish community through its many security patrols. From those patrols, he started to see the high level of volunteerism in the Jewish community. Adams recalled: “The Jewish community, particularly the Orthodox community, gives back.”

The Jewish Voice believes that Eric Adams stands above the other mayoral candidates because his decades long relationships with the Orthodox Jewish community’s leadership and voters are deep and sincere in every respect. He spent decades denouncing hate and anti-Semitic incidents when others were afraid to speak out. Adams took part in a gathering of Jewish leaders six months after he became the Borough President to condemn two anti-Semitic incidents, namely a “knockout game” assault on a nine-year-old boy. He always went on the record as vociferously condemning hate crimes against Jews.

“When you have a young man in Brownsville draw a swastika on the wall, and he doesn’t know the meaning of that swastika,” Adams said, “that’s a real indicator that we have not carried out our basic education.” NYC needs a mayor that understands that our failing educational system serves as an avenue to poor performance in life for our city’s kids, not to mention that it is also highly destructive to the communities that we reside in.

The Jewish Voice’s choice for mayor not only unflinchingly speaks out against attacks on Jews, but Adams’ has the willingness to look for intrepid solutions as he labors assiduously for the creation of programs aimed at teaching children to fight “bias, bullying and hatred.” He helped fund the Anti-Defamation League’s “No Place for Hate” project that reach 16,000 students in roughly 40 Brooklyn schools back in 2019.

We need a loyal and completely steadfast friend in City Hall. Adams has a long-standing relationship with the Hasidic community having represented them for seven years in the State Senate and has proudly represented all of Brooklyn as borough president for yet another seven years. Adams’ generally moderate political stances were broadly in sync with Orthodox Jewish voters who are among the most conservative members of the Democratic coalition.

“A lot of people are just starting out in the mayor’s race. I have been moving towards this place for over 20-something years,” Adams said. “I know our city is better than what we’re seeing. We are dysfunctional, and many of those crises that we are experiencing are self-inflicted. Now, more than ever, we must have a city that’s not dysfunctional, where agencies are not inefficient, because those inefficiencies are creating.”

Adams has solid plans to bring the city’s out of control bureaucracy under control, to provide better services and save money.

Mr. Adams has said:

New York has tremendous resources, but often wastes them on programs that do not deliver the desired results or spends them in ways that do not help the New Yorkers who need services the most. I will make our City government more efficient, effective, and equal.

A MORE EFFICIENT CITY

In crisis, the City always deals with the immediate problem and never the cause. Structural changes and smart management are necessary to create efficiency and reduce inequality across the board. In brief, I will do that by:

Closing the budget gap without affecting public services.
Instituting real-time governing.
Finding and eliminating the waste.

HERE’S HOW: We must build a single data platform for the entire City government. Believe it or not, nearly all City agencies are siloed, operating separately from one another without sharing data or metrics, often duplicating efforts, and resulting in waste, inefficiency and poor delivery of services. By combining all agency metrics onto a single platform like CompStat and using analytics to track performance in real time, we can go from a reactive management approach to being proactive and, eventually, predictive. This will improve performance and save billions of dollars while delivering far better services. We will be able to give New Yorkers a real-time score for government performance. Having one data platform for all City operations will allow us to create a continually updated public score for each agency going far beyond the often-self-congratulatory Mayor’s Management Report. That will show us where we are based relative to our goals for the year. Boston already does this with its well-regarded CityScore program.

We will launch MyCity, a single portal for all City services and benefits. All New Yorkers are entitled to receive the full support of their government. MyCity will allow users to type just one number into a secure app or Website to instantly received every service and benefit they qualify for — such as SNAP — without an abundance of paperwork. This constantly updated information will help New Yorkers protect themselves and their families.