Welcome, Folks, to the Adams Administration!

On December 14, the Policy Department, in collaboration with the New York City Affairs Committee (Jeremy Feigelson, Chair), hosted a policy briefing for City Bar committee members about 2021 New York City elections and what to expect from a newly elected City government. The program was a conversation between the City Bar’s Director of Advocacy, Elizabeth Kocienda, and Anthony W. Crowell, a member of the New York City Affairs Committee and Dean and President, and Professor of Law, at New York Law School. Dean Crowell served as a senior advisor, and appointments committee co-lead, for Mayor Eric Adams’s transition.

What follows is an edited excerpt of the conversation between Elizabeth Kocienda and Dean Crowell. The full video of the program is available to City Bar members by clicking here to log into their City Bar account and access the “Members Only Access to Videos & Content” section.

General Election Impressions

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
What are some of your impressions [of] the election and the results?

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
We were in an extraordinarily challenging moment to implement both a new primary date, as well as a new election system, with instant runoff voting and rank choice voting. I think we have yet to see the true impact of it. But for this cycle, the impact appears to be somewhat marginal. The greatest impact, however, did appear to be in less wasted votes, which was an important feature of the system. I’ll note that in 2021, 15% of the voters cast a ballot for candidates who were not in the top two of the choices; in 2013 33%, cast ballots for those who did not wind up in the top two. Overall, there was low turnout, which is disappointing. But again, we’re in an odd year with the pandemic. The primary was also held in June, a time which people weren’t used to. Plus an election system that was new and different. Democratic turnout was 25%, in the primary this year, slightly better than the 22% in 2013. In the general, turnout was 23%. That is 3% lower than in 2013. Although the absolute numbers were higher in 2021.

I was disappointed that there weren’t more people who came out to the polls. There were lots of opportunities for individuals to vote, not just in-person with early voting and on the regular election days, but also with absentee ballots, which were numerous. The stakes were super high this year. The city has been radically impacted by COVID; there’s been burning issues of racial equity. And so it was surprising to me that there wouldn’t be a little more voter engagement with the election than we saw. I will note that candidates had less of an opportunity to get their message out and less of an opportunity to, so called, “press the flesh” — to meet people, to shake hands, to get to know individual constituencies the way they historically have. And so that may have been a limiting factor. You know, community centers, senior centers, churches, weren’t at the same level of engagement as in prior cycles.

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
I think seeing the June primary date, and having so many of the races ostensibly decided at that point, probably didn’t help things either. I’m not sure what the solution is to that. How do we engage people who maybe feel like they did their part in June and now don’t need to come back out again in November. Do you have any thoughts?

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
I think part of it is going to depend on the candidates, of course. The [temporal] distance between the primary and the general [elections] is also quite significant. That is a four and a half month stretch that we can’t lose sight of. I think people this time around got accustomed to the person who would become mayor, rather than thinking that they actually had to go out and ensure that the choice was made through the traditional general election. So there is a little bit of psychology involved. And I think we just have to acculturate our city to a new date and a new format.

The City Council

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
I am intrigued by the diversity of this Council. It used to be, when I was a baby attorney at the [City] Law Department, we would talk about a veto proof majority with the Council. And that will still largely be the case. But getting to resolution on matters is going to be much harder for any mayor than it has been in more recent years. I think there’s going to be a real diversity of perspective, and divergent views on how to go about things. We’re also living in a world where social media is influencing how elected officials themselves go about governing. We used to talk about the so-called 24-hour news cycle twenty years ago. Now it’s an every second news cycle. It’s really changed a lot of things. So I think that New York is getting more difficult to govern as a result of that. Although I do feel that New Yorkers, in the end, will pull together.

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
I agree entirely. Just because there’s a “D” next to your name doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re the same type of Democrat. What we saw in the Council race and in the mayor’s race is that being a Democrat means a lot of different things. We’re seeing a diversity of opinion and [viewpoints on the best] type of governance, even though we might still see “Ds” next to everybody’s names. So it seems more reflective [of the electorate].

Mayor Eric Adams

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
Eric Adams will be our new mayor in only a few weeks. He has been an elected official in New York for a long time, and even when he was a police officer, he was a public figure. And yet, it seems like a lot of people don’t know what kind of mayor Eric Adams is going to be. What can we expect from an Adams’ administration? What should we know about Mayor Adams that you think would be helpful?

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
I think that he is, first and foremost, his own person. I think that he is reflective. He brings a lived experience, both from who he was growing up, and in his career. And what he has both in the NYPD and as a legislator, and now as Borough President, is a distinguished and broad record of serving this city. I think he’s going to try and bring a fresh perspective, and he’s going to try and do things differently. I think that engagement broadly, to all constituencies, is something that we are likely to see. He is no stranger to the reality that New York faces. There are a lot of issues substantively, and a lot of things to address socially, all at once. So I think he will bring a lot of new perspective to that. And I think his view is that you have to reach out broadly and have all voices in this mix, to get to the solutions.

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
He’ll be pulling on those relationships that he’s been building over the last decade and a half of public service. Plus all of the relationships that he’s had from his time with the NYPD. He has his allies. I’m particularly interested to see what his role as a police officer is going to have on how he governs. We saw clearly when de Blasio started a very fractious relationship with the NYPD. From the get-go he was not seen as an ally. And it impacted every decision he made after the fact when it came to policing. For Adams, he has these institutional ties to the NYPD. So what happens to that relationship? How does he use his role to liaise with them? I also think there’s going to be a cultural shift because he is a native New Yorker. He loves this city and he clearly wants to be a cheerleader for the city, which is something I think that Mayor de Blasio struggled with a little bit.

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
I agree with you, I think earning the trust of the NYPD is something every mayor has to do. He has, on the one hand, a great insight. And then, on the other, it’s a changed NYPD from when he was there. He’s got to build on that. There’s also the economics of the city. Embracing business, building business, and retaining business. And then the efficiency of the city’s bureaucracy. What are some of your thoughts on that?

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
It’s such an interesting priority because it’s a little more wonky than some of the other priorities. The concept of “how do you as a New Yorker interface with your government”? What kind of website experience are you having, if you’re trying to pay a ticket, or dispute something, or just have any sort of interactions with city government? I think most of us throw our hands up and say, “it’s always frustrating, it’s going to be a pain.” Nobody wants to have to deal with it. But this is somebody who has lived in the city his whole life, who has experienced city government from a citizen’s perspective.

The bureaucracy of the city is so massive and so complicated. I think it would be a wonderful thing for him to achieve, but definitely a really hard first item of business.

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
I think he has a clear recognition of the challenge and a recognition of the scale of both the opportunity and the problem. I think you have to be realistic about what you can achieve, and that we serve as complex a community as any in the world. That is a reality that requires a lot of thought, but also a lot of action. Every administration tries to improve efficiency; no one wants to be inefficient. But the speed at which things happen today, and the speed at which citizens expect responses, has increased with our technologically driven society. So government’s going to have to adapt and meet that demand and be able to serve.

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
The question is also, what is his view of what city government is? I think he’s coming at this from the angle of “I want my city government to serve the people of New York, first and foremost, so what are the key areas I need to focus on?” And that leads us to talking about the transition and who he’s surrounding himself with. You are involved in the transition, and I was hoping you could talk a little bit about what that process looks like.

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
He’s got an incredibly broad transition apparatus. But at its core, there’s a transition team that has a variety of working groups associated with it. There’s a great deal of thought being given to governance and management. What is the best structure for this City Hall? Given the times in which we live, given the priorities that need to be established and undertaken with vigor. Obviously, health and ensuring that that the city’s budget and economy are tended to; there’s a housing crisis that needs a specific focus. There’s a technology opportunity, not just to make government more accessible to the people it serves, but also in addressing cyber threats. There’s an opportunity right now for the city to really build its armor and make sure that its own technological resources are not compromised. In addition to all that, there is a heavy emphasis on public education and looking into how the Department of Education delivers to our communities in an equitable and inclusive way. There’s also going to be a significant effort with public safety; reform of NYPD and Correction is critical. Making sure that the right talent is in place and the best approaches are being undertaken is critically important. And then climate and resiliency are very important. If Superstorm Sandy didn’t teach us something, certainly Hurricane Ida did. So that involves looking at our infrastructure, looking at ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprint, looking at ways in which we can protect our communities through building codes and zoning — all of that needs to be architected. And, as one of the highest priorities, what does a sustainable city government look like? That touches every single agency. So that is, in a nutshell, what that back end governance infrastructure is looking like.

The Mayor’s Relationship with the Speaker and Governor

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
Can you discuss the Speaker’s relationship with the mayor’s office and why that’s so important?

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
I’ll speak from my personal experience having been the Mayor’s Counsel [Bloomberg]. One of the most important relationships any mayor can have is with the person who’s speaker of the city council. That is your partner on the other side of City Hall. There’s the West Wing and the East Wing, and nothing gets done without a really strong partnership. A mayor can set a policy priority, but there are certain things that must be legislated to authorize the mayor and the administrative agencies to undertake them. So it’s really important. Whoever is in that seat, the mayor needs to have a strong relationship, or at least a relationship based on respect and common principles.

ELIZABETH KOCIENDA
I do think it will be interesting to see how this speaker coalesces a much more fractured Council. As we were discussing, the majority of people may have that big “D” next to their name, but there are different coalitions and different groups represented. Now that we have this this larger group of Republicans, how are they going to be treated by the speaker? How is the speaker going to deal with various smaller groups within the council that may have different priorities? A lot remains to be seen, but it will certainly really impact the way the government is going to work in the city. Another important relationship is the relationship with Eric Adams and our new Governor, Kathy Hochul. We are coming off of an extremely contentious relationship, to say the least, between Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio. I think it’s safe to say, based on what we’ve seen so far, that neither one of these new electeds are interested in continuing that kind of fractious relationship. So I’m hoping for much more collaboration and cooperation.

DEAN ANTHONY CROWELL
I think we’ve got [an incoming] mayor who understands Albany, having been in the in the State Senate. That’s home terrain for him. The city is a creature of the state, and a lot of our ability to govern relies on the state. There’s a flow of dollars and there’s also a flow of authority. The current governor is taking a pragmatic and professional approach to the state and city relationship. I think that will allow for more coordination and dialogue and less backbiting than we’ve seen over the past eight years, which was unfortunate and very counterproductive.