NEW YORK (PIX11) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams made a number of ambitious promises during his second State of the City address.
Adams called the plans laid out on Thursday the “Working People’s Agenda.”
Adams is proposing major investments in housing and homeless services, once again picking a fight with many members of his own party on bail reform and hoping to bring composting to everyone in the city in about a year and a half.
“Jobs, safety, housing and care,” Adams said, summarizing his plans for New York City.
Adams will continue to push for the construction of 500,000 units of housing during the next decade, part of a broader statewide aspiration that Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was in attendance, laid out during her State of the State address.
Adams said the NYPD will crack down on shoplifting and illegal pot shops. And for a second year in a row, the mayor will press Albany to tweak bail reform to make it easier to lock up the roughly 1,700 criminals he says are responsible for the majority of the violent crime citywide.
“We know who they are and we need to get them off our streets,” Adams said.
But like last year, any changes will be hard fought with progressive state Democrats like Latrice Walker, a Brooklyn assemblywoman, in attendance.
“I believe the mayor is overreaching with respect to bail,” Walker said.
The mayor also made a slew of other promises and proposals, including free health care for the homeless, the implementation of his long promised dyslexia screening program in all schools, and city wide composting, which he hopes will help combat rat infestations.
The composting announcement was part of a broader package of ideas to improve New York City’s air and water quality, including forcing all 100,000 Uber and Lyft vehicles to go electric by 2030.
