Mayor Adams record is muddled as his re-election year begins

Mayor Adams enters his re-election year with a pretty mixed record, facing a federal corruption trial and denied (at least for now) public matching campaign funds, and so at clear risk of defeat in both the June 24 primary and — should a viable Republican challenger emerge — the Nov.4 general election.Yet he may well emerge victorious, since his declared opponents so far are a pack of lefties who only promise to be worse, pushing utter nonsense like legalizing prostitution, banning rent hikes and making public transit free.

They’re hoping the prosecutors take him down, though what’s known so far of the evidence against him seems thin and the case itself quite possibly inspired mainly by the (outgoing) Biden administration’s anger at his complaints over the migrant crisis it caused.And his clear love for the city and consistent centrism could certainly lead voters to decide he’s still their best choice.His rhetoric has largely been spot-on, whether on public safety and education or the “pro-Palestinian” radicals and the migrant crisis.It’s his policy execution too often falls short.Start with public safety: He’s now delivered years of modest drops in overall crime (down 5.4% this last year), but failed to get Gotham back to pre-pandemic levels.And everything from all the locked-up toothpaste to the numbers of addicts and severe mental-illness cases plaguing so many public areas not only slams New Yorkers’ quality of life; it signals the city is seriously unsafe.Though the worst villains on crime are state and city lawmakers, Adams’ approach to NYPD leadership has been highly problematic.Deputy Mayor Phil Banks was plainly calling the shots until his recent exit, prompting Commissioner Keechant Sewell to depart rather than continue the farce, only to be succeeded by Edwin Cabán, who himself left under a criminal crowd, even as also-now-tainted-and-gone Jeffrey Maddrey rose to chief of department.Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch is off to a ...