Opinion: An open letter to the bumbling mayor

Dear Mayor Bill de Blasio,

While I am perfectly content to watch the steady decline of your poll numbers as you bumble your way from gaffe to gaffe, I am not going to do so at the expense of New York City and New Yorkers. Your success is New York City’s success, your failure is New York City’s failure.

Accordingly, I am writing you to offer recommendations on how you can improve things. I am certain that your response to this will best be summed up by the emoticon: ¯\_(:))_/¯. 

The first thing you must do is change the hours in which you work. This means no more late-morning visits to the Park Slope YMCA (or any gym for that matter) during normal business hours. Start your days early and get to the office at 7 a.m. on the dot, and keep charging through your day at City Hall until at least 9 p.m. New Yorkers like and respect a mayor who works around the clock. Yes, you have argued in the past that the miracles of modern technology make it possible for you to work remotely from anywhere, but that doesn’t cut it for the mayor of the biggest city in the country. We expect you to be behind your desk, working the phones and diving into the issues that confront New Yorkers on a daily basis.

One way to demonstrate that you are in command is through the Mayor’s Management Report, a biannual report required by the city charter that provides a view into the operations of the city. Mayors before you would present every facet of the report at a large press conference that lasted at least two hours and take questions on any topic.

Instead, you have relegated the report to little more than a glorified press release, and vague “promises” to improve the delivery of city services. In fact, ambulance response times have gotten worse (perhaps an unintended consequence of Vision Zero and increased bike lanes?). Actually presenting the report in an honest, detailed manner would effectively counter the criticism that you don’t care about managing the city.

You insist that the city isn’t backsliding to the “bad old days,” a warning that was issued to voters in 2013. Apolitical New Yorkers are witnessing and noticing a decline in the quality of life in this great city of ours, which in turn is responsible for your declining poll numbers. Street homelessness has visibly increased since you took office, and your piecemeal solutions have not impacted it for the better. In fact, they haven’t even made a dent. Now is the time to find a working solution that helps the least fortunate get off the street, into a shelter, and ultimately into permanent housing.

Mr. Mayor, you need to be asking yourself the tough questions, such as, “Why are the homeless choosing to spend the night on the street as opposed to a city shelter?” The most common answer is that the shelters are overcrowded and not safe to reside in.

Or you could ask about how to reduce violence caused by events surrounding the West Indian Day Parade, particularly the J’ouvert celebration. You would find that J’ouvert is a celebration that operates without a permit, so all you need to do is have the men and women of the NYPD shut it down.

Bonus benefit: New York’s Finest hates J’ouvert and getting the order to shut it down would increase your popularity among the rank and file.

Another way to debunk the notion that you are using City Hall as a stepping stone? Stop trying to insert yourself into the national debate.

Your travels and prognostications have achieved zero tangible results for New York City and only reinforce the perception that you are aloof. If you will not curtail these travels, then at least focus them in a manner that would maximize the chances of a positive impact for New York City. For example: Last month, Jon Stewart led a coalition of New York City firefighters (full disclosure: I represented the firefighters union in their quest for you to give their minority members equal disability benefits) to Washington to lobby for making the Zadroga Act permanent. You should have joined them. (You have only issued short boilerplate statements on this issue and it has reinforced the belief that you don’t support cops or firefighters.) But your priorities lie elsewhere: News broke later in the month that you want to hold your own Democratic presidential forum … in Iowa.

Even if you fancy yourself a “kingmaker,” you have clearly faltered in that role. Your refusal to endorse your former boss Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race is not only politically baffling, but potentially damaging to New York’s health and well-being. If Clinton were to win the White House, how inclined would she be to help you, and by extension New York City, when you ask for federal assistance? Heck, she would more than likely seek to make you squirm, and it would be at New York’s expense. Playing a game with this endorsement by needing to “hear more” and meeting with her rival, Bernie Sanders, is just poking a bear with a stick. Endorse Hillary Clinton, or a rival, and move on.

It’s time to stop picking fights with the press. The Post and Daily News have always had an adversarial relationship with the mayor of New York City. The old adage of not picking a fight with somebody who buys ink by the barrel applies here.

While you just dodged a bullet with Eva Moskowitz deciding against a mayoral run, New York Democrats are still openly discussing who should primary you in 2017. It is certain that you and your operatives in City Hall are already running campaign-style attack operations on likely challengers such as Scott Stringer, Tish James, Hakeem Jeffries and Rubén Díaz Jr. This sort of speculation about your political fortunes and rivals is likely infuriating.

It’s important that you channel this anger into better management of the city. Dive into the nitty-gritty of filling potholes, cleaning the streets, helping the homeless off the streets, curbing gun violence, decreasing the response times of ambulances and reversing the decline of quality of life.

We are now almost halfway through your reign of error and, contrary top what you told Rolling Stone in May, most New Yorkers do understand what has happened here. But too many people outside of New York know you more for your blunders than your successes. Do you really want to be remembered as the mayor who lost his clothes?

Taking this advice will beget better poll numbers, and an increased national standing beyond stamping yourself as the superficial “progressive” standard-bearer. Ignoring it will do irreparable damage to your political brand and your political fortunes at home, and New Yorkers will suffer for it.

Sincerely,

Evan Siegfried, a concerned New Yorker

Evan Siegfried, a Republican strategist, is president of Somm Consulting, a public affairs firm based in New York City. He can be followed on Twitter @evansiegfried.