Pols Remain Captive to Left, NY’s Decline Continues

The results of a study released this month by the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), a non-partisan good government group, concerning the mind frame of New Yorkers is depressing reading.

Here’s a summary of the CBC’s findings based on a survey of 6,600 City households:

Only 30% rate the city’s quality of life as excellent or good.
Only 37% rate public safety as excellent or good.
Only 24% rate the quality of government services as good or excellent.
Only 11% believe the government is spending tax dollars wisely.
Only 39% are content with the state of public education.
Only 34% are satisfied with their neighborhood’s cleanliness.
Only 49% feel safe riding the subway in the daytime.
Only 29% feel safe riding the Subway at night.
Only 51% feel safe walking in their neighborhoods at night.
Only 50% say they will remain living in the city.

Not a pretty picture.

But I can’t blame New Yorkers for their dismal outlook — particularly on the subject of public safety.

Let’s start with violent subway crime. In 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic commenced, there were 373 felony assaults.

In 2023, there were 570, a 53% increase.

On top of that, over 100 police officers and 60 transit workers were assaulted in 2023.

In 2019, there were 3 murders versus 10 in 2022 and 5 in 2023. So far this year, there have been 4 people murdered in the subways.

Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute has noted that in February 2024 alone, “Transit riders or workers suffered 76 serious violent crimes, 2 murders, 1 rape, 38 robberies, and 35 assaults.”

Yes, subway crime is real, not merely a perception as Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams have claimed.

So what’s being done about subway crime?

In March, the governor did send in 750 members of the National Guard to patrol the subways. But they’re stationed — generally standing together in large groups — in the subways’ transit hubs, (i.e., Pennsylvania Station, Grand Central Station).

Although there is nothing inherently wrong with that deployment, in my judgment, they should really be patrolling subway cars or the 400-plus local stations within the system.

One week after Hochul ordered the National Guard to the City, the delusional governor declared the plan was a success. “The plan is working as we had expected,” Hochul announced at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan.

Hochul had the nerve to make that pronouncement three days after a self-defense shooting on a rush hour A train headed toward Brooklyn.

A passenger, harassed by a deranged person waving a gun, grabbed the weapon and shot the crazed man, while passengers rushed to another car.

“The train was packed,” said one witness. “Everyone was trying to hide. There were people behind me trying to get under, too. People were just on top of each other, huddled up and hugging each other.”

To add insult to injury, Mayor Adams called the terrifying shooting “an isolated incident.”

Reacting to the governor’s boast, City councilman Joe Borelli said, “We had a week of shootings and attacks on the subway. How can this be going according to plan?

“Hochul lives in two worlds; one where the subways are safe and another where they are so dangerous she had to call in the National Guard.”

The fact is, commuters and transit workers are justifiably scared.

One subway conductor, Fred Reeves, who witnessed the shooting on the A train told the New York Post, “I am shell-shocked. Like my nerves are just through the roof. It’s not a safe place, especially for a conductor. Bullets don’t have a name,” he said.

Another crime-wave the governor and the mayor have failed to come to grips with: rampant shoplifting that is costing merchants over $4.4 billion a year.

Organized thieves have created an underground economy.

They are selling stolen goods on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, and to illegal pawn shops and middlemen who sell the hot items to other stores.

Suffolk County District Attorney Tierney has pointed out that there are organized cross-state plunderers. “Shoplifters would start in New Jersey, begin driving, and basically shoplift their way to Suffolk County to deliver the goods,” he said.

The inability of the governor and the mayor to protect store owners and their employees from these criminals is costly.

Thousands of merchants have closed their stores, thousands of people have lost their jobs, the state is losing tens of millions in sales tax revenue, and there are thousands of empty storefronts.

Crime is just one of the many issues that explain why New Yorkers are giving the governor and the mayor the Bronx cheer.

As the CBC survey indicated, people are rating the quality of life and of City services much lower than they did earlier in the century.

I don’t expect their confidence to grow so long as Hochul and Adams remain captives of radical left-wingers, controlling the state Legislature and the City Council, who side with the criminals, not the victims.

George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of “The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact,” and “Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy.” Read George J. Marlin’s Reports — More Here.