Mayor Eric Adams leaned on a familiar agenda in his third State of the City address on Wednesday, focusing on public safety, housing and quality-of-life issues as he tries to reset the narrative surrounding his mayoralty after a tumultuous year.
After a heckler interrupted him minutes into his speech at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, Adams responded with a trademark mantra fashioned during his 2021 campaign.
“Stay focused, no distractions and grind,” he said from the stage, spurring the audience to repeat the phrase.
The speech came as Adams faces record-low polling numbers, driven by his handling of the migrant crisis and the city’s budget woes as well as questions surrounding an ongoing federal probe into his campaign fundraising. Neither he nor his campaign have been accused of wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Adams’ relationship with the City Council has grown increasingly fractious over a pair of criminal justice bills he vetoed last week, despite them passing with veto-proof majorities in December. In what appeared to be a low point in that relationship, the mayor’s office sought to remove chairs provided for reporters at a City Hall press conference hosted by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams in support of one of the bills on Tuesday.
In a statement after the mayor’s address, the speaker said the Council looked forward to collaborating with him on critical issues including housing access and production, opportunities for women, and public safety.
“At a time when our city is facing major challenges and overlapping crises, we must rely on our city agencies and workers to effectively help New Yorkers and our communities to persevere,” she said. “Our success is only possible with the right investments and policies to support the critical work of our agencies, which we are fully committed to advancing.”
The mayor’s roughly 40-minute speech included few surprises or splashy ideas, though he did propose creating a city agency to regulate deliveries as…
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