Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams went to work last week, convening a joint meeting between MTA and NYPD leaders to discuss maintaining law and order within the city’s transit system.
While the pair raised concerns and floated solutions Wednesday, the mayor was conspicuously absent as Hochul unveiled her new subway safety plan.
“We have different schedules. We spoke yesterday. We talked about this all the time. I don't think that that's necessary that we stand together,” said Hochul, responding to a question from NY1.
Adams spent the morning appearing on multiple television and radio programs. A source in the governor's office told NY1 that Adams was invited to the event.
“He did an event this morning — I don't know how you could possibly infer that I'm not working with the mayor, because we actually have this conflict of schedules today. Our schedules change all the time,” Hochul said, insisting the pair are “in sync.”
The governor outlined her new five-point subway safety plan at the MTA’s Rail Control Center on West 54th Street alongside the authority’s Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, New York State Police Superintendent Steven James and other law enforcement officials.
Both the state and the city have jurisdiction over the subways. Although the city-run NYPD patrols the system, Hochul essentially runs the MTA.
Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, says a unified appearance does matter.
“Right now, they are flunking the symbolic side. By not getting together they're saying I’m just a little too busy to get together,” he told NY1.
He said although the two leaders expressed concern over subway crime in separate media appearances Wednesday – their physical separation may give the impression that they’re not on the same page.
“Both of them may find it in their political self interest to find a common ground on this, if not, they end up in this situation you see between mayors and governors going back a long time - or it becomes a vulnerability that you care about but only in an election season,” said Miringoff.
Much louder discord between governors and mayors is not new.
As moderate Democrats, Hochul and Adams have made it a point to work together. Their predecessors, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, were famous for their public disagreements.
“Not since the Hatfields and the McCoys or maybe Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraser has there been that kind of tension and acrimony between the offices and the principals themselves,” former Democratic Gov. David Paterson said in a Zoom interview.
Paterson, who sometimes had his own challenges with ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Wednesday’s events, “demonstrates [Hochul would] like to be a little more of a part of what's going on downstate — as opposed to Long Island and Albany and Buffalo and other places around the state. For the mayor, I think he’s just looking for help.”
And then, there’s the fiscal fight.
“The mayor has many requests for us in our state legislature – many, many requests. And I'm glad to see that their surpluses are looking, their finances are looking better than they had been,” said Hochul at the Wednesday press conference.
Both the state and the city now have positive updated revenue estimates.
They show Hochul has over $1 billion in additional tax revenue — and Adams found an extra $3.3 billion.
But the governor made it clear Wednesday, her plan likely doesn’t include writing Adams a check.
“Rather than having the NYPD have to work being paid by state dollars, I said, let me do something even better. Let me bring more people to the process right now. I’m ramping up 1,000 people to help solve this crisis,” she noted.
Paterson said either way, the politicians must consider the concerns of everyday New Yorkers.
“The seemingly random crimes, where there seems to be no explanation for why one person is attacking the other who they don’t even know," he said. "It’s so frightening that it makes people not even want to walk near the train stations."