By: Fern Sidman
The gloves came off on Wednesday evening, when New York City mayoral candidates Curtis Sliwa and Democrat Eric Adams sparred in a televised debate only weeks before the November 2nd general election.
The two candidates held starkly different views on public safety, the housing crisis, how to deal with the mentally ill homeless population, climate change, the growing problems at Rikers Island and other issues directly impacting all New Yorkers.
Both candidates laced into each other, with Adams calling Sliwa’s behavior and actions “buffoonery” and Sliwa referring to Adams as an out of touch figure as it pertains to meeting the needs of New Yorkers in the years to come.
As the founder of the Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol in the city in the late 1970s when crime had run rampant, Sliwa is a quintessential New York City personality who has garnered publicity around the world for fighting crime and speaking out on issues on his WABC radio talk show. One of the issues that Sliwa raised in the debate was that of Adams’ true residence as rumors have swirled that he does not really live within the parameters of New York City.
According to a report on the ABC7 News web site, questioning whether Adams really lives at his Brooklyn brownstone and walked around New York with a milk carton featuring a picture of “missing” Adams.
Besides his many years as a NYPD caption, his term in the New York State senate and his recent job as Brooklyn’s borough president, Adams has risen to the forefront of New York City politics and is widely expected to win the November 2nd election.
If Adams should win the mayoral race, he would be the city’s second Black mayor. Drawing upon his experience in law enforcement, Adams has spoken extensively about improvements in policing and has said he opposes defunding the police. As a teenager, Adams had been victimized by police and has taken a firm stance against brutality and racism.
Throughout the debate, Adams behaved in a dismissive fashion towards Sliwa because of his formidable lead in the polls and again called the red-bereted crime fighter’s behavior and antics “buffoonery.”
“I’m speaking to New Yorkers. I’m not speaking to buffoonery,” Adams said.
Sliwa attacked Adams for being a creation of liberals and an out of touch elitist for reportedly vacationing in Monaco and holding fundraisers out in the Hamptons during the summer.
ABC7 News reported that Sliwa said, “Just follow me in the streets and subways. I’m there. I’m the people’s choice. Eric Adams is with the elites in the suites. Come on, Eric. Come back. Come back to the streets and the subways. Be with the real peeps.”
Sliwa also strongly vocalized his response to the chaos at the Rikers Island prison and said he had visited there, while Mayor DeBlasio refused to go. He said he would deal with the issue of the prison population by moving mentally ill prisoners to state psychiatric hospitals and other facilities for care while breaking up the gang monopoly at the prison by disempowering the strength of the gangs who are incarcerated there.
Adams said he agreed with outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision announced Wednesday to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for all city workers, including police officers. Sliwa said he opposed the mandate, saying the city doesn’t have enough police officers as is and can’t afford to lose more to a vaccine mandate, as was reported by ABC7 Eyewitness news.
In this post-pandemic age, Adams said he has plans to transform the city into a magnet for business enterprises of all strips including cybersecurity, biotechnology and drone development.
As to the proliferation of empty office space in the city, Sliwa said that remote working will continue to be the wave of the future and that vacated offices should be converted into affordable housing as well as empty commercial real estate.
Addressing the recent flash floods that claimed the lives of basement dwellers in the New York City area as a result of Hurricane Ida, Sliwa said that he would seek to find other residences for these people; many of whom are undocumented immigrants. He said he opposes throwing them out of their homes but will take every measure to protect them and others with the construction of a sea wall.
Adams, on the other hand, spoke of instituting an alarm and siren system that would warn tenants and landlords of extreme climactic conditions.
In terms of the future of restaurants, Adams said he is in favor of allowing restaurants to maintain structures that served as outdoor dining rooms throughout the Covid pandemic while Sliwa said such structures are taking up space needed for vehicular traffic, bicycle riders and pedestrian traffic.
As it pertains to the dramatic escalation in violent crime that has gripped the city and the wave of violence in the New York City subways, Sliwa called for hiring 3,000 police officers and claimed Adams had shown no interest in using federal resources to put more cops on the streets, as was reported by ABC 7 Eyewitness news. Sliwa also wants to terminate the status of the Big Apple as a “sanctuary city” and called for local law enforcement to work in tandem with the agenda of federal immigration and customs enforcement.
Adams is in favor of maintaining the sanctuary city status for the New York and denigrated Sliwa for his alleged pretentiousness about how New York City police officers operate.
ABC 7 Eyewitness News reported that Wednesday evening’s hourlong debate was the first of two face-to-face meetings before the Nov. 2 election. The second debate will be Oct. 26.
