Walking down the street and seeing piles of snow and garbage for two weeks and counting, I am reminded of the words of the legendary former Mayor Fiorello La Guardia: “There is no Democratic or Republican way of cleaning the streets.”
The top priority for any city government should be to provide essential services and ensure the safety of both residents and visitors. This includes picking up garbage and clearing snow from streets, crosswalks, and bus stops promptly after a storm passes. Most importantly, our most vulnerable residents should not be left out in the cold to freeze.
During his campaign, Mayor Zohran Mamdani sold voters on a socialist vision that promises to tackle affordability and create a government that works for every New Yorker. This ideology-first approach to campaigning clearly resonated with the electorate, but as the late former Governor Mario Cuomo used to say, “you campaign in poetry; you govern in prose.”
That is a lesson the Mamdani administration has yet to learn. With each passing day, it is becoming increasingly clear that despite his successful pre-storm communications blitz, Mayor Mamdani has failed his first test as our chief executive. Just one month into his tenure at City Hall, the mayor is still prioritizing performative politics over the unglamorous work of managing the city.
While he was focused on finding the perfect hipster jacket for his storm-related photo ops, 18 New Yorkers have died as frigid temperatures persist. Why? Because the mayor has said requiring people to enter a warm location against their will should only happen as a “last resort,” leaving warming buses idled unused outside the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.
This is not the kind of leadership that instills much confidence in those who rightfully expected a legitimate plan to be in place before the snow started to fall. What we must learn from the recent stretch of deadly cold is that we need the city’s leader to instruct our police and first responders that no New Yorker will be left in the cold to die.
Every individual – especially the most vulnerable, unhoused among us – will be best served if the mayor focuses less on screening his political appointments for socialist purity, and more on whether they are willing to put people above ideology.
Failing to quickly clear the snow after a big storm is not only a public safety risk, making it difficult for emergency responders to navigate city streets, but it also runs counter to the mayor’s affordability agenda.
According to Paul Walsh of G2 Weather Intelligence, an economic analysis firm dedicated to the impact of weather on businesses, “When they [businesses] shut down… those dollars are just lost.” New York City’s retailers rely on foot traffic. Our restaurant workers rely on tips to supplement wages. When streets are not plowed in a timely manner, or when sidewalks are left icy and crosswalks are impeded, businesses of all sizes lose revenue.
New York has had more than a decade since Superstorm Sandy to get its big storm response right. It has all the tools necessary to succeed—detailed protocols and entire agencies devoted to sanitation, emergency management, and public safety. The experiences of the mayor’s close ally, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the mayor’s reported “spirit animal,” former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, should have given him ample instruction on how to handle the storm. What we ask of the mayor is not ideological alignment but operational competence.
Residents do not care whether a plow driver is progressive or moderate when their street is snowed in; they care that it arrives on time and clears the mess. Parents do not care about political theories when a child’s walk to school is icy; they care that their child is safe. Good governance in New York has always meant mastering logistics, coordination, and urgency – especially when lives and livelihoods are on the line.
Mamdani’s goals may be grand, but until he can grasp the basics of his newfound responsibilities and the need for pragmatic leadership, New Yorkers will lose.
Maria Danzilo is Executive Director of One City Rising.
