Gov. Groper is almost gone and Mayor Putz is moving toward the exit. Who says there’s no good news? Andrew Cuomo’s resignation and the term-limited end of Mayor de Blasio give New York state and city much-needed chances for fresh starts. While the slate isn’t wiped clean, the unusual near- simultaneous changes at the top create an opening to clean up the mess the two men helped create and reverse the sharp decline of recent years.
Put it this way: Kathy Hochul in Albany and, presumably, Eric Adams in City Hall can’t screw up more than Cuomo and de Blasio.
Over the last eight years, their performance confirmed them as the worst team of governor and mayor in modern times.
Successful teamwork doesn’t require the top officials to like each other, and most don’t. Oddly, the screeching is loudest when they hail from the same party.
Democrats Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch were born to battle, and Republicans George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani had a blood feud that wouldn’t quit.
Yet they and nearly all other combinations over the last 50 years understood they had to work together toward common goals. They realized, in broad terms, that what is good for the five boroughs is good for the whole state, and vice versa.
Eric Adams praises Kathy Hochul as right person for the moment Cuomo and de Blasio didn’t see it that way. They were former friends who became bitter enemies and let their ....................
