Bill Thompson
Seeking to dispel disquietude in the business community about the post-Bloomberg era, Democratic mayoral contender Bill Thompson presented a vision for the city on Thursday that included more cops, no new taxes and more incentives for small businesses.
Mr. Thompson, who was the 2009 runner-up for mayor but has trailed his main Democratic rivals in fundraising, also mocked the whispers that he lacks the drive to win a contested primary.
“If you don’t scream and holler, if you don’t attack people in New York City, you’re calm and mild-mannered,” he said toward the end of a speech hosted by the business group Association for a Better New York. “If you don’t try and throw someone down the stairs, you lack fire in the belly.”
Mr. Thompson said his platform for mayor consisted of four parts: hiring thousands more cops, many of whom for the most dangerous precincts; preventing a budgetary crisis by right-sizing the city’s finances; investing more in infrastructure; and closing the wealth gap without raising taxes on high earners.
He spoke of his upbringing and life in the public and private sectors. His speech, just shy of 24 minutes, was punctuated by two moments of audience applause, one of which when he called for maintaining the city’s position as the financial capital of the world.
His remarks were received warmly, if not enthusiastically, by the audience of business and real estate executives.
Mr. Thompson also lambasted Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stewardship of the city’s budget, while also implicating Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the Democratic frontrunner. He said City Hall’s failure to secure contracts with the city’s major public sector unions could leave its finances in jeopardy.
“The Independent Budget Office reports that this failure has the potential to leave the city with a hole of billions of dollars. Unfortunately, there are no checks and balances on these misguided decisions thanks to the one-two punch of fiscal irresponsibility that is Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn,” he said. “Enough is enough.”
[UPDATE, 1:44 p.m.] A spokesman for Ms. Quinn’s campaign responded to Mr. Thompson’s attack, pointing to her record of negotiating balanced on-time budgets with the city. “We welcome a debate on the economic leadership of this city over the last 8 years and who has a better vision on how to lead this city,” the spokesman said.
Jobs and economic growth were big themes in Mr. Thompson’s speech.
He said he would create a “five borough opportunity plan”—not to be confused with Mr. Bloomberg’s “five borough economic opportunity plan“—to encourage small businesses to grow and to promote back office jobs in the outer boroughs as a business retention strategy.
If elected, Mr. Thompson said, he would appoint a deputy mayor for infrastructure to oversee the city’s post-Sandy rebuilding. (Earlier in the week, Ms. Quinn gave a speech on education in which she said she would create a deputy mayor to oversee all city agencies that deal with children.)
“She or he won’t just report to me about how we are rebuilding, but about how we are aligning resources from the public and private sectors and utilities; and building smarter, stronger, and safer,” he said.
Mr. Thompson said he would increase the size of the city’s police force to 37,000 from its current level of 34,500. He said the controversial “stop-and-frisk” method is useful but needs to be reformed. He recounted a conversation with his teenage stepson, who asked why he would be detained by police if he hadn’t committed any crime.
“And my answer was that if you are an African-American young man living in Harlem, the unfortunate chance is that you may be stopped without doing anything,” he said.
After the speech, Mr. Thompson emphasized his commitment to not raising taxes, setting him apart from Democratic rival Bill de Blasio, who has called for higher income taxes for wealthy New Yorkers to pay for education programs. He avoided specifics on how he would pay for some his proposals, including hiring thousands of new police officers, aside from vowing to reduce the number of city contracts and a vague promise to get “the best bang for our buck.” An extra 2,500 officers might cost in the neighborhood of $250 million per year; the city budget is nearly $70 billion.
“This wasn’t a budget discussion or speech, but no, I’m not raising taxes,” he told reporters. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding. What I was talking about was redirecting dollars, making sure we prioritize every dollar and get the best bang for our buck. But I’m not raising taxes.”