A New Yorker braves the weather as plow vans clear the streets in Brooklyn on Jan. 25, 2026.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Strolling down the road and seeing piles of snow and rubbish for 2 weeks and counting, I’m reminded of the phrases of the legendary former Mayor Fiorello La Guardia: “There is no Democratic or Republican way of cleaning the streets.”
The highest precedence for any metropolis authorities must be to supply important providers and make sure the security of each residents and guests. This contains choosing up rubbish and clearing snow from streets, crosswalks, and bus stops promptly after a storm passes. Most significantly, our most weak residents shouldn’t be disregarded within the chilly to freeze.
Throughout his marketing campaign, Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered voters on a socialist imaginative and prescient that guarantees to sort out affordability and create a authorities that works for each New Yorker. This ideology-first method to campaigning clearly resonated with the citizens, however because the late former Governor Mario Cuomo used to say, “you campaign in poetry; you govern in prose.”
That could be a lesson the Mamdani administration has but to be taught. With every passing day, it’s turning into more and more clear that regardless of his profitable pre-storm communications blitz, Mayor Mamdani has failed his first check as our chief government. Only one month into his tenure at Metropolis Corridor, the mayor remains to be prioritizing performative politics over the unglamorous work of managing the town.
Whereas he was targeted on discovering the right hipster jacket for his storm-related picture ops, 18 New Yorkers have died as frigid temperatures persist. Why? As a result of the mayor has stated requiring individuals to enter a heat location towards their will ought to solely occur as a “last resort,” leaving warming buses idled unused exterior the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.
This isn’t the form of management that instills a lot confidence in those that rightfully anticipated a reliable plan to be in place earlier than the snow began to fall. What we should be taught from the current stretch of lethal chilly is that we’d like the town’s chief to instruct our police and first responders that no New Yorker might be left within the chilly to die.
Each particular person – particularly probably the most weak, unhoused amongst us – might be finest served if the mayor focuses much less on screening his political appointments for socialist purity, and extra on whether or not they’re prepared to place individuals above ideology.
Failing to shortly clear the snow after a giant storm isn’t solely a public security danger, making it troublesome for emergency responders to navigate metropolis streets, nevertheless it additionally runs counter to the mayor’s affordability agenda.
In line with Paul Walsh of G2 Climate Intelligence, an financial evaluation agency devoted to the affect of climate on companies, “When they [businesses] shut down… those dollars are just lost.” New York Metropolis’s retailers depend on foot visitors. Our restaurant staff depend on tricks to complement wages. When streets are usually not plowed in a well timed method, or when sidewalks are left icy and crosswalks are impeded, companies of all sizes lose income.
New York has had greater than a decade since Superstorm Sandy to get its huge storm response proper. It has all of the instruments essential to succeed—detailed protocols and full companies dedicated to sanitation, emergency administration, and public security. The experiences of the mayor’s shut ally, former Mayor Invoice de Blasio, and the mayor’s reported “spirit animal,” former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, ought to have given him ample instruction on the best way to deal with the storm. What we ask of the mayor isn’t ideological alignment however operational competence.
Residents don’t care whether or not a plow driver is progressive or reasonable when their avenue is snowed in; they care that it arrives on time and clears the mess. Dad and mom don’t care about political theories when a baby’s stroll to high school is icy; they care that their little one is secure. Good governance in New York has all the time meant mastering logistics, coordination, and urgency – particularly when lives and livelihoods are on the road.
Mamdani’s targets could also be grand, however till he can grasp the fundamentals of his newfound obligations and the necessity for pragmatic management, New Yorkers will lose.
Maria Danzilo is Government Director of One Metropolis Rising.
