Mayor-Elect de Blasio Needs to Surround Himself with Dissenting Voices
On Tuesday, Bill de Blasio was overwhelmingly elected as the new mayor of New York City. For the first time in 20 years, NYC will have a Democrat in City Hall.
Josh Greenman of the New York Daily News argues that de Blasio will need to surround himself with dissenting voices in order to best choose New York City's future direction. For the last 20 years, Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg had to work with dissent, but now, de Blasio will be leading a single-party government. Across the board, politicans similar to de Blasio were elected to other citywide positions on Tuesday, making the need to hear from different points of view even more important in his administration:
Beware. While too much political friction brings paralysis, too little presents the opportunity for major mistakes. For the good of the city, de Blasio has to see this danger coming. He needs to get used to saying no to his friends, and even turning some of them into enemies.
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Then there's education. The mayor-elect purports to be on the side of disgruntled parents and teachers, who've screamed as Bloomberg has, the charge goes, ignored them. But if de Blasio is truly intent on putting the interests of kids first, clashes are necessary, especially on the need to swallow tough new Common Core tests.
