Adrienne Adams wasn\u2019t supposed to be speaker of the New York City Council. The late entrant to the 2021 speaker race was far from a front-runner, but became a compromise pick.<\/p>\n
Once elected \u2013 as the council\u2019s first Black speaker \u2013 Adrienne Adams wasn\u2019t supposed to lead the body as a foil to the left of Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 administration. The self-described moderate from Southeast Queens endorsed Eric Adams in the 2021 Democratic primary for mayor, but went on to battle his administration on many issues.<\/p>\n
And last year, Adrienne Adams wasn\u2019t supposed to run for mayor. Up until a late push to join the race<\/a>, Adams had displayed few signs that she hoped to use the speaker position as a political launchpad. (She finished fourth in the Democratic primary\u2019s first round.)<\/p>\n Having bucked political wisdom on a few fronts in the past four years, Adams\u2019 next move is hard to predict. She still has detractors over issues like outdoor\u00a0dining<\/a> and critics inside the body who argue the council<\/a> wasn\u2019t fair or transparent enough.<\/p>\n City & State caught up with Adams late last month (two days before City Council Member Julie Menin declared victory in this year\u2019s speaker race) to look back at the legacy she\u2019s leaving. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n Over the past four years, is there one action this council took that you can pin down as the most significant? As one you want to feed into the story of the legacy you\u2019re leaving?<\/p>\n I think I\u2019m going to go ahead and choose housing, since it is top of mind and my leadership has really changed the entire culture of the City Council when it comes to housing. We have approved 157,000 units, or a little more. We have approved 94% of housing proposals that have come before this council, and we have made sure that we look forward into affordability. And I know that\u2019s the buzzword of now, but I can assure you that this council has been using that term over the past four years because we are the most diverse council in the history of the city of New York. We come from a need of affordability where we live. Particularly being a speaker of an outer borough, far outer borough, I come from a place of a necessity for affordability. So it would be that housing that is so desperately needed. We\u2019ve changed the way that people view it, the way that people speak about it, the way that people prioritize it across the city of New York.<\/p>\n What is an accomplishment of this council that you think didn\u2019t receive enough attention?<\/p>\n The new programs. We have created new programs that have changed the lives of thousands of New Yorkers, of those that have been left behind that people don\u2019t talk about. \u2026 We created CUNY Reconnect to bring in those students that had some CUNY credits but were unable to fulfill their degree for whatever reason \u2013 be it taking care of a parent, becoming a parent, financial strain or anything else. Those credits are now brought back into reality of attaining that degree for \u2013 I thought it would be maybe 10,000 \u2013 (but) to date we have about 50,000 reenrollees because of CUNY Reconnect. And we have been able to make sure that graduation has happened for about 8,000 students or more. \u2026 Our trauma recovery centers \u2013\u00a0the first ever in New York state history, by the way \u2013 we\u2019ve got four of them. I believe we\u2019re working on our fifth now. This is where people actually get therapy, they get counseling. They know that they have a safe place to come where they can speak to professionals. They can speak about their experiences, either being that one that perpetrated some type of violence onto another person or people, or that victim that gets put away in a corner someplace, and nobody ever looks at again, except to count as a statistic. \u2026 We also don\u2019t talk about our CUNY Social Work Fellows Program. We know that we\u2019ve got such a mental health crisis in New York right now, why not utilize CUNY where we can get our professionals? That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing with our Social Work Fellows Program. And finally, the guaranteed income for new mothers. \u2026 With the guaranteed income program that we facilitated in the City Council, we are now bringing women and children out of shelter and into permanent housing.<\/p>\n When you became speaker, some questioned whether you would be too aligned with Eric Adams. But this council took on some fights that were championed by progressives \u2013 passing police accountability legislation, restricting solitary confinement, fighting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Rikers, expanding housing vouchers. Was it always your intention to take the council in that direction? Did that come from listening to more progressive members? Did the mayor\u2019s actions cause it to ricochet in that direction?\u00a0<\/p>\n Imagine that. To my surprise as well. But what I discovered when I listened to my colleagues, when I listened to the bills that they presented \u2013 commonsense legislation. Again, we take a look at the diversity in this council, the fact that there are so many different avenues, so many different types of New Yorkers that have been left behind, never discussed, never thought about, put away in the corner to be forgotten. The members themselves brought that legislation because of what they saw in their districts, what they heard from their constituents and what they lived in their own lives, myself included. \u2026 I\u2019m a moderate. I still am pretty moderate from Southeast Queens, always have been. But what I saw in legislation, I saw a move that talked to the heart of older adults, seniors, the fact that they were not able to get food. That talked to child care for families like my own, children that I didn\u2019t want to leave New York, but unfortunately left because child care was not affordable. That spoke to those mothers dealing with maternal health issues. Things like that, things that people don\u2019t really talk about, or previous councils may not have seen or prioritized \u2013\u00a0this council did because of the members, because of the diversity. \u2026 I don\u2019t necessarily call it progressive. I just call it the everyday life of everyday New Yorkers.<\/p>\n Your district is more moderate \u2013 I think one where there was more pushback on some of the high-profile actions this council took, like City of Yes and I believe the How Many Stops Act. How did you balance the direction of the entire city and council with the preferred direction of your district?<\/p>\n I\u2019m not just a speaker for District 28 in Southeast Queens, but I am a speaker and a leader for all 51 districts of this city. \u2026 As far as looking at the legislation \u2013\u00a0not so much the How Many Stops Act, but City of Yes, for sure \u2013 it has to do with, quite frankly, the makeup of our diverse communities. There have been more communities than others that have gotten more density than others. Some districts just aren\u2019t used to having that in-depth conversation about what this really looks like, what New York is facing right now. \u2026 So while I think that, yeah, there\u2019s been some pushback, there\u2019s also been a greater effort of education citywide, for what we are up against in New York City with a housing crisis, with a mental health crisis, and what we must do as those servants of the city to make things better for everybody.<\/p>\n