Can Mayor Hochul save the day? Governor offers aid to NYC during Adams turmoil

No matter what Mayor Adams decides to do in the coming days — or what other people may do to him — Gov. Hochul will have to start pulling double shifts: her day job, and acting as New York City’s de facto mayor.

Adams’ federal indictment last week on five counts, including bribery and wire fraud, has thrown City Hall into a chaos that Gotham can ill afford.

Anything or nothing might happen by the end of this year: Adams may stick it out and stay on the job as he proclaims his innocence.

Or he may resign, with his lawyers perhaps advising him that prosecutors may lose interest in a former mayor.

Or Hochul may suspend him — she has the right to do so — and start the process of removing him, which takes at least 30 days.

In any case, New York is effectively, and indefinitely, mayor-less. Jumaane Williams, the city’s lefty public advocate, would take over if Adams leaves — but Williams has never managed anything.

So whether a weakened Adams hobbles along until December 2025 or we have a special election in the intervening months with the inexperienced Williams in charge for a time, Gotham needs a strong governor to fill the power vacuum Hizzoner’s scandals have created.

And Hochul does have powers she can wield to the city’s benefit.

For example, she can step in to relieve our migrant crisis. We’re hosting 61,700 migrants in city shelters, costing taxpayers $4.7 billion this year, including $1.3 billion in state funds.

But New York’s supposed obligation to offer a bed to anyone is rooted in the state Constitution — and over the more than four decades that this “right to shelter” has constrained Gotham, no governor has ever proposed legislation to define it.

Hochul has preferred to throw money at the problem rather than take responsibility, but she could instead push for legislation to hem in this court-declared right: Who is eligible, how long can shelter residents stay, and so on.

True, Hochul hasn’t proven adept at steering lawmakers. But she could certainly demand some accountability regarding the dollars the state is already spending.

Hochul should leverage that state money to press the city to close down the most troublesome shelter hotels, such as The Row and the Roosevelt in Midtown, and return the properties to productive use.

The governor can also influence the city’s budget.

In barely a month, the mayor must update this year’s $115.1 billion budget and prepare for the next one. Hochul must ensure that neither Adams nor Williams throws a blow-out spending spree during the limited time either may be in office.

She has the power to do so thanks to her authority over the Financial Control Board, which governed the city’s finances during the fiscal crisis nearly 50 years ago. The FCB no longer directly controls city spending — but it still must sign off annually on its budget and certify that it’s balanced.

Hochul can use the FCB to make the city budget more realistic. The city comptroller recently warned that Adams has “underbudgeted” by $2.9 billion this year, including for overtime costs ($730 million in likely unfunded spending) and welfare payments ($500 million).

And she doesn’t have to formally do anything to make the city pay attention, as E.J. McMahon has noted. In 2020, then-Gov. Cuomo’s FCB announced it would schedule an extra meeting as Cuomo warned the board would keep a “careful eye” on city spending.

The implicit threat got then-Mayor Bill de Blasio to back off on his plan to borrow money for operating expenses during the COVID pandemic.

Hochul’s FCB appointees should make it clear they’ll be watching Adams, or his interim replacement, with an eagle eye — and that they’ll step in if necessary.

Hochul even holds unused leverage in the area of public safety. She can’t usurp the mayor’s control over the NYPD — nor should she — but she does have power in one of the major areas the NYPD patrols: the state-controlled subway.

For nearly three years, Adams has insisted the NYPD can safeguard the subways through overtime shifts. That has proven inadequate: The city has suffered nine underground homicides this year, five times the pre-COVID rate.

As it happens, the NYPD’s chief of transit, Michael Kemper, just “retired” and moved to the MTA to head public safety there.

The governor should ask Kemper for a report on how many officers the subways realistically need, and if the state criminal-justice and mental-health systems can do more to support the police.

New York can’t afford to go one day without a functional mayor, let alone months — so it’s either Hochul or no one in the breach.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.