Eric Adams' quintessential brash attitude was initially an attribute that cultivated a sense of commonality with the New Yorkers who voted to make him the city's 110th mayor. Since he took office, that defiance and hard headedness in the wake of a seemingly endless carousel of controversies has seen the city's attitude on the mayor sour. Time after time, Adams' has come off overly defensive and dismissive of criticisms. The latest episode in that pattern of behavior came at a community panel discussion the mayor hosted in hosted at Gregorio Luperon High School for Science and Mathematics in Washington Heights.
The event followed last week's vote by the NYC Rent Board to approve rent increases of up to 6% for one-year residential leases on rent-stabilized apartments. The board approved that increase by a 5-4 vote, which Adams' subsequently praised, drawing the ire of one of the attendees of the even in Washington Heights. When she rose form her seat to chastise Adams for the Rent Board's decision, the mayor responded in kind by lashing out at the woman, demanding her respect. He continued on in lambasting the guest by playing the race card an equating the disgruntled, now presumable former supporter of his, as a slave own, saying "I'm the mayor of this city and [you should] treat me with the respect that I would deserve to be treated [with]. Don't treat someone like they're on the plantation that you own."
Of course, the irony that someone who owns a property would be complaining about a rent increases was lost on Adams' as he reveled in the applause from those onlooking and continued on with his tangent by insisting that everyone know that he is a grown man before finally moving onto the next question. Initially, the women who became Adams' target had interjected into a question being asked during the event as she couldn't contain herself from chastising the major for his hypocrisy on the rent increases.
What doesn't help the optics of Adams' outburst is who exactly he was playing the race card with. It turns out that Jeanie Dubnau, the women who faced the mayor's scorn, fled Europe to escape Nazi Germany before settling in NYC. Since the 84 year old fled the Third Reich, she has been a pillar of her community in the city, working as a tenants advocate for decades. Given her advocacy on the very issue of rent increases faced by residential tenants, it's no surprise that Dubnau was composed in her response to Adams' inappropriate decorum.
When asked to respond to the controversy she unexpectedly found herself enveloped in, Dubnau swiftly pointed to Adams' response as a mechanism to deflect away from the issue at hand, refocuses the dialogue back to why she confronted the mayor in the first place. “The main point is that the mayor has shown he’s an enemy of all the rent stabilized tenants in New York City,” she opined, going on to say “He probably is aware how the entire tenant population and many working class people have turned against him with time.”
While Adams' may have though he got the best of the 84 year-old, he wasn't aware that this wasn't her first rodeo. In 2015, Dubnau squared off with then-mayor Bill de Blasio at the same forum hosted in Washington Heights over affordable housing initiatives she was concerned would displace local business owners in increasingly gentrified neighborhoods. Adamant in response to Adams, Dubnau made it clear this wouldn't be her lost rodeo either, stating that she will continue to call out the mayor as much as she can.
1) Eric Adams, you didn't come anywhere close to answering that woman's question.
— hellresidentNY 🖤 (@hellresidentNY) June 29, 2023
2) That woman had every right to be upset when she was on the mic.
3) Every second you were running your mouth about how you're a "grown man" who deserves respect just made you sound like this. https://t.co/M4ZAKPwzfE pic.twitter.com/m3o4eyyUU5
Before the Rent Board's final vote, Adams had opposed the premise of a possible cap of 7% for rent increases for two-year leases. He quickly changed his rune when the board approved the 6% cap, saying “I want to thank the members of the Rent Guidelines Board for their critically important and extremely difficult work protecting tenants from unsustainable rent increases, while also ensuring small property owners have the necessary resources to maintain their buildings,” in a public remark following the passage of the measure that saw the city approve rent creases of over 3% for the first time since the Bloomberg administration.
While rent in NYC had reached lows following the mass exodus from the city following the authoritarian dictate of Adam's predecessor Bill de Blasio during his handling of COVID-19, prices have since returned with avengeance. In March, the median rent price in Manhattan had risen YoY for an 18th straight month, approaching record highs. With the latest decision of the NYC Rent Board on the books, it appears that trend is sure to continue.
That is of course, unless the leadership of Eric Adams can somehow change the course of this troubling turn of events to help the New Yorkers who elected him under the promise of revitalizing the city deal with the on-going perils of inflation and cost-of-living increases that have made living in the Big Apple untenable for so many. Given Adams' conduct when the reality of the city's disapproval of his administration was brought to him by a constituent that embodied the vigor and wherewithal of the spirit of the city, it will be hard for New Yorkers to have faith that their mayor will have their backs.
