As City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams prepares to enter the race for mayor, she made a case for herself as a conciliatory, compassionate leader in an annual address on Tuesday.
The speaker used her State of the City speech to propose a few new policies, including legislation that would require the city to make earlier payments to nonprofits to combat chronic delays. She also proposed an accelerator to mentor minority-owned businesses and wants to expand seven-day library service to 10 more branches citywide.
Mostly, though, she focused on the council’s achievements as she enters her fourth and final year leading the body — including approving the City of Yes housing plan and securing an accompanying $5 billion for tenant aid and infrastructure investments.
“Throughout my time in office, I’ve been labeled as a moderate in people’s attempt to make sense of who I am,” she said. “But my focus has always been public service, which has no political label.”
The 64-year-old speaker has said she is still deciding whether to enter the race to unseat Eric Adams. But she has looked very much like a candidate in recent days — creating a citywide fundraising account, reaching out to labor and business leaders to gauge support, and participating in a mayoral candidate screening event over the weekend hosted by building workers’ union 32BJ SEIU, whose endorsement carries weight.
She would have an uphill climb, with little name recognition and a steep fundraising disadvantage compared to other candidates. But she has warm relationships in organized labor and a political base in southeast Queens — a potential obstacle for ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is counting on winning big among Black voters in those neighborhoods.
“She’s got a path,” an official at an influential labor union told Crain’s last week. “But she’d need to, in the next few weeks, have significant campaign infrastructure established and significant money raised to even look like a real candidate.”
Like most of the other Democrats running against Eric Adams, the speaker is also positioning herself as a bulwark against President Donald Trump. She used Tuesday’s speech to criticize his mass-deportation agenda, which she called “cruel,” and said she would work against threats to democracy.
“It is up to us to counter the tyranny taking root at our federal level, and right here in our own backyard,” she said.
The address was held in the auditorium at Jazz at Lincoln Center: a location that held symbolic importance, given the council’s successful push last year to restore $53 million in funding to cultural institutions that Mayor Eric Adams had cut from the city budget.
Some of the speaker’s new priorities, like expanding library service, will be subject to upcoming negotiations with Mayor Adams’ administration over the Fiscal Year 2026 budget. Hearings on the mayor’s initial $115 billion spending plan will begin Wednesday — and the council will be armed with its own bullish financial forecast that projects $3 billion more in tax revenues through next year compared to the mayor’s budget office.
Mayor Adams himself was not in attendance on Tuesday, as he traveled to Washington, D.C., while preparing to testify at a Wednesday congressional hearing on sanctuary city policies. But several of his top aides and agencies leaders did attend; as did Public Advocate Jumaane Wiliams, comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander, and scores of nonprofit leaders and lobbyists.
The speaker said nothing about her own mayoral ambitions on Tuesday, but did little to quell speculation.
“We need solutions more than slogans, service rather than saviors, and partnership over patriarchy,” she said. “The dignity and trust in government leadership has been shaken in our city, and it must be restored.”
