New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams delivered her fourth State of the City address on Tuesday to outline her policy priorities, which includes expanding library and child care services, improving access to higher education and creating a business accelerator for minority-owned companies.
Speaking at Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, Adams said the City Council will seek to expand seven-day library service to 10 additional branches citywide. The $2 million expansion will ensure New Yorkers have more equitable access to library services and the educational and economic opportunities they provide across the five boroughs, she said.
In addition, Adams said the city should fund a voucher that covers half the cost of childcare, or $12,000 per child annually, for families earning up to $128,000 a year—or 100% of the State Median Income.
The speaker also said she would like to boost existing programs that support adult and low-income learners at the City University of New York, including finding baseline funding for CUNY Reconnect, which finds former students who dropped out of the system to come back to finish and obtain degrees, provide additional academic support and forgiving old debt.
Adams also said she would like to see the creation of new community health, wellness and recreation centers in neighborhoods with significant health and safety challenges; reduce bureaucratic barriers to accessing CityFHEPS, the city's rental assistance program; reduce payment delays to city-contracted non-profit organizations; create a better process for residents to share their thoughts on city land and housing plans; and expand mental health care programs.
The City Council will also move to establish a Minority-Owned Business Accelerator, modeled after a similar effort in Cincinnati, Adams said. Since 2003, the Cincinnati program has helped several dozen minority-owned small businesses scale up by providing them with strong individualized business strategy and support, greater access to capital to finance expansion, and connections to major regional companies that direct significantly more procurement dollars to them.
"Growth happens where we water it, so let’s tend to our city’s entrepreneurs and help them flourish," said Adams, who noted that there are about 20,000 Black-and Latino-owned businesses across the five boroughs, but few ever grow into medium-sized or large-scale businesses.
At times, the speaker sounded like she was giving a campaign stump speech, after being urged to run for mayor in recent weeks.
"New York City is bigger than one person, and our city deserves leadership that prioritizes its people over individual glory or interests," said Adams. "We need solutions more than slogans, service rather than saviors, and partnership over patriarchy. The dignity and trust in government leadership has been shaken in our city, and it must be restored."
Adams also talked about the Trump administration stripping away rights of the immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities.
"They are counting on our despair and our inaction. What a grave mistake," she said.
Adams also pledged to improve communities of color by providing better mental health services, additional job opportunities and improving healthcare for Black women.
"Public service cannot be about our own glory or ambition," Adams said. "Service is an intergenerational promise. It’s a commitment to each other, to our communities, and to our future to bring about the better world of our imagination. That is what this moment in our history demands of us."
