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Another day, another changing of the guard by another Eric Adams crony. On Friday, speculation grew that acting Police Commissioner Tom Donlon- the third different person to be the city’s top cop since Adams took office- would step down and be replaced by the current Sanitation Commissioner, Jessica Tisch. Adams, meanwhile, continues to brush off questions about how much longer he’ll be able to stay in office, saying he’s not going anywhere but back to work in his office in City Hall. Author and University of Massachusetts history professor Vincent Cannato, whose book “The Ungovernable City” delves into the history of Big Apple politics, feels the mayor may be right about that claim. Speaking on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program, Cannato says there’s a key reason for the lack of accountability.
“What are the alternatives, right?’, Cannato told Berman and Riedel. “There’s no benefit to him resigning. He might as well just keep staying on; there’s no one who’s strong enough to force him out. There’s a weak governor. Governor Hochul’s weak; she doesn’t have the political power to push him out. There’s no Democratic Party mechanism, there’s no Tammany Hall, there’s no Democratic machine anymore that can say, ‘Listen, your time is up; time to leave.’ There’s nobody out there to do that, so it’s just in his interest to keep staying.”
Cannato added that New Yorkers shouldn’t look to a political Lone Ranger to ride to their rescue, either. “He’s going to try and tough it out, and there’s no candidate out there, there’s no one candidate, who can take him on. I mean, there’s Cuomo, there’s Letitia James, and he’s most likely going to run simply because he’s got money to spend and he’s got nothing else to do, but he’s made a lot of enemies over the years, and he is a notoriously difficult guy, so we’ll see how much support he can get.”
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