NYC Mayor de Blasio promises ‘road map’ on reopening city by June 1

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NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to tackle one of the top priorities of his administration — social and economic inequality — as he laid the groundwork for the city’s long-term recovery from the coronavirus outbreak.

“We are going to figure out how to rebuild, how to come back strong, how to take all the strengths of the city that were so clear just a few months ago and bring them back stronger than ever,” de Blasio said at a Sunday press conference, “but with a fundamental devotion to making sure this is a better city for all, a fairer city, a more inclusive city.”

He said by June 1, one of about a dozen new task forces will come up with a “preliminary road map” on reopening the city. Former Lieutenant Gov. Dick Ravitch, longtime civil servant Carl Weisbrod, Henry Garrido of the DC37 union and others will lead that group.

De Blasio’s rhetoric harkened back to the theme of his first campaign for mayor, in which he promised to rewrite the “tale of two cities” between the haves and have-nots.

“The economic and racial disparities that have been made so clear by this crisis … a powerful, painful exclamation point has been put on them by this crisis,” de Blasio said. “It is a clarion call to us to start right now fighting back against those disparities and to build a deeper plan to fight them on a more permanent basis.”

First Lady Chirlane McCray and Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson will head a task force to address “structural racism that is obviously present in the realities we are facing with this disease,” de Blasio said.

COVID-19 has killed African-American and Hispanic New Yorkers at about twice the rate of whites and Asians, according to Health Department stats, mirroring long-standing disparities in health outcomes.

De Blasio said the task force on racial inclusion will focus on support of minority- and woman-owned businesses, among other issues.

His choice of McCray to help lead the panel seems sure to spark controversy, coming after years of ridicule of the first lady’s handling of the Thrive NYC mental health initiative, which critics say has little to show for its $1 billion budget.

De Blasio said McCray has “exactly the kind of mindset needed for this task force.”

The mayor is also creating task forces on reopening small and large businesses, health care, arts, culture, tourism, labor, nonprofits and social services, religious organizations and education and vocational training. The groups will begin meeting in the first week of May, he said.

Further, de Blasio said he will assemble a commission to weigh changes to the city’s constitution, known as the charter, a potentially momentous move. Previous commissions have provided the green light for everything from the nuances of ballot forms to an extra term for former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

De Blasio declined to go into detail about the forthcoming revision commission.

“That’s an opportunity to take a more structural look at the work of New York City government,” he said.

With the daily numbers of COVID-19 fatalities decreasing but key indicators still showing mixed results on progress containing the outbreak, de Blasio emphasized the city has a long road ahead.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do and it’s going to be for me and my team a nonstop effort, a race to the finish line over the next 20 months to do the most we can to put the city on the strongest possible footing for the future,” he said.

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