It’s an important day for the city and an important day for the administration. I want to announce some important personal actions that will have an impact for years to come and want you to know how proud I am at the outset of the team that we assembled from the beginning and the incredible work that they have done.
I’ve told you throughout we will be providing you with personal updates as they occur and let me go over several things with you right now. First, very good news for the City of New York and the people of New York City.
Three tremendous public servants will continue their work on behalf of the city going into the second term – our police commissioner Jimmy O’Neill, our fire commissioner Dan Nigro, and our corporation counselor Zach Carter. And I want to thank them all for their continued commitment to this city and for the great work they are doing. I want to say something about each because I really want to honor what they have achieved.
First of all, Commissioner O’Neill, I have to say Jimmy, you have done an outstanding job it’s been now, I guess we are pushing on towards a year and a half now – hey guess what let’s start with the most important point. We have the safest big city in America and it continues to get safer. That is testament to the leadership of Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill and the great work of the men and women of the NYPD. You will remember that Jimmy started on a very difficult day – the day of the bombing in Chelsea. He proved literally on day one that he was ready for the job and he has continued to prove it every day since.
His most foundational contribution was the work he did in building the neighborhood policing model under Commissioner Bratton. That model has flourished. It has proven to be extraordinary to our crime fighting efforts and to improving the relationship between police and community and he’s also led the way in a number of key reforms including bringing body cameras to all of our officers on patrol in the coming years. Extraordinary achievement and I’m looking forward to a lot more from Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill.
I also want to quote from the Associated Press today. Looking at the crime statistics for this year and we always remind everyone the statistics represent human beings and human lives and the fact that we are on the pace to have a level of crime that we have not seen in this city in over half a century.
But the quote that jumped out to me was amazing and I, because it is the Associated Press it’s being seen all over the country – it says these numbers mean a person’s odds of getting killed by homicide in tightly packed, diverse New York City were about the same as they were last year in Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota. Extraordinary impact that your leadership has had Jimmy, and extraordinary credit to the men and women under your command.
Commissioner Dan Nigro has been a revelation from my point of view – a leader who has managed to continually make the FDNY stronger. He is universally respected, has governed over consistent progress in his agency. In 2016 the fewest fire death in New York City in over a century. An extraordinary achievement.
We have, this year, one of the safest years on record and we have a Fire Department that after a lot of years of challenges has made a huge step forward and increasingly has a personnel that look like all of New York City. Diversity in the Fire Department has increased consistently and the recent firefighter exam was taken by more than 46,000 people, 60 percent of whom were women and people of color. That’s the most ever. So, Commissioner Nigro, just so appreciative of all you’ve achieved and the constant progress you’ve made in your agency. And so happy you’ll be continuing in the role.
The last announcement, obviously is a bittersweet one. It’s not news you’ve seen in the last 24 hours but I want to just speak from heart here about Carmen FariƱa.
I have so many stories I could tell and so many warm moments and so many special moments along the way going back now 16, 17 years to when we first met and the work we did locally in District 15 in Brooklyn. And from the very beginning, Carmen was someone that I realized was an extraordinary talent but also extraordinarily wise.
And I learned a lot from her from the very beginning. I sought her counsel in all the years in between. And then the day came when the people chose me as their mayor and we had to decide on a Schools Chancellor, incredibly important difficult role. And I reached out to Carmen FariƱa.
And her first impulse was to offer me advice and I tried to steer the conversation to the topic of Carmen FariƱa with no success initially. But the more we talked the more I tried that subterfuge of describing the ideal candidate and then saying, “Oh, by the way, that describes you.”
Slowly but surely she warmed to the idea of coming out of retirement and getting back on the playing field. One thing I did not know about Carmen at the time was that she would take on the role with the kind of energy you can only call superhuman.
When someone’s coming out of retirement to take on one of the toughest jobs in the country, you wouldn’t blame them if they just worked like anyone else. She proceeded to do something miraculous. I constantly called her or emailed her while she was in the middle of a school visit.
I have no idea how she possibly managed to visit so many schools so often while answering emails from parents all over the city, while attending strategy meetings here and at the Tweed building – just unbelievable energy and focus which harkens back to one of my favorite quotes of the entire administration. The day – it was a very special day for Carmen and me both because we did the announcement at M. S. 51, in the school district that both of served those years earlier at the middle school that both Chiara and Dante went to, on the gym floor where Chiara and Dante used to play basketball.
And it was a very personal moment for me. And I was caught up in that but the single most memorable moment that day was when Carmen flashed a big, bright smile and said that part of why she was going to take on this job even though she had reached the age of 70, that she was coming back – she had said, “Today, 70 is the new 40.” And she just beamed this big smile.
I think your version of 70-is-the-new-40 actually sometimes looked like the new 30 or the new 20 because there was so much energy. But more than just the extraordinary wisdom and energy and leadership is what she achieved.
And I can tell you something – I heard this from teachers all over the school system, I heard it from parents – people felt they were in good hands. They felt that there was an educator at the helm who really knew her stuff and really felt their lives, and it made all the difference.
She will go down in history not only as one of the longest serving chancellors in the history of New York City but as one of the most effective chancellors we’ve ever had.
And the list of achievements is extraordinary.
Highest graduation rate in the history of New York City, highest college enrollment rate for our young people, highest college readiness rate, four years of improved test scores, obviously a crucial role in the launching of pre-k which has been profoundly important to the future of this city, and then the launching of 3-K. I remember being in that classroom with Carmen in the first hours of 3-K starting in this city and seeing the shape of the future.
And one of the reasons why it was possible was her confidence in her team in the ability to do great things. She never shirked. She never shirked when we talked about creating the Equity and Excellence agenda.
She never shirked when I said, “Carmen we have to figure out a pathway to getting all our kids reading on grade level by third grade.” I remember that conversation like it was yesterday. I think some of it was right in this room.
She soberly told me how unprecedented it would be in this city to achieve that level. And then she proceeded to tell me exactly what it would take and said, “We’re going to take on the mission.”
That is the epitome of who Carmen FariƱa is. So many children benefitted. So many educators benefitted from her leadership.
And I also want to say at a time when this nation was roiled by division, our Chancellor stood up as a great example of what’s best New York City.
She, with her powerful voice, her presence reassured parents and kids all over the city including our immigrant children who really feared what was coming next in their lives but because of Carmen’s leadership, they knew there was a place where they were safe and respected and protected, and that was in our schools. And that made a big, big difference at a very sensitive moment for this city.
I could go on and on but suffice to say, I asked a lot of Carmen FariƱa and she gave me even more. And it’s been a fantastic four years I couldn’t be happier with what we’ve achieved together.
And I am now formally announcing the second retirement of Carmen FariƱa. And she can – and I can say this from the bottom of my heart – leave public service with her head held very, very high.
