New York City Tag

Though felony assaults are down in the park this year, misdemeanor assaults are up. There were 15 misdemeanor assaults between Jan. 1 and July 26 of this year, as opposed to 11 for the same period last year. And narcotics arrests in the park have more than doubled this year. There were 23 drug busts between Jan. 1 and July 26 of this year, as opposed to 10 for the same period last year. Still, the number of criminal summonses has taken a nose dive, Perhaps pointing to more lax enforcement if such quality of life offenses as loitering, disorderly conduct, or public drinking and urinating. Between Jan. 1 and July 26, parks cops wrote 2,100 summonses. But during the same months of last year, they wrote 3,026 summonses.

Administration officials are studying how to curb the price of a fare Uber can charge during peak hours, prevent livery drivers from dropping non-Uber customers for Uber rides, and help taxis develop their own app to make hailing a cab easier, say sources familiar with City Hall.

Who Needs Quality of Life, Anyway? Last week, the New York City Council announced that it was preparing legislation to reduce the penalties for a host of “minor crimes.” Open urination, drinking alcohol in public, riding bikes on the sidewalk, and other public-order infractions like subway fare-beating would no longer be considered criminal violations but rather civil offenses, akin to parking near a crosswalk. Instead of receiving a summons to appear in court, violators could pay a fine through the mail. Proponents offer a simple explanation for why the changes are necessary: the negative effect that interaction with the criminal justice system has on those who receive summonses. Council Member Jumaane Williams has separately bemoaned the arrest of people for “minor infractions” in the subway on the grounds that “an arrest can cause significant stress” for the arrestee, as well as imposing “financial hardship.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio was sworn in Wednesday, promising to usher in a sweeping agenda that would remake the nation's largest city as a foundry for liberal ideas. Among the Democrat's early priorities are higher taxes on city residents making more than $500,000 a year, universal prekindergarten, de-emphasizing standardized testing in public schools and reining in aggressive street stops by the police The new mayor, whose campaign theme was ending a "tale of two cities," has made clear that he would like to be a national leader in trying to combat income inequality. Scott Stringer, the city's new comptroller, said the 52-year-old Mr. de Blasio would tackle the income gap "in a way that hasn't been a priority since Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty." The city for the past 20 years has been ruled by mayors who won office as Republicans: Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. During those years, violent crime fell to record lows, mirroring national trends, while high-school graduation rates rose and development moved into neighborhoods once seen as dangerous. The agencies Mr. de Blasio says he wants to change—the New York Police Department and the Department of Education, to name two—were often held up as national models.