Unbiased mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo mentioned Wednesday he’d scrap the controversial plan to shut the Rikers Island jail complicated if he’s elected in November – a shocking about-face from the ex-governor.
Cuomo — who as governor championed closing the troubled complicated — mentioned throughout a Crain’s New York enterprise breakfast he needs to desert the plan to shut Rikers by 2027 and exchange it with 4 borough-based jails.
“Let’s make a significant begin by stopping a significant debacle — the brand new jail building to exchange Rikers Island,” Cuomo informed enterprise leaders.
“The writing is on the wall: it guarantees to be New York Metropolis’s Large Ditch. It’s already years late, billions over funds, and out of date.”
The worth tag to construct the 4 jails ballooned from $8 billion to $16 billion lately.
The 4 websites eyed for the alternative jails in Kew Gardens, Queens; the Bronx; Downtown Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan would as a substitute be used to construct inexpensive housing, he mentioned.
“We should always rebuild new, state-of-the-art jails on Rikers Island, present free bus service, and reuse the 4 cleared, large current websites for main housing and business developments,” the ex-governor mentioned.
“It might instantly unleash nice potential whereas avoiding extra years of delay and authorities waste.”
The Unbiased Rikers Fee continues to imagine the complicated needs to be closed “as quickly as humanely doable.”
“Rebuilding on Rikers is extremely problematic, fiscally flawed, and at variance with the legislation and the current superior state of contracting, cash invested, and preparatory work already undertaken to construct 4 new extra humane native jails within the metropolis,” mentioned the fee’s chairman Jonathan Lippman, former chief decide of the state of New York.
Backers of closing Rikers mentioned the about-face was a determined bid to revive his comeback bid for mayor as he continues to path Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani within the polls.
“This isn’t a plan; it’s a political rip-off with no foundation in info or actuality,” a spokesman for Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams mentioned.
“It might price the town billions of {dollars} extra and make our metropolis much less secure for all New Yorkers.”
The situations at Rikers — the place a dozen detainees have died at Rikers this 12 months — are so dreadful for inmates awaiting trial and corrections officers {that a} federal decide is placing the system into receivership.
Cuomo’s rival Mamdani mentioned he helps the plan to shut Rikers, which is baked into metropolis legislation.
“[Rikers] is a stain on our metropolis, and to maintain it open, it’s a betrayal, not solely of the legislation because it stands in the present day, but in addition of what New Yorkers truly need,” Mamdani mentioned.
“They don’t need somebody working to be the mayor of the town that can maintain Rikers Island open,” he mentioned.
“They need somebody who will truly have the ability to carry to an finish the historical past of abuse that we’ve seen on that very island.”
However Mamdani — who’s now serving as a member of the state Meeting — has additionally modified his place.
Mamdani blasted the council in 2019 — a 12 months previous to his election — for not going far sufficient with its plan,. which he criticized as “growing the facility of the carceral state.”
“Let it additionally make clear what we’ve got recognized for years: this metropolis’s much-heralded class of progressive electeds will take us solely to the purpose of reform, not past. #NoNewJails,” he wrote on X.
Curtis Sliwa, the Republican Social gathering nominee for mayor, has lengthy opposed closing the Rikers Island complicated, a place clearly spelled out on his marketing campaign web site.
He ripped Cuomo’s about-face as a determined political ploy.
“New Yorkers are watching a Cuomo that’s so determined for private redemption that he’ll say no matter is handy,” Sliwa mentioned.
“Andrew Cuomo places Andrew Cuomo first,” Sliwa mentioned.
“Whereas the ‘C’ in Curtis Sliwa stands for consistency, the ‘C’ in Andrew Cuomo stands for chaos.”
Cuomo typically needled then-Mayor Invoice de Blasio for not transferring quick sufficient with a plan to exchange it.
