Andrew Cuomo Wants To Fix New York. Critics Say He Was Part Of The Problem.

NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo launched a comeback bid Saturday by painting a gloomy portrait of a New York City in decline and pledging to turn things around if elected mayor.

By Monday, nearly all of his rivals had the same reaction: Cuomo is to blame for much of what ails the nation’s most populous city. They said he damaged mass transit and housing programs as governor in his desire to exert authority over former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

With that line of attack, Cuomo’s Democratic opponents are attempting to undermine the former governor’s ties to the city as well as one of his biggest assets: his self-styling as a competent manager ready to clean up Gotham.

Those rivals, who were waiting for this weekend’s late entry into the race, are hoping to appeal to voters who value genuine New York bona fides — like riding the subway to work — and believe they demonstrate authenticity.

His critics are also noting that his decadelong tenure in Albany coincided with a surging homelessness population across the city and an increasingly ramshackle mass transit system — questioning whether he’s committed to improving the city or just seeking vindication from the scandals that led to his resignation in 2021.

“Being mayor may help Andrew Cuomo, but it won’t do a damn thing for New Yorkers,” said Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller and mayoral candidate, in a video released by his campaign.

Cuomo’s yearslong feud with de Blasio, cuts to public assistance programs and handling of mass transit policy became immediate fodder for opponents, who argued his pursuit of power was to the detriment of city residents. They will all face off in the Democratic primary June 24.

A super PAC led by a former de Blasio staffer intensified those barbs and, in a pointed rebuke of Cuomo’s affordability platform unveiled Monday, blasted his penchant for “showy projects” like a bridge light show — instead of simply fixing the dilapidated subway cars.

Fueling the skepticism is the Queens native’s relatively new re-conversion as a city resident: After living for years in suburban Westchester County and the governor’s mansion in Albany, he registered to vote last summer at a Manhattan address.

“Changing your voter registration doesn’t mean you understand what it’s like to be a real New Yorker,” said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the Working Families Party, which has long battled the former governor and will be screening mayoral candidates Sunday.

The attacks are an implicit recognition that it’s Cuomo — not the scandal-scarred Mayor Eric Adams running for reelection — who is considered the front-runner in the race.

Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi scoffed at the criticism.

“New York City is in crisis, and we need a serious, proven leader who can get the job done,” he said. “Instead of meeting the moment these nameless, faceless politicians — some of whom have been in office since the 90s — are flailing around trying to rewrite history because they have no real records of their own other than bear hugging extreme DSA rhetoric and cutting $1 billion from the NYPD budget.”

Cuomo has also been in public life for decades as well.

Azzopardi credited Cuomo with major infrastructure projects like the Moynihan Train Hall and Kosciuszko Bridge while “delivering progress where Washington failed” on gun control, paid family leave, abortion rights and tax cuts.

The former governor’s fights with de Blasio, disputes over who controls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (the governor does) and decisions around affordable housing programs have created a costlier city, his opponents alleged. Much of the criticism stems from Cuomo’s own self-acknowledged micromanaging and the inherent power a governor wields over city policies.

Cuomo was blamed by critics for the deterioration of mass transit infrastructure and his administration faulted for what critics considered frivolous expenses, like more than $200 million on a multi-colored light show that was meant to be a tourist attraction. It was in keeping with the governor’s affection for glitzy projects, like the popular overhaul of La Guardia Airport.

“It was Cuomo’s grave mismanagement and carelessness that brought us the ‘summer of hell’ where the subway system was so abominable, there were 70,000 delays a month, causing lost wages from tardiness and missed medical appointments,” said mayoral candidate Brad Lander, the city comptroller.

Cuomo’s campaign asserted the former governor’s administration “made an historical state commitment to the capital plan” of $8.3 billion in 2015 while he was governor and credited Cuomo with ensuring city and MTA funding commitments for the plan.

The criticisms of Cuomo’s oversight of the city date further back.

As the state was facing significant budget gaps, Cuomo cut $65 million in 2011 in annual funding for a rental assistance program known as Advantage, for people exiting city homeless shelters. Then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg to end the initiative as a result, something experts cite as a leading reason homelessness spiked in the city in the following years.

“You can blame Bloomberg for not doing more having been cheated out of all this money, but the person doing all the cheating was Andrew Cuomo,” said Joshua Goldfein, an attorney focused on homelessness at the Legal Aid Society.

The homeless census immediately surged: Between March 2011, when the program was suspended, and the end of 2013, the city’s shelter population increased by 35 percent. There are presently 84,843 people sleeping in municipal shelters, according to the Department of Homeless Services’ daily census.

Azzopardi called the claim “false and lazy” and pointed to replacement programs that had more funding than the initial $59 million. Those were targeted to older New Yorkers and people with disabilities and HIV/AIDS.

Cuomo — federal housing secretary for former President Bill Clinton — acknowledged the city’s homelessness crisis in his launch video. During his 17-minute address, he described a troubling feeling “when you walk down the street and try not to make eye contact with a mentally ill homeless person, or when the anxiety rises up in your chance as you’re walking down into the subway.”

As the city struggled to curtail street homelessness, Cuomo also oversaw a reduction in psychiatric beds, which dropped by 11 percent between 2014 and 2022 — one year after he resigned from office.

“Now we hear him talking about how New York City is in crisis and we need to involuntarily remove people from the streets — well, there’s no beds to put people in because Cuomo defunded them,” Goldfein said.

Azzopardi argued the state reduced only “non-forensic beds” — leaving those reserved for people with severe mental illnesses in place. And Cuomo’s administration pushed to develop 20,000 supportive housing units — apartments with social services included — to address the problem, spending $2.6 billion for the effort over five years, Azzopardi said.

Rivals additionally slammed Cuomo’s efforts to reduce the number of federal housing bonds available to the city and change how the bonds could be used — a move that would have hindered the city’s affordable housing efforts. The program was a policy priority for de Blasio, Cuomo’s political nemesis.

He didn’t go through with the threat, but city Comptroller Brad Lander cited it as an example of “pissing matches, self-aggrandizement and fear-mongering” that he said defined Cuomo’s time in office.

“This is someone who’s in it for his ego, not the problem of New Yorkers,” Lander, who is running for mayor, said Sunday in what he dubbed an “emergency press conference” regarding Cuomo’s entry into the race.