David Handschuh/New York Daily News
New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announces his choice of Gladys Carrion as ACS commissioner.
Gladys Carrion, a Bronx native who comes from the top post at the state’s children’s agency, will be the city’s new commissioner of the Administration for Children’s Services mayor-elect Bill de Blasio said Sunday.
“This choice, to me, was very personal,” said de Blasio, who chaired the City Council committee overseeing ACS when 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown was killed in 2006 and led a push for reforms after her death.
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“The fact that this ‘Tale of Two Cities’ visits our children so sharply is one of the most troubling realities of the day,” de Blasio said, echoing his key campaign theme. “Our children, more and more, are living in homeless shelters. Our children, more and more, are living in poverty … The work of protecting children, uplifting children is sacred and it’s incredibly difficult in a city with so many challenges.”
David Handschuh/New York Daily News
Deputy mayor Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, on the left, joined de Blasio for the announcement.
For seven years, Carrion has headed the state Office of Children and Family Services, where her signature project was an effort to close and downsize juvenile detention centers upstate and shift young offenders from the city to programs closer to home.
She was also commissioner of the Community Development Agency under former Mayor David Dinkins.
“We share the same values,” Carrion said of herself and the mayor-elect. “We need to focus on tightening the system so that no child falls through the cracks … It’s something New York City can’t afford to get wrong.”
David Handschuh/New York Daily News
New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced his choice on Sunday, Dec. 22, at the Henry Street Settlement.
De Blasio said he thought the children’s agency had been moving mostly in the right direction in recent years under Mayor Bloomberg, though he said he’d focus more on preventive services.
De Blasio — who has stressed the need to build an administration that mirrors the city’s diversity – laughed when asked if any Republicans would be among his appointees.
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David Handschuh/New York Daily News
Gladys Carrion is greeted by well wishers after her appointment.
“Let’s not get crazy about this diversity idea,” he quipped.
“I am wonderfully agnostic when it comes to where people served. I care about what they did,” he said, noting he’s appointed people with experience under all four past mayors. “I haven’t set a goal around Republican representation is the honest truth. But we will look at any candidate and if they fit our values and our approach and have the right ability, you know what, it’s a free country, we’d consider Republicans too. But they have to share our values. That might be a high bar for some Republicans.”
De Blasio also weighed in on the legacy of Mayor Bloomberg, which he called “decidedly mixed.”
Bloomberg has spent the last week on a farewell tour around the five boroughs, touting his favorite achievements.
“I think there’s some areas where history will smile on him,” de Blasio said, citing the environment, public health, and investments in education.
“And then there is the core problem: He did not address inequality. He looked away from it,” de Blasio said. “He governed during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and he never addressed it, spoke to it, changed his policies to actually address the suffering of our people.”
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