Topping Mayor Bill de Blasio's City Hall to-do list will be addressing the homeless crisis, closing and replacing Rikers Island and expanding affordable housing. | AP Photo As de Blasio boasts of a mandate, second-term storm clouds gather on the horizon

After clinching an easy victory Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio immediately signaled an interest in the national stage, but growing problems at home loom as he begins his second term.

A litany of unresolved municipal issues will demand the mayor's attention in the coming four years, all while economic growth is slowing and the federal government plans to cut funding for some of the city’s most cash-strapped services, like public housing and hospitals.


Topping de Blasio's City Hall to-do list will be addressing the homeless crisis, closing and replacing Rikers Island jail and expanding affordable housing.

In Albany the mayor faces a second front where his enemies outnumber his allies. To compensate for the budgetary shortfall and fund the city's deteriorating subway system, de Blasio will push for a tax increase on high-income earners. He also intends to ask for more cash from the state to fund the next phase of his pre-kindergarten expansion plan.

The mayor will be waging those fights while Democratic politicians eyeing his seat in four years are all but certain to begin lobbing criticism at his administration in a push to distinguish themselves from the de Blasio mayoralty.

“The challenge is that the overwhelming majority of Council members will be in their final term. Many will be forced to run against each other for higher office,” Council Member David Greenfield, who is stepping down from his seat at the end of this year, said in an interview. “Naturally, that will lead to some healthy competition.”

It's not just Council members the mayor needs to be wary of. All city politicians elected in 2013 — Council members, borough presidents, the comptroller and the public advocate — are term-limited and will be on the hunt for their next job.

Some of the looming crises are of the city’s own handling (or mishandling): a record-high homeless population inherited from the Bloomberg years that has only worsened on de Blasio’s watch and the notoriously violent Rikers Island jail, the shuttering of which he cautiously embraced this year.

De Blasio’s solutions to both issues rely on the politically unpopular decision to site homeless shelters and jails throughout the city — a process sure to be ensnared by "not-in-my-backyard" fights with local politicians. Although the Council’s Queens delegation has already signaled support to opening a small detention facility in that borough, de Blasio faces an uphill battle in other parts of the city.

“We want to start that land-use process immediately, and we want to start the processes in the other three boroughs immediately as soon as they can be begun,” he said Wednesday. “The land decision-making process through [Uniform Land Use Review Procedure] is on a clock and that clock will have to run its course, and everyone knows that construction in New York City does not happen overnight. But that’s the first step, and it’s going to happen aggressively.”

Beneath the top-tier problems lies another web of equally complicated matters with which the mayor will be forced to contend.

In April, a coalition of real estate developers, homeowners and civic-minded types sued the city and state over long-standing complaints about the property tax system. They claim the process for assessing values relies on built-in inequities that favor white, wealthy owners and disproportionately hurt renters living in multi-family buildings.

De Blasio has promised reform, which would also require approval in Albany, but cautioned the matter is better dealt with legislatively than through litigation.

“We will come up with a more consistent, more transparent, more fair system,” he said at a recent Association for a Better New York appearance. “But I want to put a caveat on it. We can’t reduce our revenue substantially. It will take a lot of time and energy, but I am ready to do it. And it’s not the kind of mission a lot of people want to take on in public life.”

During a town hall in East New York, Brooklyn, last month, the mayor said change would take a year or two and acknowledged the political perils that lie ahead, since any reduction for some property owners would be offset by an increase for others.

“Wish me luck," he quipped at the time. "Pray for me."

De Blasio has had the luxury of governing during a prolonged economic expansion, and while former Mayor Michael Bloomberg stuck him with 144 unsettled contracts, he also left him a multi-billion-dollar surplus that helped the new administration negotiate deals with every municipal labor union.

Now those contracts, many of which cover four years and were settled in 2013, are coming due.

“He’s had really good times, and he may not be able to continue in the ‘expansive investment’ mode that he talks about. I don’t know that the administration is really acknowledging or ready for that eventuality,” Carol Kellermann, president of the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, said in an interview.

“He achieved pattern bargaining and he got them all done and you can argue about whether the raises were not enough [or] too much, but they were all decided and predictable and built into his financial plan,” she said of the contracts. “Now, here we are again. And I think it’s a time to be prudent about building in significant increases because you may be in a situation where some of your revenue dries up.”

In addition to perpetual uncertainty in Albany, where lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are up for reelection in 2018, the mayor’s team has begun sounding the alarm about steep cuts in federal aid that would eviscerate the New York City Housing Authority and public hospital system, already in a perpetual struggle to survive.

Complicating matters further, de Blasio will likely face staff turnover throughout his administration. High-level government jobs often lead to burnout, and morale has sagged during the first term, raising speculation about who will leave the administration's ranks.

Just a day after his reelection win, he pre-emptively told reporters he would not be answering questions regarding personnel decisions.

“There will be a lot more to say in the weeks ahead, and I will stick to my historic rule that you’ve all experienced — when I have something to say on the personnel front, you’ll be the first to hear, but today is not the day in terms of this administration to give you any personnel updates,” de Blasio said.

During that press conference, he avoided discussing details of how he would tackle his second-term priorities or the challenges that lie ahead, other than to lament the federal Republican tax plan.

He also boasted about his margin of victory: 66 percent, with only 23 percent of eligible voters showing up to cast ballots.

The mayor's press secretary declined to comment about his second term, referring reporters to de Blasio’s comments instead.

“I’m optimistic because I’ve seen so much change happen,” the mayor said on Wednesday. “I’m optimistic because I’ve brought my vision to the people twice, and I’ve said we need to make big and serious changes and bold changes, and both times I got a very strong mandate.”