New York’s Mayor (r.) Starts his second term with testimony from his family and US Senator Bernie Sanders (l.).
(Photo: dpa)
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New York Bill de Blasio became the first US Democrat since 1985 to take up a second term as Mayor of New York. In freezing temperatures, Senator Bernie Sanders took his oath of office from him at an outdoor ceremony on Monday. “This is a warm and pleasant afternoon by Vermont standards,” joked Sanders, who sits in the Senate for the east coast state of Vermont, in front of the crowd. In the early afternoon it was around minus ten degrees Celsius in New York.
De Blasio had clearly won re-election in November. He is the first Democrat since Edward Koch to receive another term in New York City Hall. De Blasio noted that the city had the lowest number of murders per year since the early 1950s. “We brought the police and community together like never before,” he said. He imagines a city that serves not only the elite and the greats of Wall Street.
Sanders, who tried in vain for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, praised de Blasio’s work. “In this city, the largest city in our country, the people of New York under Bill de Blasio have chosen to move the government in a very different direction than what we are seeing in Washington,” said Sanders. “Instead of favoring billionaires, we have a government here that has chosen to listen to the needs of working-class families.”
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