Dear Editor,
This is unbelievable. New York City Mayor Eric Adams rocked by a 57-page indictment issued by a federal grand jury for corruption and bribery, among other charges. This man’s move up the ladder in the NYPD to Brooklyn Borough President to hizzoner was followed with pride. His success was my success. A number of his key people fell by the wayside recently, and now he is under the hammer. This is a bad day for many people, including New York City’s huge West Indian contingent. Like everyone else, Mayor Adams is innocent until the last word is said and all that went before is held against him.
As I reel from what feels like a personal blow, the thinking is how some of those who rise to the top must go the extra mile to be extra careful. Meaning, squeaky clean in all their dealings, with nothing left to chance. People like us always must remember that Big Brother is watching and scrutinizing sharply, and that no effort must be spared to do things by the book. Matters have progressed (or degraded) from the mayor being called upon too often and spending too much time parrying the wolves away to the mayor himself now having the book thrown at him. It is not easy to watch the slow deterioration of a place that served as home away from home for most of the over three decades spent in the United States. It is just as difficult to watch things come to this for a man who it was thought had something different about him. He could still emerge from this blistering storm untouched. But some taint will linger; there is that odor even from now.
The thought never crossed that Eric Adams, the former police officer, Eric Adams the mayor, or Eric Adams the man could ever be involved in the kind of business that made him resemble so many of Guyana’s leading political lights. To be sure, as matters stand today, everything is under that qualifier that goes by the name of alleged. It is scant comfort. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is a hell of a job to return to its resting place. What’s next for Mayor Adams will unfold at what is sure to be a frenzied spectacle growing from strength to strength and all in the media capital of the world. The last thought is where New York City goes from here?
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
