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‘A job that’s made for her’: Mayor Adams appoints NYC’s new rat czar
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Apr 12, 2023
Modified Apr 12, 2023
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Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Apr 12, 2023
Modified Apr 12, 2023
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Mayor Eric Adams has named Kathleen Corradi as the city’s “rat czar,” a new post that builds on the administration’s efforts to curb New York City's dreaded rat population. Corradi will coordinate across agencies to handle rats, working with sanitation and health departments to help reduce their numbers.
“We needed a maestro,” Adams said at a news conference on Wednesday in Harlem. "We needed someone who understood, who had the track record, who was focused on it."
Corradi previously worked at the city education department, where she handled rat mitigation at public schools.
"I have a long history with rats," said Corradi in prepared remarks. "Rats are the symptom of systemic issues, including sanitation, health, housing and economic justice."
The new hire comes amid the rollout of several measures the Adams administration has introduced to deal with the city’s rat problem. The mayor previously included “fighting rats” as one of the three pillars of his plan to make New York a livable city.
"Rats impact how you feel about the city that you're in, that's why we're taking this serious," Adams said.
Some of his policy rollouts include issuing fines to those who leave their trash outside for too long. The city’s sanitation department also announced new trash pickup times with fliers sent out to New Yorkers that implored them to “Send rats packing!” and even featured one of the rodents holding a suitcase. The City Council introduced a measure to crack down on rodents in so-called “rat mitigation zones" — areas of the city where the vermin are known to proliferate.
"It's many rivers that feed the city of rats," Adams said.
But the mayor's ongoing war with the city's rat population hasn't always gone in his favor, publicly or privately. Rat sightings in the city continued to rise on Adams' watch, and he also battled fines from the city over a rat infestation in his Bed-Stuy home, which he blamed on a neighbor.
Corradi will report to Chief of Staff Camille Joseph Varlack and will be paid a salary of $155,000. In addition to a bachelor’s degree, and proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, other qualifications include a “virulent vehemence for vermin” and “a general aura of badassery” according to the job description. The city received hundreds of applications in response to the job posting.
The new hire comes amid numerous budget cuts and pressure to curtail hiring across various city agencies and departments for the next fiscal year. Adams unveiled a roughly $103 billion spending plan for 2024 — a modest increase over last year, citing a shaky economy and the cost of responding to the influx of asylum-seekers in the city.
Corradi isn’t the first high-ranking City Hall official tasked with eradicating the presence of rodents in New York. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani appointed Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota to run a rat abatement task force decades earlier, and Lhota also became known as the city’s “rat czar.”
“You’ll be seeing a lot of me, and a lot less rats,” Corradi said.
Correction: The story has been updated to correct who the rat czar will be reporting to and updates Kathleen Corradi's salary.
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Giulia Heyward
Giulia Heyward is a breaking news reporter on the Day-Of desk. She previously worked at NPR, as a breaking news reporter, and the New York Times, as a reporting fellow on the national desk. Her work has also appeared in CNN, The Atlantic and Politico. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or more securely on signal at 917-715-1458.
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