New York Post Editorial
Mayor de Blasio has ’fessed up to an unfortunate truth: He doesn’t know what his top minions are doing. Rather, he says, he sets out “broad goals” for his deputies, who then run with them.
Problem is, this mayor isn’t hands-off — he’s checked-out.
“While I am sometimes briefed on specific decisions being made by an agency, I typically do not have unique knowledge on the subject,” de Blasio wrote in a signed seven-page declaration filed Monday. “Additionally, I do not micromanage the deputy mayors or city agency commissioners.”
The statement is a bid to avoid being deposed in a lawsuit that argues city affordable-housing policy is racist. No matter that affordable housing is a signature de Blasio issue: His “I know nothing” defense rings all too true.
Time and again, he has denied major problems at one agency or another, admitting the truth only when he has no choice left.
Just look at his mishandling of the scandal-plagued Administration for Children’s Services, where it took a string of tragic deaths to force him to bring in new leadership.
Or his long denials of the NYCHA horrors. While claiming to speak authoritatively, he even bungled the number of units that might contain toxic lead paint.
Or his refusal to admit that street homelessness was soaring (with cops ignoring illegal encampments) until The Post presented day after day of photographic proof.
Yes, de Blasio is hands-on when it comes to politics — that is, his own political needs. The public record shows he’s deeply involved in fund-raising, and in making sure donors’ requests get attention (at least).
And he’s focused like a laser on building his national progressive profile: flying off to the border to grandstand on immigration; naming a “millionaires tax” as the answer to every problem — and even pushing racial quotas for the city’s top high schools.
Too bad he can’t be bothered to play politics on the city’s behalf: If he did, he could’ve found a way to keep those school-zone red-light cameras running. But he’s never even built firm alliances with Assembly Democrats, his natural allies.
When it comes to the needs of New York City, de Blasio is just too busy chasing his own goals — including, of course, at the gym.