The following is from an email sent by NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio to YWN:

Dear Friend,

On Friday, I wrote to Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his decision to mislead the public and key figures of his own administration, including NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, about the circumstances leading to Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s resignation. The people of New York City deserve an apology and a thorough accounting from the Mayor.

Here is an article from today’s New York Times with more information on the issue:

September 2, 2011

Bloomberg Is Chastised Over Silence on Deputy

By MICHAEL BARBARO

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Friday ducked questions about why he had concealed the arrest of a top deputy, canceling a weekly radio appearance and disappearing from public view even as the city’s public advocate accused the mayor of lying about the episode.

Bill de Blasio, who as public advocate is New York’s second-highest-ranking elected official, issued the harshest rebuke of the mayor to date over the intensifying controversy and called for a law requiring stricter reporting requirements on arrests of city officials.

“Given the revelations over the past 48 hours, the people of New York City deserve your apology and a thorough accounting,” Mr. de Blasio said in a letter to the mayor.

“I cannot accept the leader of the City of New York lying to its citizens,” he wrote.

Mr. Bloomberg has been under fire since Thursday morning, when it was revealed that he had offered a misleading rationale for the resignation of a deputy mayor, Stephen Goldsmith, 64.

At the time of Mr. Goldsmith’s departure, on Aug. 4, the mayor’s office said that he was “leaving to pursue private-sector opportunities in infrastructure finance.” Mr. Goldsmith and City Hall have now acknowledged that the real reason for his resignation was his arrest several days earlier over a domestic violence complaint — an arrest he had immediately reported to Mr. Bloomberg.

Current New York City law requires that the city’s Department of Investigation be notified whenever a city official is arrested in New York; Mr. Goldsmith, however, was arrested in Washington, where he and his wife had an altercation in their home.

On Friday, for the second day in a row, Mr. Bloomberg and his aides steadfastly refused to discuss his handling of the matter, clearing his schedule of any public events in what seemed to be an effort to avoid interacting with members of the news media.

Mr. Bloomberg skipped his weekly radio show appearance on WOR-AM (710), rather than face questions over his decision not to disclose the arrest. But in Mr. Bloomberg’s absence, his co-host, John Gambling, who is known for his gentle treatment of the mayor, unexpectedly took him to task.

“Did he really believe that this story would not come out?” Mr. Gambling asked. “I mean, it was a public record.”

Offering unsolicited advice to the mayor, Mr. Gambling said: “Don’t try and cover things up, because you’re always going to get caught eventually.” At this point, he said, Mr. Bloomberg has “got to come clean.”

Advocates for government integrity said they were surprised and disappointed that Mr. Bloomberg, a champion of transparency and accountability, had dodged a chance to explain himself. “I’d strongly advise him to face the music soon,” said Gene Russianoff, a staff lawyer with the New York Public Interest Research Group. “Mayors can’t hide.”

There were few expressions of support from Mr. Bloomberg’s most reliable allies. A city councilman from Queens, James F. Gennaro, issued a lukewarm statement saying the mayor “did what he believed was necessary,” for the Goldsmiths and New Yorkers.

Many of the mayor’s longtime supporters strongly critiqued him, raising pointed questions about his judgment and credibility.

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch, a staunch Bloomberg supporter, said that either Mr. Bloomberg or Mr. Goldsmith should have come forward with a full account of the arrest and the role it had played in the resignation.

“That would have been the better way to handle this, in hindsight,” Mr. Koch said. He called Mr. Bloomberg’s effort to protect an aide admirable in theory, but “a bridge too far.”

On Friday, the editorial boards of The New York Post and The Daily News, which generally back Mr. Bloomberg on policy matters, assailed him for misrepresenting the circumstances of Mr. Goldsmith’s decision to step down.

The News wrote that the mayor “let loyalty get the better of his duty to provide the public with straight goods.”

“Bloomberg,” it said, “owed New York the full explanation for his deputy’s departure, for the sake of the historical record and to enable the public to judge the quality of the mayor’s staff picks.”

The Post editorial was even more blunt. “New Yorkers have a right to know,” it said, “when the second-most powerful man in city government is sitting in a D.C. jail cell.”

“Explain yourself,” it advised Mr. Bloomberg.

—
Thank you,
Bill de Blasio