Last week, the nearly 200,000 people I represent were left stranded by their Mayor – a Mayor I have supported for years. In fact, his no non-sense approach to government is what I have always sought to emulate. Yet, the man who convinced me that I needed his leadership for a third term, failed me. Because of his failure, millions have suffered. Politicians, pundits and everyday people are already pointing fingers, blaming Commissioners and Deputies across the Administration. I, however, place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the mayor who is always in charge.
When the City Council holds its oversight hearings on January 10th, my goal will be to examine where there were failures, whether they were avoidable and how to prevent this type of catastrophic breakdown in emergency response in the future. My colleagues and I will, undoubtedly, make countless recommendations to the Mayor. However, if history is any guide, he will ignore them. This is a man who shuns criticism and vests his commissioners with a degree of trust and autonomy unseen by any other Mayor in our history. While I appreciate the benefits that come with knowing you have the support and protection of your boss, I believe that his persistent defense of seemingly indefensible acts is inexcusable and directly led to the events of last week. In essence, the Mayor sends a message to all of his staff: it is okay to screw up, because I will never fire you.
In 2006, Nixmary Brown’s death shocked and outraged the city, and there were fervent calls for Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) Commissioner John Mattingly to resign following a breakdown within his agency that was appalling. The Mayor stood behind Mattingly and both made promises to reform an obviously broken system. In 2009, three years later, the City Council held hearings that showed the deficiencies at ACS persisted and, in 2010, history repeated itself when 4-year-old Marchella Pierce, who was under ACS-supervision, was found beaten and starving to death in her home. Mattingly remains at the helm of ACS because even having children die on your watch is not enough to get Mayor Mike to fire you.
In a December 2009 City Council hearing, my colleagues highlighted spiraling costs and irregularities with a program called CityTime. Despite mounting evidence that corruption was afoot, the administration did not pursue the Council’s claims that the program was in trouble. A year later, the CityTime scandal erupted, nearly $80 million in fraud was uncovered and federal prosecutors arrested city subcontractors. It seemed like a no-brainer that Joel Bondy, the head of the payroll-administration office responsible for overseeing the project, would be fired immediately. Not so, in the Bloomberg administration. Bondy was only suspended and, just days later, resigned on his own terms. Apparently, having the greatest modern fraud perpetrated under your watch is also not enough to get Mayor Mike to fire you.
When I announced my City Council run one year ago, I was delighted at the time to have the Mayor’s support. I believed then, that the Mayor has a unique ability to run government efficiently. However, his unwillingness to hold his staff accountable has become the fatal flaw of his administration. Mr. Mayor, it is not too late to rectify the mistakes that you made. But, it will require you to hold individuals at the highest levels of your administration accountable for their mistakes, as well. Accountability only means one thing: every single person responsible for the snow failure must lose their job. Until every single person who failed this city is fired, you will not regain my confidence or the confidence of millions of other New Yorkers.
David Greenfield is an attorney and Democratic New York City Councilman from Brooklyn.
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14 Responses
I am truly alarmed at Mr. Greenfield’s intemperate attack on the Mayor.
If his charges are true, and the mayor is, indeed, an arrogant and inflexible man, that is all the more reason to approach him with softness.
Arrogant people become even more intransigent when attacked.
Besides, as Jews in Golus, we must be ever mindful of the advice of our Father Jacob to move cautiously with Eisav (or Eisav’s imitators).
Mr. greenfield is standing up for his communities rights! Howver,, a yid should be soft spoken and not in your face.
wow, excellent. i am proud we have someone who stands up for our rights!!!
yea, I am sure Mr. Greenfield will be more impressed with the next mayor of New York City, after all, that mayor will really care about Mr. Greenfield’s constituents.
David Greenfield is setting himself up to run for mayor. Since I know he reads the comments here I will address them directly to him.
David be careful and make sure your completly clean in all aspects, remember the higher the climb the harder the fall.
Sometimes your five minutes can have major negative consequences. There was no point in this attack. It was a self serving headline which will only cause him damage. Do your job (which you usually do well)and shtiller heit.
The fact that he believes “every person accountable for the snow should lose their job” speaks volumes about his impracticality and irrationality in dealing with major issues. I would like Mr. Greenfield to go to their house and fire them just as he implored Mr. Bloomberg to “come down himself and shovel the snow.” I want to know if his stance would change when he looks those families in the eyes and tells them that in the toughest economic climate our city has ever seen, there will not be enough money to put food on the table. Granted, people MUST be held accountable, however, firing the masses is not the answer. I love how Mr. Greenfield also conveniently stated in his press conference that he “should come down with a shovel on his own and they will shovel ALONG with him.” If it is so important, why wait for the mayor? This personal vendetta against Mr. Bloomberg extends beyond the snow. Mr. Greenfield is hurt by the fact that his once staunchest supporter declined his pet-project, Priority 7. We are operating deep in the red and face an unbearable budget. Should Mr. Bloomberg approve the project, which predominantly benefits orthodox jews, and fire a plethora of city employees instead? We all know what Mr. Greenfield would answer. I always respected the Councilman as he was someone who I once thought was rational and had the brash confidence to even make the toughest decisions. I have seen through this storm,however, that to be brash is an easy thing to do; to be brash while maintaining intelligence is the real difficult test.
The mayor has to be held accountable for this disasterous situation. Councilman Greenfield is justified in his sharp critisism. This will result in the mayor thinking twice about not servicing our community, in the future.
Enough is enough. Stop riding high over the Mayors downfall. Although you may think you make yourself look good by writing such an article, quite the opposite is true. What your doing is making yourself look bad & it’s quite clear to myself, as well as many of the previous coomentators, that your article is completely self serving. Be careful. You can fool them all but you can’t fool all of them.
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My issue with you is not that you disagree with Greenfield but rather that you obviously have no clue as to how evil the mayor is. He is a radical left winger and by defending him you are guilty of being in his camp of heretics. Mayor Bloomberg is a secular Jew who is a living chilul Hashem and you chose instead to attack Greenfield, an Orthodox Jewish leader who shows some veracity in a dark world of immorality. Those who sympathize with the evil will eventually hate the righteous. I believe you have already arrived at that point. You accuse Greenfield of being vexed by the loss of Priority 7 but are you, in your self-righteous indignation, at all upset that the mayor is one of the most outspoken proponents of the alternate lifestyle community? You have defended the worst of the liberal element in this country. Publicly. Have you no shame?
How would you have handled this situation in the Mayors place? It’s not like he ordered them to skip Brooklyn.
Joseph 613- I am not siding with Bloomberg. If you read my commentary, you would have seen that never did I say that Bloomberg was right in his treatment of the city after the blizzard.I found his post-blizzard comments to be arrogant and out of character for a mayor, any mayor. I, however, do not understand where Mr. Bloomberg’s secular judaism comes into the conversation. This is not an issue of liberalism or judaism. You are mixing prejudice in, and it is for that exact reason that people are misguided in politics.
Great article! but they do not need to be fired but punished
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You write, “You are mixing prejudice in, and it is for that exact reason that people are misguided in politics.”
My simple approach to politics is that we in the diaspora have to be wary and suspicious of any secular minded liberal individual. Historically, it was the Hellenists, the Communists and Zionists who have led MILLIONS astray. Now we have “Jewish” political leaders who actually support partial birth abortion among many other aberrations and I am indeed totally prejudiced in that I trust right wing Christians far more than I do secular Jews. The Talmud in Sanhedrin states clearly that Moshiach will not arrive before all Jewish power is eliminated form the earth.
Mayor Bloomberg is very proud of his anti-Torah positions and it is for that reason that his arrogance during the blizzard crisis was so difficult to swallow. Greenfield, as an Orthodox Jew, can be guilty of mistakes like all human beings, but his core is one which does look out for “klal yisroel”, or at least his 200,000 constituents, and not the evil ones who march in their annual parade, openly defying Hashem and His Law. It is very simple. Bloomberg’s core constituents are the sinners of SOHO and Greenfield is trying his best to be a leader to a Torah community. Why this is hard to understand I wonder indeed.