Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio Turns Down Meeting With Visiting Mayor Of Rome

[VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE] Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio is a busy man. His transition team only announced a couple of new picks for his new administration and only today he announced his move to Gracie Mansion in January. But it happens to be he may have caused some discomfort to one resident in his home country of Italy – the new mayor of Rome – along the road.

Speaking with City and State, at the sidelines of a special reception in his honor at the DL21C’s 21st Annual Holiday Bash, Rome’s Mayor Ignazio Marino – also a member of center-left Democratic Party – who was elected in June, 2103, said he reached out to arrange a meeting with the Mayor-elect but was turned down.

“I did ask for a meeting with Bill de Blasio, but at the present time I understand he doesn’t want to meet anybody because he’s working as hard as possible in order to get settled in the government,” Mr. Marino said.

Mr. Marino has a scheduled meeting with Mayor Bloomberg during his visit to NYC, and he also appeared on a HuffPost Live broadcast Wednesday to discuss similar policies and issues Rome and New York share together.

“An international incident for de Blasio?” Capital new York reporter, Azi Paybarah tweeted. To which City and State’s editor noted that Mayor-Elect de Blasio had time for a fundraiser Tuesday night, although it was not on his public schedule.

@Azi @deBlasioNYC @agrenell @IsaacDovere @hunterw What was @deBlasioNYC up to last night? Oh, that’s right. Another fundraiser.

— Morgan Pehme (@morganpehme) December 11, 2013