The Daily News reports:
Someone must have been in charge when the blizzard roared into town last week, but City Hall won’t say who.
Mayor Bloomberg – who often jets off on weekends, sometimes to a vacation home in Bermuda – refuses to divulge where he was over the blizzard weekend.
The City Charter says Bloomberg must appoint a deputy to take control when he leaves town, but Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith – who oversees snow clearing and other crucial services – was in Washington.
Another deputy mayor, Howard Wolfson, was vacationing in London and said he doesn’t know whose hand was on the wheel.
“You can focus on who was here, whether this person was here,” Wolfson told New York 1. “The bottom line is, we didn’t do the job. … Had we done that, nobody would be asking questions about where the mayor was.”
He said City Hall policy is to not give the mayor’s whereabouts when he has no public schedule. He insisted Bloomberg was in “constant touch” with his staff.
Bloomberg issued an executive order in 2008 handing over power in his absence to his first deputy, currently Patricia Harris. It’s unclear if the order remained in effect for last week’s snowstorm.
City Hall stayed mum on which of the city’s seven deputy mayors had a hand on the controls as the blizzard was bearing down on X-Mas Day.
The deputies who could have had the duty – Harris, Robert Steel, Linda Gibbs, Carol Robles-Roman and Dennis Walcott – refused to point fingers, or speak to the Daily News.
And officials refused to name a name, dismissing the question as a technicality.
“The mayor continues to be mayor. He continues to lead the city,” Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser said.
If Bloomberg left town before the storm, it’s not clear when he returned.
A 2:45 p.m. news conference on the storm response was delayed for more than an hour Dec. 26 as top aides, including the sanitation and transportation commissioners, waited for the mayor to arrive.
City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens) says he is contemplating legislation to require the mayor to notify the city clerk when he is leaving town and has put someone else in charge.
“We have a command center for a reason, and making split-second decisions, email can only go so far,” Vallone said.
(Source: NY Daily News)
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5 Responses
Clearly, no one was in charge!
Whose job is it?
This is a story about 4 people named everybody, somebody, anybody and nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it but nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybodys job. Everybody thought anybody could do it, but nobody realized that everybody wouldnt do it. It ends up that everybody blames somebody when nobody did what anybody could have done
Why do we need a mayor if he doing no job at all?
Wouldn’t it be Loshen Hora to say so?
Akuperma, You are heartless and spewing utter nonsense. Please do your homework. This is why everyone gets away with everything and no one is ever responsible. Are you not aware that there was loss of life and property because of deliberate negligence as reported throughout?