As city plowing crews waged a losing battle with a raging storm Sunday night, the man in charge of the operation sent a note of praise to his guys on the street.
"Good snow work by sanitation," Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith posted to his Twitter account at 11:06 p.m. Sunday night. "Long shifts well executed and continuing."
Goldsmith, the former mayor of Indianapolis who Mayor Bloomberg brought in this year to cut costs in city government, is widely disliked by the city's unionized workforce.
As the blame game heats up in the wake of the disastrous snow clean up, many are pointing fingers at Goldsmith - and noting that he wasn't in town as the flakes started falling.
Goldsmith denied Thursday that his tweet was premature.
"I wanted to show that I appreciated their 14 hours days," he said while traveling in Queens on a four-borough tour with Mayor Bloomberg.
The tweet was meant as encouragement, he said, not a comment on state of streets.
Jason Post, a spokesman for Goldsmith, said the Deputy Mayor for Operations reported to the city's emergency command center on Monday.
Post wasn't certain where Goldsmith was at 11:06 p.m. but noted that the storm was still in its early stages at that hour.
"The bulk of the storm was overnight," Post said.
Yes, that tweet seemed a little premature considering the heaviest part of the snow was to come.
But even more disturbing than the clueless tweet is Goldsmith's refusal to say where he was on Sunday.
The mayor's allies are trying to scapegoat unionized workers for the snow disaster, but the man who is in charge of those workers was nowhere to be found during the height of the storm and didn't show up at the command center until AFTER the snow stopped.
Heckuva job indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment