As snow drifts remain piled high in most of the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is receiving harsh criticism from one time allies who are dismayed at the city's clean-up efforts after the blizzard.
Yesterday, Brooklyn City Councilman David Greenfield, who Bloomberg endorsed in his election bid last year, even sending some of his political troops to help with get-out-the-vote efforts, appeared on a Jewish radio show and blasted the snow-removal.
"This could easily be the beginning of the end of Mayor Bloomberg's political career. It's such a big deal. And I am telling this as somebody who has always had a good relationship with the mayor and who has always worked well with him," Greenfield said. "This is a mayor who prides himself on saying the buck stops by him. And at the end of the day the buck does stop by him. We are going to hold him responsible. He is on notice. He better fix this or we are going to hold him personally accountable."
Queens councilman Eric Ulrich, who helped the mayor secure the backing of the Queens Republican Party and who was sworn in by Bloomberg when he won his seat in 2009, said the Mayor telling New Yorkers to go see a Broadway show was "like Marie Antoinette saying, 'Let the people eat cake.'
"I supported the mayor for a third term because I thought he was the best choice. I thought he was a good manager. Now I am starting to have doubts. You can't manage a snowstorm after Christmas? I think people are starting to question his leadership ability," Ulrich added.
The comments come as the city still has not returned to normalcy more than 24 hours after the last flakes fell. The MTA does not yet have buses running at full capacity, many trains are still experiencing delays and New Yorkers throughout the city are saying that their streets have not been plowed.
The mayor will brief the press later this morning on the city's response to the blizzard.
Well see if these Bloomberg shills actually do what they say and hold the Mayor of Accountability accountable for this mess.
Still, it does not bode well for the 2012 Bloomberg Presidential Coronation when you have Bloomberg allies questioning his leadership ability and comparing him to Marie Antoinette.
I guess Howard Wolfson has his work cut out for him.
I'm frankly more disappointed in my fellow citizens than I am Mayor Bloomberg. I've known from the jump that he was no more qualified to be the mayor of New York City than I am. I donated lots of money (by my family's standard) and time to the Bill Thompson campaign, and I'm still disgusted that so many in the public sector are so comfortable with the status quo that they didn't actively support the Democratic candidate. It's that whole "elections have consequences" thing again.
ReplyDelete(It's also a problem that so few teachers, firefighters, police officers, and sanitation workers actually live in the city, but that's a separate discussion.)
This snow-removal effort has been massively compromised by private vehicles stranded in the middle of roads and intersections. Everyone from Bloomberg to the National Weather Service was strenuously advising against non-essential travel as early as Friday evening. So I'd like to extend a sarcastic "Heckuva job!" to everyone who felt a little spin in their ride was more important than snow removal and the free flow of public transit and emergency response vehicles. Same to the idiots who are swamping 911 with non-emergency issues.
Very interestingly, there are lots and lots and lots of comments on snow-removal articles at City Room and 1010 Wins saying that people are witnessing snowplows operating on uncleared streets with their plows in the "up" position. By most accounts and from what I saw first-hand, there was the exact same amount of equipment in position for this storm as there was for last year's. If a post-mortem of this event reveals that there was some sort of job action in play here, I hope that those responsible are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
So few teachers, firefighters, police officers and sanitation workers actually live in the city because they cannot afford to live in Bloomberg's New York.
ReplyDeleteTeachers at my school bought into the 2% raise with the kicker being "why do I want a Black president, governor and mayor?"
ReplyDeleteToday someone said, "If Thompson was mayor, the "n word" would have looted everything!"
Got to love Staten Island racists.
Maybe Bloomberg will insist on a clause in the teachers contract to help the city in such emergencies. It would state that ATR's can be assigned to remove snow on school days or non school days if they have not found a position with 30 minutes after being placed into the atr pool.
ReplyDelete