De Blasio’s ‘arrogance’ is killing his policy initiatives: critics
‘The mayor’s close staff are very arrogant and not responsive. I personally believe we have an absentee mayor’
- State Sen. Tony Avella
There’s only one person Mayor de Blasio listens to, his critics' charge — and that’s Mayor de Blasio.
The mayor pledged to tackle the city’s housing crisis — one of the lynchpins of his campaign — by creating or preserving 200,000 affordable apartments for half a million people over the next decade.
De Blasio’s team, led by Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, developed a $41 billion plan with zoning changes and incentives to spur development.
But thanks to an arrogance that critics say is typical of de Blasio’s management style, community-board leaders in all five boroughs sacked the plan.
Tenant organizer Michael McKee attended two meetings last spring with Glen, city Housing Commissioner Vicki Been and three dozen real-estate industry and community leaders at City Hall.
He said so many people attended the “cattle calls,” he couldn’t get a word in.
“No one asked me my opinion about this, and I had real concerns with the mayor’s proposal,” he said. “People were complaining about how it could unleash the forces of gentrification in low-income communities.”
Another advocate privately warned de Blasio last year the apartments’ income requirements were too high for the poor.
De Blasio promised to adjust the plan and asked for support. But when administration officials released the blueprint in July with few alterations, advocates howled.
“We are all supporters of Bill de Blasio, but I have serious concerns about it,” said McKee. “There’s just been so much botching. The way they roll everything out is f–ked up.”
Now de Blasio is trying to pressure City Council members to push the housing plan through. The miscalculation has left lawmakers “shaking their heads.”
“This is the mayor’s most important campaign promise, and it’s getting voted down right and left,” grumbled one member.
“They didn’t do any groundwork or reach out to people or communicate it. The only opportunity for feedback was voting no.”
De Blasio insisted Thursday he will win over the public.
“When I go out and explain it, when we listen to people’s concerns and answer them and we show them how their concerns are actually being met, a lot of people’s minds change,” he told reporters last week.
But the mayor’s record of unilateral miscues suggests otherwise.
“The mayor has this horrible trait [of] thinking he knows what’s best for everybody, and his people either tell him what he wants to hear or tell him nothing at all,” said political consultant Susan Del Percio.
“They’re only calling in like-minded people, who would agree with the mayor’s agenda.”
De Blasio has held two invitation-only town-hall meetings in the past two years. On issues from carriage horses to Uber, he’s been forced to back down when unilateral decisions were opposed.
Queen's state Sen. Tony Avella, a Democrat who served in the council with De Blasio, tried to warn the mayor about the homeless crisis but said his calls and letters to City Hall were ignored.
“The mayor’s close staff are very arrogant and not responsive,” said Avella. “I personally believe we have an absentee mayor.”
Source: https://nypost.com/2015/12/13/city-officials-tired-of-absentee-de-blasios-arrogance/
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