News & Notes from NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio

Public Advocate Delivers Thousands of Signatures to Mayor from Parents Opposing Child Care Cuts - June 7, 2011

Parents oppose closing 110 daycare centers, eliminating daycare for thousands of kids

At a City Hall rally today, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio delivered 3,773 signatures to Mayor Bloomberg from parents opposing unprecedented cuts to childcare. The petitions were collected by organizers from Public Advocate de Blasio’s office from parents at daycare centers, including some of the 110 centers that will be eliminated by Mayor Bloomberg’s budget. The Mayor’s proposals will slash services for as many as 7,000 children, according to the Citizens’ Committee for Children.

“We need to be committed as a city to preparing our kids to learn on that first day of school. That’s something every parent knows and certainly something an ‘Education Mayor’ should understand,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “This budget consigns an entire generation of New York City kids to inferior childcare—and in some cases no childcare at all—during those first critical years of their development. The parents of this city cannot let that happen.”

The childcare cuts will eliminate the Priority 5 and 6 programs which provide vouchers for daycare services to working parents and those enrolled in job training. The drastic cuts will require the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) to provide much more limited childcare services by closing 110 daycare centers across the city and requiring increased co-payments. In many instances childcare services will be shifted to cheaper providers whose programs are shorter in duration and provide less individual attention and instruction due to larger class sizes.

The signatures delivered by Public Advocate de Blasio put the total collected by a broad coalition of childcare advocates to over 30,000. Public Advocate de Blasio gathered the signatures as part of his campaign to make children a priority in this year’s budget. He has also collected over 5,200 petition signatures against the proposed firing of over 4,100 teachers.

Statement on DOI’s Report on Blizzard Response

June 3, 2011

“Way back when the snow was still falling, it was clear that the botched storm response was first and foremost a failure of leadership. I commend the Department of Investigation for putting together this thorough report and for incorporating information from constituent cases provided by my office. Now that allegations of a slowdown have been debunked, our efforts should turn to making sure we are ready in six months when winter returns.”

Statement in Support of TLC’s Five-Borough Taxi and Livery Service Plan

June 2, 2011

”The Five-Borough Yellow Taxi and Livery Service Plan is a winner for all of New York City’s residents. By auctioning new medallions that permit taxis picking up street hails outside of Manhattan, we will improve transportation in the outer boroughs while adding over $1 billion in revenue and thousands of good jobs for New York City. I also believe that the City’s efforts to ensure financing for livery owners seeking outer borough permits are a key piece of making this plan work. I am proud to support this proposal.”

Statement on Governor Cuomo Withdrawing from “Secure Communities” Program - June 1, 2011

“Secure Communities has unfairly targeted immigrants and increased wrongful deportations. Despite its name, the program has made New Yorkers less safe and torn families apart. I applaud Governor Cuomo for pulling us out of the program so we can get back to focusing on the law enforcement priorities that truly keep our communities safe.”

New York City (NYC) Poll * March 16, 2011 * Mayor's Approval Rating At Low - Quinnipiac University

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New York City voters disapprove 51 – 39 percent of the job Mayor Michael Bloomberg is doing, his lowest score since a 51 – 37 percent disapproval November 23, 2003, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Only Manhattan voters approve of Mayor Bloomberg’s job performance, 55 – 34 percent, while disapproval in the other boroughs ranges from 49 – 35 percent in The Bronx to 66 – 27 percent on Staten Island, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

Republicans approve 47 – 42 percent, while disapproval is 52 – 39 percent among Democrats and 51 – 40 percent among independent voters.

Bloomberg has the lowest score of any citywide elected. Other officials score their highest approval ratings ever:

• 44 – 16 percent for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio;
• 54 – 16 percent for City Comptroller John Liu;
• 55 – 25 percent for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
  Police Commissioner Ray Kelly gets a 67 – 20 percent approval, including 57 – 27 percent among black voters. The new Schools Chancellor, Cathleen Black, gets a negative 17 – 49 percent approval rating, with 34 percent undecided.
  New York City voters give President Barack Obama a 70 – 26 percent job approval.
  “Is it the snow, the third-term blahs, the weekends away, the presidential chatter? Whatever the explanation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s once-upon-a-time stretch of 70-plus job approval numbers has gone south. This is his first negative number since 2003,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

“President Barack Obama’s job approval is inching up in a lot of places. In New York City, it’s zooming. Starting with the lame-duck congressional session, he’s looking better.”

Rating the Bloomberg Administration’s overall handling of snow removal this winter:

• 2 percent say excellent;
• 26 percent say good;
• 31 percent say not so good;
• 38 percent say poor.

Mayor Bloomberg favors Manhattan over the other boroughs, voters say 70 – 22 percent. Opinions range from 52 – 34 percent in Manhattan to 84 – 11 percent on Staten Island.

New York City voters say 72 – 25 percent that where the mayor goes on weekends or vacations is a private matter and the public does not have a right to know. All groups support this opinion by large margins. This is little changed from an 80 – 18 percent finding on this question in a February 4, 2004, Quinnipiac University poll.

The media should not follow the mayor and report on his time-off activity, New York City voters say 79 – 17 percent.

But when the mayor leaves the city, he should have to say who is in charge, voters say 84 – 13 percent. And voters say 72 – 26 percent that the mayor should report the whereabouts of the person left in charge of the city.

By a 56 – 38 percent margin, New York City voters do not believe Bloomberg when he says he is not interested in running for president. Voters say 74 – 18 percent that he would not make a good president, his lowest score ever. The negative rating is shared by Republicans 70 – 25 percent, Democrats 75 – 17 percent and independent voters 74 – 21 percent.

But 67 percent of New York City voters say Bloomberg’s involvement in national issues is good for the city, while 28 percent say his involvement distracts him from the day-to-day business of running the city.

“Wherever Mayor Mike wants to fly away to is his business, New Yorkers say, just as they said years ago. Leave him alone, they tell the press,” Carroll said. “But when the mayor’s away, voters want to know who’s in charge – and where they are.”

From March 8 – 14, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,115 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones.



The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio and the nation as a public service and for research.


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For more data or RSS feed– http://www.quinnipiac.edu/polling.xml, call (203) 582-5201, or follow us on Twitter. 

Rep Weiner Announces Federal Disaster Aid for Queens Residents Hit Hard By Blizzard

Today, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D – Queens and Brooklyn) announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has deemed that the borough of Queens is eligible to receive federal funding to help cover the cleanup costs of the December 2010 blizzard.

Nearly two feet of snow buried neighborhoods throughout New York City, including Queens, last December. The ensuing cleanup efforts forced the City to exceed its snow budget for the entire 2011 fiscal year – and is estimated to cost in excess of $60 million in recovery costs, lost revenue, and residential and private property damage.

Now, Queens has been approved for Category B funding for “emergency protective measures.” 

These include steps taken before, during, and after a disaster to save lives, protect public health and safety, and prevent damage to public and private property. The funding could be used to cover the costs of emergency repairs, search and rescue, and the installation of warning devices like signs or announcements, among other measures. State and local governments, as well as certain non-profit organizations, are eligible for assistance.

“Residents of Queens suffered enough during the holiday storm,” Weiner said. “Thankfully they won’t be forced to suffer again by footing the bill for the cleanup and recovery.”

FEMA has not yet announced whether Brooklyn is also eligible for funds, even though the borough was one of the hardest hit in last year’s storm. On Thursday, Rep. Weiner wrote to Secretary of 

Homeland Security Janet Napolitano calling on her to declare Kings County a disaster area, so that vital funds can be made available to help residents in the borough.

City Council Wants to Know When Bloomberg’s Away by Michael Barbaro - NYTimes.com

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Mayoral Sign-Out Sheet? Secretive Jaunts Spur a Thought 

His poll numbers have slid. His first choice to lead the city schools turned him down. And the budget deficit? Don’t even ask.

But of all the aggravations that have accompanied Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s final term, perhaps none is as unexpected, personal and stinging as this: Now people have the temerity to ask when he is leaving town.

After shrugging off his globe-trotting, none-of-your-business disappearances for nine years, lawmakers are suddenly pestering City Hall aides about the mayor’s weekend whereabouts.

Editorial writers have derisively compared him to the perpetually camouflaged Waldo, wondering how New Yorkers are supposed to find him. And a member of the City Council is exploring a bill that could — what’s this? — require Mr. Bloomberg to notify the public every time he, say, jets off to Bermuda for a round of golf.

A mandatory sign-out sheet for the billionaire mayor? City Hall seems apoplectic. But the clamor is unlikely to die down, largely because the mayor refuses to disclose where he and his top lieutenants were when his administration botched the cleanup of the Christmas weekend blizzard, creating confusion about who was in charge.

During such a crisis, said Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., “No time should be wasted trying to figure out who is in power.” Mr. Vallone has made inquiries about legislation that would compel City Hall to disclose whenever a mayor leaves town, and who is in charge during his absence.

In the complicated marriage between Mr. Bloomberg and those he governs, there had always been an unspoken understanding: He ran the city well, and they resisted the urge to poke into his private life.

His handling of the Dec. 26 snowstorm, however, appeared to change that. Now, New Yorkers are treating him like, well, an ordinary public official, demanding pesky information like whether he is on their continent during a disaster.

“He is now being treated as mayors in New York City have historically been treated,” said Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, who under the City Charter would become mayor if Mr. Bloomberg were incapacitated (or, theoretically, stuck indefinitely in the Caribbean).

Mr. de Blasio said he wished Mr. Bloomberg and his aides would simply acknowledge whenever he left the city. “I think they would save themselves a lot of trouble,” Mr. de Blasio said.

The mayor does not see it that way. He jealously guards his privacy and cherishes secret jaunts to his five vacation homes, in places from Vail, Colo., to London. It is not unusual for him to spend a weekend in Paris, a six-hour flight from New York. This weekend, like many others, Mr. Bloomberg had no public events scheduled, and his aides declined to say where he was.

For a decade, Mr. Bloomberg has steadfastly rejected calls for transparency in his personal travels, arguing that in an age of instant communication, nobody needs to know his exact location. The mayor, he argues, is mayor whether he is in City Hall, or Singapore, or somewhere in between.

Pressed to explain how he can govern from abroad, his aides for the first time disclosed the high-tech apparatus he used to remain in communication. He has equipped his private planes with satellite phones and has access at all times to an emergency government communications system that was designed to operate even if the telecommunications system was sabotaged or became overloaded.

They have come in handy. In 2005, after terrorists bombed the London subway system, Mr. Bloomberg was on a flight from Asia to New York. Aboard his Falcon 900, the phone rang: It was his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, consulting him on heightened security measures on the city’s trains and buses.

Still, the hyper-secrecy that surrounds Mr. Bloomberg’s comings and goings is highly unusual. Mayor Edward I. Kochnot only shared his vacation itineraries with the world, but also held teleconferences with the news media from wherever he was visiting. New York governors have routinely disclosed where they will spend their day, whether or not public events are scheduled. At his most coy, Gov. David A. Paterson alerted constituents that he was in Suffolk County — clever code for the beachside villages of the Hamptons.

Even the president, whose job Mr. Bloomberg has at times compared to his own, does not try to hide his movements. On Christmas Day, for example, the public was told that Barack Obama skipped his morning workout, watched a basketball game on television and left his Hawaiian vacation home at 3:26 p.m. in a short-sleeve shirt and dark slacks. Reporters who inquired about how Mr. Bloomberg spent the day were told this: no comment.

Increasingly, that answer seems, even to his closest allies, insufficient. During hearings about the blizzard, held by the City Council, lawmakers struggled to determine who was in charge over the Christmas weekend. Under city law, when Mr. Bloomberg leaves the city, mayoral power falls to the public advocate, unless it is delegated to a deputy mayor.

But the Bloomberg administration has tried to set up a blanket policy: Rather than delegate power each time he leaves New York, Mr. Bloomberg signed an executive order stipulating that his first deputy mayor, Patricia E. Harris, was in charge whenever he was away. Under the same order, if Ms. Harris was not in town, power then skipped to the deputy mayor for operations, a job now held by Stephen Goldsmith.

As the storm rolled toward New York City on Dec. 25, Mr. Bloomberg was in Bermuda, where he has a waterfront vacation home, according to three people told of his travels. Mr. Goldsmith was in his Washington town house. As for Ms. Harris? Nobody would say.

Mr. Vallone, a Democrat from Queens, said his potential legislation would not require the mayor to disclose his whereabouts, but simply to acknowledge his absence and to name his designated fill-in. Mr. Vallone said his real anxiety was that the mayor might be away during a terrorist attack, when momentous decisions, like whether to lock down a neighborhood or shutter the subway system, must be made in seconds.

“I almost always believe that a more open and transparent process works better,” Mr. Vallone said. He said his bill would probably not require such disclosures when a mayor took a short trip to Albany or Long Island, for example.

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor, said such legislation was unnecessary because Mr. Bloomberg never fully ceded his authority, making it unimportant to disclose who was where.

“Leadership and decision-making powers of the mayoralty,” Mr. Loeser said, “remain with the person who was elected mayor."

He said Mr. Bloomberg had earned his privacy. “The mayor is at work by 7:15 most mornings, and entitled to hours off and a private life,” Mr. Loeser said. “And whether he’s in Bayside, Bay Ridge, or visiting his mom in the Bay State, he’s always reachable and always in charge.”

Mr. Vallone’s bill could prove difficult to dismiss, however. The councilman is both a longtime ally of the mayor and a popular figure in the Council.

Gene Russianoff, a staff lawyer at the New York Public Interest Research Group, said he sympathized with Mr. Vallone’s intention.

“It’s surprising that the mayor is not required to do this already,” Mr. Russianoff said. The speaker of the Council,Christine C. Quinn of Manhattan, has signaled openness to the concept.

And it seems likely to resonate with residents still upset about the problems caused by the holiday storm.

“I completely support it,” said Marsha Zoback, 57, who lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and struggled to navigate the snow-clogged streets with a bad hip.

“If you don’t want to tell people where you are going,” she said, “don’t be in public office.”

Weather Advisory for NYC...

Update:  The city has declared a snow emergency; a decision about whether schools are open is due by 5 a.m.

Weather Emergency Declaration

At the direction of the Mayor, the public is hereby advised that significant snowfall has been forecast for January 11 and 12.

1. The public is urged to avoid all unnecessary driving during the duration of the storm and until further directed, and to use public transportation wherever possible. If you must drive, use extreme caution. Information about any service changes to public transportation is available on the MTA website athttp://www.mta.info/.


2. Any vehicle found to be blocking roadways or impeding the ability to plow streets shall be subject to towing at the owner’s expense.


3. Effective immediately, alternate side parking, payment at parking meters and garbage collections are suspended citywide until further notice.


4. The Emergency Management, Fire, Police, Sanitation, and Transportation Commissioners will be taking all appropriate and necessary steps to preserve public safety and to render all required and available assistance to protect the security, well-being and health of the residents of the City.

Bloomberg Give Us the Cold Shoulder by Wayne Barrett - NYPOST.com

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Why does the mayor, so thoughtful in private, have so little empathy?

When my departure from the Village Voice after nearly four decades became news on Tuesday, I got a surprise call at my home office overlooking Windsor Place in Brooklyn from Mike Bloomberg. At first I thought it was a high tech robo-call to an imaginary enemies list.

I had done a phone interview with Chris Matthews just a few days earlier from the same window, detailing every unplowed flake still covering my block. I expected Mayor Mike to blast me as just another outer-borough whiner.

But the “get-over-it” mayor was solicitous. He told me he’d heard about the sudden and involuntary end of my Voice career. He recalled how he remembered the name of everyone who called him the day he was fired at Salomon Brothers, but couldn’t recall anyone’s name that called him when he was elected mayor. It’s the people who call you when you’re down, he said, that really matter. I wanted to remind him that Salomon gave him the $10 million severance that financed the creation of Bloomberg L.P., a sure antidote to despondency, but I kept my tongue.

Bloomberg made it clear a couple of times during the conversation that he didn’t agree with everything I wrote, a gentle understatement. But he added that I would be missed.

What’s odd is that, even when the mayor is doing a caring and intimate thing like his call to me, he sounds uncomfortable and terse. He reminds me of the uncle who arrives at the 6-year-old’s birthday party with the biggest present and the smallest smile.

We have found with the CityTime scandal and the blizzard bungle that Bloomberg has brought less of the corporate management style that made him a billionaire to government than we thought. But he does appear to have transferred to the public sphere the imperiousness of the corporate personality, a resolute and awkward distancing designed to insulate the boss from charges of soft-touch favoritism.

Bloomberg is just so much more able to empathize one-on-one than he is to connect with a suffering mass, unless you consider Wall Street bankers a beleaguered underclass. It’s not just the unplowed that can be dismissed as clatter by our crisp and sometimes contemptuous mayor — he has harrumphed over the complaints of transit riders, pothole pleaders, Con Ed customers without power, and even those who lost their subprime homes to foreclosure.

“You can also blame the people that took out the mortgages,” he said, though later noting how “very sorry” he felt for Dick Fuld and Lehman Brothers, subprime sewer plunderers finally foreclosed on by their own bankers. The polled public, which is apparently now giving him record-low favorability numbers, undoubtedly can’t recall the specifics, but there is a collective subconscious memory about Bloomberg’s double-standard boosterism, which extends beyond bankers to other class heroes. “Last time I checked, the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t make a lot of money, its executives don’t make a lot of money,” was one gem. Cable companies seeking rate hikes: “They don’t make a lot of money.” And when taxpayer-aided bonuses became the hot issue in 2008, it was Bloomberg who declared that city workers, including cops and firefighters, “should be down there demanding, ‘Pay Wall Street people more.’ That’s where their salaries come from.”

Topping them all was the mayor’s Great Recession jewel that “the rich aren’t making any money” either. “We love the rich people” was a Bloombergism that never made it onto the big screen of his endless spool of 2009 re-election commercials, but it does encapsulate the anger people feel now, when his let-them-eat-ice chilliness during the storm left many who aren’t rich feeling very unloved.

It is hard to remember at these moments that this is the same mayor who sat in his office day after day calling the homes of every family that lost a cop or firefighter on September 11 and bleeding with them, even though it occurred months before he took office. This is the man who has quietly financed the legal defense of a dockworker and a horse trainer he believed were falsely accused of a crime, and was vindicated both times by the courts. When my mentor and onetime Post columnist Jack Newfield died in 2004, Bloomberg went to the memorial and stayed for the entire two-hour series of eulogies even though he wasn’t on the speaker list and was denounced by Jimmy Breslin from the pulpit for his supposed complicity in the Iraq War.

We seldom see this grace at his Blue Room press conferences, where he is more likely to carry a chip on his shoulder than let anyone cry on it.

I was at Bloomberg’s victory party at the Sheraton last year, one of a hundred political celebrations I’ve covered. It was the oddest. He came out on the stage alone. He saluted the women in his life, though none were standing beside him. The coalition that had just re-elected him was invisible. As was the administration he led. Behind him on a platform were multi-racial layers of anonymous and paid extras to lead the cheers. The ballroom itself was packed with the best-dressed assemblage of young professionals with free booze in their hands I’d ever seen at a victory gala, barely listening to his speech. The theme song might as well have been “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

Our other recent three-term mayor, Ed Koch, was a loner, too, in some ways. But he had an electric connection to people. If they keep a television camera in the operating room, he will never die. New Yorkers would willingly trade charisma for efficiency but we’ve discovered in recent days that we’re getting neither.

In a recent “Meet the Press” appearance, Bloomberg closed the door on a presidential campaign and said he just wanted to be the greatest mayor in the history of the city. Putting a GPS device on sanitation trucks for the next snowstorm won’t make him that. With three years to go, Mike Bloomberg has to open his heart to us, climb out of his cautious and caustic bag, and share himself with his city.

We don’t just miss him when he’s in Bermuda. We miss him, as strange as it sounds, when he is here.

Wayne Barrett, longtime Village Voice columnist, is now a fellow at the Nation Institute.

Bloomberg Cold Open - Saturday Night Live - Video - NBC.com

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N.Y. Deputy Mayor Goldsmith Learns City Operations the Hard Way by David W. Chen - NYTimes.com

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Stephen Goldsmith, a deputy mayor, is a novice New Yorker.

When Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith announced the demotion of about 100 senior city officials last fall, he emphasized that he would not involve himself in the fine details of how the personnel changes were carried out.

A reporter, incredulous, asked him, “They report to you, don’t they?”

Mr. Goldsmith described his role differently: “I’m their liaison.”

Mr. Goldsmith, 64, occupies perhaps the most hands-on job at City Hall: deputy mayor for operations, with responsibility for police, fire, sanitation and nearly a dozen other agencies that provide the services most visible to ordinary New Yorkers. But he has often seemed quite distant.

During the Christmastime blizzard, he was at his Washington town house, uninvolved in the critical conversations about whether to declare a snow emergency, and writing “Good snow work by sanitation” on Twitter the evening of Dec. 26.

On Monday, most New Yorkers will get their first look at the still obscure deputy mayor, when he is called before the City Council to explain what went wrong during the blizzard. But some current and former city officials are already suggesting that Mr. Goldsmith, who was the mayor of Indianapolis in the 1990s and until last year had never lived or worked in New York, is the wrong man for his high-pressure position. His immediate predecessor, Edward Skyler, was so maniacal about making the city work he was called “Batman” and once tackled a would-be mugger in Midtown Manhattan.

Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, said Mr. Goldsmith reminded him of an outside management consultant.

“I think he’s very intelligent and very steeped in the work of government,” Mr. de Blasio said. “But this seems to be an abstract enterprise for him: it’s not his city, and he’ll be here as long as he wants to be here. There’s something about City Hall that’s supposed to be more than a job. It’s supposed to be a lifestyle and a total commitment.”

Mr. Goldsmith arrived at City Hall with much fanfare in June, the highest-profile appointment of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term. Beyond his eight years as mayor, Mr. Goldsmith had been a fixture in national Republican politics, serving as a top adviser to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush in 2000 and Rudolph W. Giuliani in 2008, and had become a prolific author and faculty member at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

It was at Harvard that he connected with Mr. Bloomberg last March, when Mr. Bloomberg participated in a class with two other big-city mayors, Manny Diaz of Miami and Richard M. Daley of Chicago. Mr. Bloomberg later offered what Mr. Goldsmith said, at his debut news conference in April, was an “irresistible opportunity” to “put into practice many of the things I believe in.”

In an interview this week, Mr. Goldsmith said he still viewed his job as much more strategic and long-term in nature.

“I view my assignment as trying to help the mayor transform the foundation of New York City government so as to prepare it for the future, and to use his remaining time to make big changes,” he said. “I’ve also assumed that you don’t want the new guy to be coming in and telling the transportation, sanitation, police or fire commissioner how to run their departments; it’s not the model the mayor wants.”

But he also said that in the wake of the blizzard, and the nonstop bad press he received, he had become “totally more intense” and would log even longer hours than his usual 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. schedule in City Hall.

Mr. Goldsmith’s supporters say that it is unfair to view his brief tenure here through the prism of snow alone. Mr. Giuliani predicted that Mr. Goldsmith, with his background in municipal finance and governance, would ultimately be remembered for reinventing city government.

“It was a screw-up, there’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Giuliani said, referring to the blizzard. “But up until this snowstorm I’d bet that everyone thought he was doing a terrific job. It just shows you that enormously capable people can make mistakes. I would urge patience.”

Already, city officials say, Mr. Goldsmith has helped to pare the city’s projected multibillion-dollar deficit next year by more than $1 billion. An ardent believer in technology (he always carries an iPad and two BlackBerrys), he has produced a report identifying $500 million in potential savings over the next four years by consolidating the real estate, information technology and human resources operations. He also sets aside Friday mornings to meet with community groups.

Caswell F. Holloway IV, the city’s commissioner of environmental protection, credited Mr. Goldsmith for accelerating his agency’s plan to introduce paperless billing for water bills and advocating public-private partnerships for wastewater treatment plants that could ultimately save the city millions of dollars.

Yet there is no shortage of detractors, as well — especially among union leaders who worry that Mr. Goldsmith will push privatization efforts that dominated his tenure in Indianapolis.

Lillian Roberts, executive director of District Council 37, the city’s largest municipal workers union, said Mr. Goldsmith did not appear to have a good grasp of the complexities of New York City government.

“When you meet with him he will listen,” she said. “He’s very polite. He may raise a question or two. But you get absolutely no feedback.”

In an administration known for being obsessed with public health, Mr. Goldsmith would make an excellent case study. He gets up at 5 a.m. to work out, and always eats the carrots that are plentiful in the City Hall bullpen. He also likes his coffee black — really black. When he arrived in City Hall, he thought the coffee was so weak that a second pot was brewed for him, labeled “Bold.”

“We joke that that’s his kind of brew,” Deputy Mayor Robert K. Steel said.

Mr. Goldsmith still has a toehold in academia and a life outside the city. He remains on leave from Harvard, and teaches a course at Columbia in government innovation. But his wife, Margaret, an heir to the Pulliam family newspaper fortune, which had published The Indianapolis Star, still lives in Washington. So until the Goldsmiths sell their Georgetown town house (five bedroom, seven bathroom, asking price $7 million), he is biding his time in a sparse one-bedroom apartment for Columbia faculty in Morningside Heights.

Some of Mr. Goldsmith’s friends say he has been dumbfounded by the city’s maze of regulations and its savage politics. They say he would be better suited, perhaps, to a different job — like senior policy adviser — that would allow him to think big thoughts.

But Mr. Goldsmith insisted that he was not frustrated, not in the least. Indeed, he likened himself to Rambo trying to hack through a jungle of red tape. He did say, though, that he loved social policy, and he expressed admiration for Linda I. Gibbs, deputy mayor for health and human services.

“I think what Linda Gibbs does is much more fun than what I do now,” he said. “I’d love to do a job swap.

My Twitter Exchange with NYC Deputy Mayor Goldsmith Regarding City's Blizzard Response

Tweet Received from Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith:

And, here's my response:

Public Advocate Bill De Blasio Sends Letter of Inquiry to Administration Regarding Storm Response

The letter below was sent today by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and heads of City agencies and departments involved in the response to the recent snow storm:

December 28, 2010

Dear Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

I am writing to express concern and seek answers about the City’s response to this past Sunday’s snow storm. My office has become aware of concerns voiced by New Yorkers who are unable to leave their homes or immediate vicinity as a result of unplowed roads and public walkways. It has become evident that the outer boroughs have been disproportionately affected by the lack of plowing after Sunday’s snow storm.

The storm on Sunday was severe and although the City is working feverishly now to clear the streets, I believe that the City could have taken a more precautionary approach. I am concerned that the City did not take the necessary steps to help minimize the disruptions to transportation, sanitation, and emergency services. 


Additionally, I think the City should have made more decisive steps to keep drivers off the roadways and prevent so many abandoned vehicles from obstructing the City’s snowplows. With more winter storms ahead, it is imperative that we learn from our experiences to better prepare ourselves for future storms and natural disasters.

To better understand how the City handled this Sunday’s severe storm, I request the following data from the Office of Emergency Management (“Office”), the Department of Sanitation (“Department”), and call information from 311 and 911. This data will be a key tool in evaluating what steps need to be taken in the future during severe storms.

Office of Emergency Management

The Office of Emergency Management is responsible for helping New York City plan and prepares for emergencies, as well as coordinates for a timely response and recovery. I have several questions regarding the Office’s preparation for Sunday’s storm.

· It is my understanding that the Office decided against declaring Sunday’s storm a Snow Emergency, which would have moved cars from the arterial roadways essential to moving emergency vehicles. Please explain the rationale behind this decision.
· What is the protocol for declaring a Snow Emergency? What factors are considered? Who declares a Snow Emergency and how is this declaration reviewed?
· Besides implementing a Snow Emergency plan, what other tools are at the City’s disposal to quickly remove cars off the street so that they do not block emergency services or snow plows?
· What alerts did the Office have in place for motorists prior to Sunday’s storm that would have informed them about the storm and alternate parking options?
· Based on news reports, snow banks caused serious obstacles for emergency services vehicles trying to access individuals in need of medical attention. What measures were taken to pair sanitation workers who were operating plows with emergency service vehicles?

Department of Sanitation

I have several questions about the process the Department of Sanitation undertook to ensure that streets were being plowed in a timely fashion.

· Understanding that the Department is experiencing a hiring freeze, please provide details about the Department’s current staffing levels as they relate to snow clearance. What positions at the Department are responsible for clearing the streets during snow storms? If these staffing levels are divided by borough, please provide my office with the information by borough.
· Please provide a description of how the Department responded to specific requests for assistance from 311 and my office between Sunday, December 26^th and Tuesday, December 28^th. On what timeframe were those forwarded complaints addressed? Through what process were those complaints incorporated into the Department’s snow clearance activities?
· Please provide my office with detailed timelines regarding the plowing of primary, secondary and tertiary streets for each borough following the storm.
· Please provide my office with a detailed budget that shows how snow removal resources are allocated by borough.
· Based on a Wall Street Journal article, Jason Post, a spokesperson for the Mayor stated that administrative workers were being employed for field work. How were these individuals trained and prepared for snow clearance?

311

My office has received hundreds of calls from constituents regarding the snow storm and many of them are being placed on hold for long periods of time when they contact 311. To that end, I have several questions about the handling of calls regarding the storm.

· Please provide my office with a detailed call summary related to the storm from Sunday, December 26, 2010 until Sunday, January 2, 2010.
· What was the average wait time for calls during the snow storm and what is the wait time normally?
· Please provide my office with details on how 311 queued snow storm calls and made referrals to other agencies.
· Did 311 issue complaint numbers to each individual caller?
· Please provide information about 311’s backlog of calls regarding the storm.

911

From my understanding there is a review taking place regarding the processing of 911 calls. Please provide my office with the scope of this review and the methodology being used.

Thank you and I look forward to your timely response. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Bill de Blasio

Public Advocate for the City of New York

CC: Joseph F. Bruno, Commissioner of the New York City Office of Emergency Management; Raymond Kelly,Commissioner of the New York City Police Department; John J. Doherty, Commissioner of Department of Sanitation New York City; Stephen Goldsmith, Deputy Mayor for Operations; Elizabeth Weinstein, Director for the Mayor’s Office of Operations.

From Stranded to Outraged, Report Details New Yorkers Who Reached Out to Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio After Storm

Public Advocate catalogs almost 1,000 complaints, 33 pages of transcripts from calls and emails

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio today released a report detailing 933 complaints compiled by his Office following the snow storm. The calls and emails detailed by the report point to a city in crisis, with New Yorkers unable to connect with operators at 311 and stranded beyond the reach of emergency services.

"For days, City government failed to provide the most fundamental services. People couldn't get a human being on the other end of the line at 311. Ambulances and fire trucks couldn't reach those in need. Hundreds of frustrated and scared New Yorkers turned to our office for help," said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. "From what we heard, it's clear the City needs a new playbook to stay ahead of big storms."

The report catalogues 933 complaints fielded between 9am on Monday, December 27th and 5pm on Wednesday, December 29th. There were received via phone, email and Facebook, in addition to records from two City Council Members. The report shows:

• 39% of total complaints came from South Brooklyn.
• 69% of all complaints were lodged on Tuesday, when New Yorker awoke to unplowed streets for the second day in a row.
• 18% of all complaints involved abandoned vehicles blocking streets.

The full report is available at:
http://www.advocate.nyc.gov/sites/advocate.nyc.gov/files/stormreport.pdf

The report includes 33 pages of transcripts from constituent phone calls and emails, reflecting the experiences of hundreds of New Yorkers, including:

"It’s already Tuesday afternoon, I need to take my child to the doctor, she has fever, and my car is still trapped and the entire block hasn't seen a single plow truck since the blizzard began on Sunday, and my block is a bus route also, this is crazy, and we’re all trapped indoors, please let me know if there’s any help in sight. Thanks."

"I'm disabled and I can't get off my block — walking, cab or otherwise."


"It is 48 hours after storm and we still have not seen a plow ... WHY????"

"No plows and/or salters have been thru this block. Access-A-Ride & other vehicles cannot get thru to get people to dialysis centers."

While a thorough review of the City’s storm response is necessary, the Public Advocate’s report makes the following urgent and immediate recommendations:

• When plowing, prioritize emergency services and hospitals, many of which were blocked until Wednesday.
• Work with off-street parking facilities to allow City residents to park while streets are being plowed during major snow events.
• Increase capacity of 311 to handle weather emergencies

Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and His Flaky Ideas Doom New York During Storm by Juan Gonzalez - NY Daily News

Read original..

Stephen Goldsmith bungled New York's preparedness for Sunday's winter storm. Xanthos/News

City Hall's bungled response to the Blizzard of 2010 started at the top.

Any probe of what went wrong must first examine the key decisions Mayor Bloomberg and his new deputy mayor for operations, Stephen Goldsmith, made in the weeks and hours leading up to Sunday.

After all, our police, sanitation, fire and EMS workers have always performed admirably in previous storms.

And no one supervises snow removal better than Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, a guy who actually rose through the ranks of his department.

So what was different this time?

Poor management, plain and simple.

It starts with Goldsmith, the hotshot former mayor of Indianapolis who made a name for himself as a "reinventor" of government. His big secret was laying off gobs of city workers and privatizing every service he could.

Bloomberg named Goldsmith his top deputy in April and has handed him enormous power to do the same thing here.

The blizzard was the new deputy's first big test - and he flunked.

To begin with, Goldsmith and Bloomberg refused to declare a snow emergency, even after they learned a blizzard was on the way.

"I started getting text messages from ambulance drivers at 3 a.m. Monday that they were stuck in the snow," said Pat Bahnken, president of the EMS workers' union. "I urged the Fire Department to declare a snow emergency, but they were told City Hall said 'no.'"

Back in 1996, a similar monster storm struck our city. It dumped 20 inches, closed airports, and left drifts 20-feet high.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani not only declared a snow emergency and ordered all nonessential vehicles off the road, he took 3,300 city buses out of service so they wouldn't block sanitation trucks and rescue vehicles.

Giuliani also asked then-Gov. George Pataki for help. Pataki dispatched 400 national guardsmen with 100 Humvees that were used as ambulances to transport medical supplies and health workers.

If Bloomberg and Goldsmith had done the same, we wouldn't have had hundreds of stuck buses and ambulances blocking main arteries.

"Under Rudy, every snowstorm was considered a big deal," one former Giuliani official said. "All commissioners and top staffers were expected to be at the command center and we all worked hard together."

This time, Goldsmith was out of town and didn't even show up at the command center until Monday. A City Hall spokesman wouldn't say where he was.

"He was in regular email and phone contact with Doherty and "[Office of Emergency Management Director Joseph] Bruno," mayoral spokesman Jason Post said.

The Sanitation Department has been Goldsmith's special target since he arrived in town.

"He micromanages everything in this department," is how one official put it.

Goldsmith is determined to cut the number of sanitation workers and use more private contractors for snow removal - something Doherty has resisted.

The staff reductions and the deputy mayor's scheduled demotion of 100 sanitation supervisors in January - putting them back in sanitation trucks and cutting the pay of many of them - has led to growing tension and made Goldsmith a hated figure in the department.

Those supervisors normally check that city trucks and private contractors do their routes properly. In some cases, some angry workers appear to have slowed down their work during the storm.

City Hall appeared yesterday to recognize the problem and may be backtracking on some of those demotions, several sources say.

So if you want to know what went wrong, start at the top.