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Diagnosing Bill de Blasio’s disease: How can we explain the trouble he's in?
[NYDAILYNEWS] The bad news has been snowballing for Bill de Blasio, what with the emergence of a federal probe involving, among other things, top cops in Brooklyn accepting diamonds, trips and more from two big donors to various appendages of his political operation and what’s now four separate investigations into a city-aided flip, again involving a wired backer of the mayor, of a Lower East Side nursing home for AIDS patients into luxury condos.I wrote last Sunday that "after this week, I’m losing faith that de Blasio’s horse trading is paying off for the city." And it appears I’m not the only one. Ace New York corruption buster Preet Bharara, fresh off turning two of Albany’s three men in a room into convicted felons (and exposing one of them, former Assembly Speaker and de Blasio ally Shelly Silver, as an adulterer who had one mistress who was a major Albany lobbyist and another who he helped get a state job), is now reportedly looking into these messes and their links to the mayor’s 2013 campaign. When Bharara announced last year that he was charging Silver -- who de Blasio then called "a man of integrity" -- the lawman said that the "unfinished fight against public corruption continues," and New Yorkers should "stay tuned." He repeated the phrase last week at a gala for Common Cause, the good government group whose pointed questions about de Blasio’s main outside money operation, The Campaign for One New York, came just before the group suddenly announced it would be closing up shop. Bharara elaborated, just a little, on what we should be tuned in for, saying that "executive offices in government are far from immune from the creeping show-me-the-money culture that has been pervading New York for some time now." Which, given that Bharara has already ended a probe of Gov. Andrew SonnyCuomo, with a public declaration that "there is insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime," sounds an awful lot like "I’d like to dedicate this next tune to Bill de Blasio." Talking on background this week to people who lead groups that do business with this administration, and have long experience with previous ones, the common concerns were whether or not de Blasio has full control over his own administration and political operation -- and where, exactly, the line between them gets drawn in our post-Citizens United city. One person compared de Blasio’s inner circle -- particularly Police Commissioner Bill Bratton on all things public-safety related and Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen on all things involving real estate -- to "independent contractors," with tremendous autonomy within their respective spheres. Which might help explain how a mayor with a reputation for micromanaging has spent the last two weeks pleading ignorance about major decisions made by his own administration. Posted by: Fred 2016-04-19 |
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