As Mayor Bloomberg is taking heat for this colossal fuck-up of Mayoring 101, members of the City Council are taking sharp aim at the guy who Bloomberg made responsible for overseeing the job, former Republican Mayor of Indianapolis Stephen Goldsmith.
Mayor Bloomberg appointed Goldsmith as Deputy Mayor of Operations, which is the second in command at City Hall, in April of this year:
Mr. Goldsmith, 63, has never lived in New York City, and conceded that "I don’t know nearly enough" about it. But, he said, "I know a lot about how to run a government."
He wasn't joking.
In his new job, Mr. Goldsmith will serve as the mayor’s No. 2 in city government, overseeing about a dozen agencies — including the Police, Fire, Transportation and Sanitation Departments — that deliver the services by which most New Yorkers measure the effectiveness of their government.
...
Goldsmith, who replaced the born and raised New Yorker and long-time City Hall veteran Ed Skyler was the point man for handling the response to the snowstorm. His performance has been nothing short of abysmal. Since he isn't from here, doesn't know jack shit about New York, and only just now got on the job, it isn't surprising that he fell down on the job. Worse, this guy touted himself as a public services management guru.
"He, more than anyone else, sets the tone for the new mayors of the 1990s," said Fred Siegel, a visiting professor at St. Francis College in Brooklyn and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, who wrote a biography of Mr. Giuliani. "He was the first to talk about how you could make city government work better."
A fiscally conservative Republican and an adviser to George W. Bush during his 2000 campaign for president, Mr. Goldsmith will be in a position to overhaul how city services are delivered, budgets are drafted and municipal labor contracts are settled in New York, areas that could put him on a collision course with the city’s restive and politically powerful unions.
Emphasis mine.
First of all, how the fuck did Bloomberg leave the job of running the City in the hands of someone who admits he doesn't know shit about New York? How the fuck does that happen. Next thing you know, he'll be putting people who know nothing about education in charge of the schools. But considering that Goldsmith is a conservative Republican and Harvard management guru, it should be no surprise that his government is falling down on the job. He doesn't believe in government. That is why so many Republicans fail to handle crises well. It only follows that if you don't believe in government, you'll suck at doing it.
Needless to say, the City Council has been UNLOADING on this guy while they public is letting the Mayor have it. My old councilwoman, Letitia James, did not mince words:
She said that the reason for the failed effort to clean up the city's streets was because Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, the former mayor of Indianapolis whom the administration brought on this year, instituted a centralized snow removal plan that relied less on local community boards and their sanitation garages.
James chairs the City Council committee that oversees Sanitation. She has called immediate investigative hearings. In addition, Council President Christine Quinn has weighed in:
"By all accounts, the collective storm response was not anywhere near up to the standards New Yorkers are accustomed to," she said. "This is unacceptable. New Yorkers have serious questions about the City's snow emergency policy and response"
As HamdenRice points out in this diary, the costs of the City's response have been measured in lives. People have died because emergency services cannot use side streets, and out here in the boroughs, it is a complete disaster. As so many have pointed out, this is the sort of basic shit a Mayor is supposed to do. Boston got hit and Menino brought them through just fine.
But on a larger point, this fiasco is a typical of the approach Republicans bring to public service. They cut, cut, cut, privatize, privatize, privatize...and then when things go wrong they say "hey...nobody could have predicted." Bullshit. People do predict what happens when you don't take government seriously. They predicted it in Katrina. They predicted in the financial crash. They predicted it here. Things going wrong is why we have government in the first place.