NY Post
When Mayor de Blasio dragged aides and members of his NYPD security detail to his Brooklyn YMCA Monday morning amidst the coronavirus outbreak, fellow fitness enthusiasts were coughing and sneezing — and a mentally ill person was walking around touching the equipment, a gym source said.
“It’s crazy that he made his staff and detail come with him to the gym and expose them like that,” the source said.
But the incident is just one example of the mayor’s disregard for the health of his staff during the crisis, multiple sources told The Post.
There’s also growing frustration from senior aides, who fault the mayor for dithering instead of making decisions, micromanaging instead of leading, and insisting he knows best instead of listening to others, three sources said.
‘Thank god for Cuomo,’ is a common refrain among the mayor’s staff, made only partly in jest, sources said.
That’s because Gov. Andrew Cuomo has taken the lead on the city’s COVID-19 response — canceling the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, shutting down large venues including Broadway, and even pushing the mayor to close public schools.
But instead of the big picture, the head of the City that Never Sleeps has insisted on proofing all public materials about the city’s COVID-19 response from press releases to ad campaigns, one source said.
“Instead of micromanaging his team he should be leading right now,” the source said.
And the mayor has tossed aside advice from staffers along the way. Staff repeatedly warned the mayor that prematurely announcing a possible shelter-in-place order Tuesday would cause unnecessary panic.
“He can’t handle the word ‘No,’ and it runs people down,” the source said.
“He is dismissive of everyone’s opinion around him,” added a second source.
“It’s very much his way or the highway in moments of crisis and he thinks he knows best,” the second source noted.
NY Post
Mayor Bill de Blasio has blamed President Trump for the city’s severe shortage of COVID-19 supplies even though City Hall didn’t secure its first order for emergency protective gear until March 6, The Post has learned.
Officials with the city’s Office of Emergency Management tried to purchase nearly 200,000 n95 masks on Feb. 7, but weeks later they learned the vendors had already run out.
It was not until March 6 and March 10 — over two months after the coronavirus outbreak first hit China — that they finally secured the first emergency procurements of masks and hand sanitizer, according to the city comptroller’s office.
“Our city is the epicenter of this outbreak in the United States, and we are lacking supplies because the mayor didn’t notice until two weeks ago?” fumed City Councilman Chaim Deutsch.
“We ought to have been prepared for this. Blaming Trump is an easy way to avoid hard questions, but it exposes a distinct lack of management on the part of this administration,” the Brooklyn Democrat said.
A City Hall spokeswoman said on Feb. 7, the city’s Office of Emergency Management tried to purchase nearly 200,000 N95 masks, but regular vendors had already run out. She added that the Health Department had already stockpiled 19 million surgical masks and said there have been no payment delays.
Comptroller Scott Stringer granted approval for the early March orders of masks and hand sanitizer the same day, but a medical supply vendor who has standing city contracts told The Post that initial requests for protective gear from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services were mired in bureaucratic red tape.
It took the agency an average of 72 hours to complete an order, he said.
“We’d send them a list of products we can deliver within 24, 48 hours,” said the head of one of the medical supply companies, who declined to be named for fear of jeopardizing his current contracts.
“The private sector is knocking on our door all day, every day. We have every hospital facility from Buffalo to across the country chasing us for the same product — N95 masks, surgical masks, gloves, hand sanitizer — and the city just moves so slow, I mean it’s a joke,” he said.
Imagine if Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned, but while during it he was micromanaging and belittling his generals and making moronic decisions. That's our idiot mayor.
