The New York Post editorial board on Sunday called on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to resign following extensive blackouts in parts of the Big Apple, writing the longshot 2020 candidate “does not care” about his residents.
De Blasio is facing blowback for campaigning in the key primary state of Iowa as roughly 44,000 customers in Manhattan and the Upper West Side lost power on Saturday evening. The New York newspaper cited the deaths of children due to child services failures and the exploding homeless crisis facing the city among the reasons it believes the mayor should resign. The Post blasted the De Blasio’s $773 million Renewal plan to turn around the city’s crumbling schools as a fail and accused the mayor of bailing on the city’s celebratory institutions such as Puerto Rican Day Parade because he no longer needed the community’s votes. He must leave office in 2021 due to term limits.
The Post’s editorial board wrote:
Let’s face it: It’s only by accident de Blasio is mayor in the first place. Without Anthony Weiner’s onanistic implosion, the Campaign Finance Board’s sidelining of rival lefty John Liu, or the support of one peculiar, but well-funded, constituency — people who hate carriage horses — de Blasio would probably be calling for a socialist uprising on Community Board 6.
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He runs the largest, greatest city in America, but Bill de Blasio is bored. He doesn’t relish New York. Doesn’t ride its subways, see its shows, eat in its restaurants (except for one cafe near his gym),” the Post’s editorial board writes. “Once he realized he didn’t need the votes anymore, he skipped the Puerto Rican Day Parade this year. He threw a parade for the Women’s World Cup soccer team just so he could give a tone-deaf campaign speech.”
“Bill de Blasio does not care about New York City,” reads the op-ed. “He does not care about its people. He does not care about how it’s run. He does not care about you or your taxes, creating jobs or improving lives. All Bill de Blasio cares about is Bill de Blasio.
And so, for the good of the city, Gov. Andrew Cuomo needs to remove the mayor from office.
Meanwhile, De Blasio attempted to defend his absence on Sunday, telling reporters upon his arrival back in New York that he was able to attend to the situation while hundreds of miles away by phone.
“With modern communications, the minute it was clear we had a serious situation, I was on the phone to all these folks and we were talking constantly,” the mayor said, according to the New York Daily News. “I was going to have to provide guidance wherever I was.”
“Unfortunately on a Saturday evening it’s a very long trip back so I wasn’t going to be able to be here immediately under any circumstance,” he added. “There’s fewer flights by the time we could get there, and we were in a place where it’s harder to get to a major airport from.”
Like the Post, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) criticized De Blasio’s absence, but did not go as far as to demand his resignation.
“I show up. It’s a simple but a tried-and-true formula. You show up. I believe it’s important to be there and show up. I want to see [and hear it] with my own eyes and ears. That’s the governor’s job,” Cuomo told Fox 5.
”I also believe it’s important, guys, that when people turn on the TV and they see somebody there in charge, it gives them a sense of confidence,” he added.