New York News Network

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio at news conference. 12.12.13. Photo by Maurice Pinzon

By New York News Network
On Thursday, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced another appointment of his administration, introducing Lilliam Barrios-Paoli as his Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

Ms. Barrios-Paoli has served three New York City mayors, she is currently the commissioner of the Department for the Aging, but Mr. de Blasio, nevertheless, indicated the new deputy mayor would set a significantly different city policy.    

In his opening remarks Mr. de Blasio spoke about three areas where he believed the city needed renewed focus and change, homeless policy, education and neighborhood healthcare.  

Mr. de Blasio criticized past efforts to help the poor as too limited and suggested city policies had “kept people stuck in place,” as he referenced in his remarks the vivid story painted by The New York Times in this week’s Invisible Child series following one 11-year old homeless child, Dasani.    

“We have the highest number of people in shelters in the history of this city. The highest number in a city-run shelter system ever. The highest number of people who are homeless people, in any sense, literally, since the Great Depression,” Mr. de Blasio said.  

This, he said, had to change, and Ms. Barrios-Paoli would help him do it. Mr. De Blasio said the deputy mayor would tackle not only the record number of homeless families but would also simultaneouly develop and implement preventive measures.  

Mr. de Blasio said full-day Pre-K and middle-school after-school programs would be “foundational to setting our children on the right path regardless of their economic circumstance.”

Lilliam Barrios-Paoli and Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio. 12.12.13. Photo by Maurice Pinzon

Ms. Barrios-Paoli, he said, had the values, knowledge of city government, the non-profit sector, and “the urgency,” to bring needed change to the social problems he had outlined.

Ms. Barrios-Paoli concurred, “I’ve spent the bulk of my career trying to work on behalf of the poor, ” and “totally believe that we’re living a tale of two cities – no question about it.”

“I know what works and what doesn’t work and I will certainly try to attack the ones that don’t work right away,” she concluded.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. 12.2.13. Photo by Maurice Pinzon

By New York News Network
Reporter #1: “Can you tell us where you were yesterday morning and why you chose not to go to the scene of the train derailment?”

Reporter #2: “There have been reports you were golfing during the day in Bermuda yesterday. Is that something folks should be concerned about?”

“Should you have been here instead of Bermuda?”  

And this question from another reporter: “Why did it take you so many hours to send out that tweet?”

This is what Mayor Bloomberg was faced with the day after the Metro-North train derailment in the Bronx. The mayor usually does not take questions from the press during   bill-signing ceremonies. Normally, there are few reporters during bill-signings.  

But they were there on Monday because according to the Wall Street Journal, Mayor Bloomberg was in Bermuda. The Journal cited, “a person familiar with the matter.” There were no pictures of the mayor in Bermuda. Instead, the Journal’s blog post was accompanied by a picture of the mayor in a winter coat.

At one minute past midnight on January 1, 2014, Michael Bloomberg will no longer be mayor, but until then, it is clear the New York City press corps will assume he is on duty and on call 24/7, and so he had to contend with questions about his whereabouts during the Thanksgiving weekend.

For the record, Mayor Bloomberg said what was important was, did the job get done, and according to the mayor, “It was a textbook kind of response.”

He said, “it’s my job to make sure that our police officers and firefighters and EMTs are well-led, well-trained, well equipped to do the job, and they are, and I think they prove it time and time again, and they did so again yesterday.”

The mayor did not directly answer where he was at the time of the train accident, except to say, “You just have to check the public schedule for   where I am at any point and time and it will certainly tell you anything that is germane for the job. “

And did he tweet?

“I didn’t tweet anybody, maybe my staff did, but you can rest assured, that I did not.”

It is anybody’s guess whether Mr. Bloomberg will tweet once he is out of office.