Blaz: In dark on toxic lies
MAYOR DE BLASIO’s office said Monday NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye never told him she was going to claim the authority was in compliance on lead paint checks when she knew it wasn’t.
The mayor was aware NYCHA was in noncompliance for more than a year without telling the public. During that time, Olatoye told the Daily News that she kept City Hall informed “on a weekly basis” about her plans to perform all required inspections.
But in October 2016, she falsely certified to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that NYCHA was in compliance. At the time, it was not.
The subject emerged Monday at an unrelated press conference when the mayor was asked about whether Olatoye’s City Hall superior, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glenn, knew Olatoye planned to sign the HUD certification. He did not directly answer the question.
“I want to be careful about you asking me about other people’s conversations. I am not familiar with the details of who talked to who when,” de Blasio said.
But afterward, one of his press spokeswomen, Olivia Lapeyrolerie, said nobody in the mayor’s office was notified by Olatoye about the NYCHA compliance forms at the time they were filed.
De Blasio continued to defend Olatoye, although he verbally stumbled as he tried to downplay the significance of the false filing as a paperwork problem.
“Was the exact process, bureaucratic process, as good as it should have been?” he said. “Of course you could say, ‘Hey, you should have put, you know, a neon sign around that.’ But I’m perfectly satisfied that the underlying intent was correct and that HUD was fully aware of what was happening.”
The News revealed Friday that NYCHA workers had been inspecting and cleaning up lead paint from apartments for years without the required training. City Hall then announced it would offer free blood-lead testing to children in those units.
The time line of who knew what and when will take center stage Tuesday at a Public Housing Committee hearing on lead paint failures run by Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx).