SHOULD HAVE AXED ESPOSITO MYSELF
Miscommunication, emotions to blame for botched firing
The chaotic and confused firing of Emergency Management Commissioner Joe Esposito, which dragged out over three days and as many meetings with two City Hall officials, was all part of a plan weeks in the making, Mayor de Blasio insisted Tuesday.
“Weeks ago, I approved a change in leadership at the Office of Emergency Management. I want to be very very clear, this has nothing to do with the storm,” de Blasio said at a police headquarters press conference.
The sad saga has stretched for days since Deputy Mayor Laura Anglin fired Esposito in a meeting Friday. That went so badly Esposito left not believing he’d actually been fired and demanding it come from the mayor.
“Under normal circumstances, that conversation proceeds in a very straightforward manner,” he said. However, “something went wrong in that conversation. That’s the bottom line.”
In retrospect, it was a job de Blasio said he should have done himself, noting Esposito’s three decades of service to the city, including as the NYPD’s chief of department.
“Now in the, you know, cool light of day, it makes all the sense in the world I should have just done it myself,” he said.
While de Blasio said the shakeup was planned, it’s unclear whether that “plan” called for doing it Friday.
“I was not focused on the ticktock of exactly how and when she was going to have it,” de Blasio.
De Blasio said he didn’t realize until Monday how bad the situation was.
“I had heard Friday that it had been an emotional conversation … but did not understand until Monday when more information was provided that the situation had involved so much misunderstanding,” he said.
But even Monday, after the news went public and City Council members rallied around Esposito, de Blasio did not sit with Esposito until 2:45 p.m. at Gracie Mansion, and a source said even after the hour-plus meeting, Esposito was still unclear about his fate. The mayor had to call him a second time Monday night.
Pressed about why, if the firing was planned weeks ago, he needed to hold two meetings Monday to do it, de Blasio said emotions were running high.
“People have to catch their breath, have to have a chance to think. We had a good first conversation, we had a productive second conversation, we all agreed on where we’re going,” he said.
By the time that meeting was over, Esposito’s dismissal was being explained by the mayor’s office as a “process of leadership change” that involved Esposito staying on during a search for his successor and the administration “exploring additional opportunities for Commissioner Esposito to remain in the administration.”
“That would have been a natural conversation on Friday if everything hadn’t gone crosswise,” de Blasio said of finding another gig for Esposito. “When Joe and I sat down in the cool light of day, it immediately lent itself to that kind of conversation. Where there things that we could think about here as we thought it through and the answer was yes and that conversation is now proceeding.”
De Blasio would not say why the well-regarded commissioner had to go, but said he wanted more from OEM “on a strategic level.”
“You can respect someone’s skills and abilities but also have the feeling that someone else was a better fit for the job, that’s what I thought,” he said.