‘I WON’T BE IGNORED!’
DeB’s e-mail tantrums rip his staffers to shreds
Mayor de Blasio is an imperious bully of a boss who threatens his underlings with dire punishment if they fail to meet his demands, e-mails obtained by The Post reveal.
“What do I need to get you guys to follow a direct order? Do you need to experience consequences?” he threatened in one 2015 diatribe.
“I’m not raising this again: Fix it, or I will [have] no choice but to find a way to penalize people. Not my preference, but I won’t have my instructions ignored.”
The e-mails show de Blasio blowing his top at nearly a dozen aides for failing to make sure phonetic versions of challenging words were included in his speeches and talking points.
“This is literally the 100th time I am reminding you all that phonetic spellings require one syllable to be capitalized to indicate emphasis in pronunciation,” de Blasio wrote in one furious message.
“I have no idea why you guys can’t get it. All of the folks in comms, speechwriting and my personal staff who looked at these remarks — it just takes ONE to catch it.”
A City Hall source said de Blasio’s acid e-mails smacked of the same personality Hizzoner displays in person. “He’s condescending and arrogant,” the insider said. “I’ve been in plenty of meetings with him. He’s known to kick staff out of meetings.”
The source blamed de Blasio’s rages on his being a “micro-manager” who has “no confidence” in the people working for him.
De Blasio fired off his “100th time” e-mail on Jan. 24, 2015, under the subject line “Kehilath Jeshuran” — a misspelled reference to the Upper East Side synagogue Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun.
“How can it be that none of you noticed the absence with the word Jeshurun. Work on quality control pls. Fix these remarks now pls. Example: pho-NET-ic,” he fumed.
The message was sent directly to Elana Leopold, a “special assis- tant” who’s now on leave working for his re-election campaign, and cc’d to aides including Avi Fink, now deputy chief of staff, and Amy Spitalnick, who left City Hall in October to become press secretary for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
In a follow-up e-mail on Feb. 6, 2015 — with the screaming subject line, “Guys, I’m fed up . . .” — de Blasio blamed his staff for his verbal stumbles while delivering remarks in Spanish.
“I have raised the problem of inconsistency in providing phonetic pronunciation and in providing clearly delineated Spanish (with emphasis on the proper syllable) many, many times,” he fumed.
“And yet between all of you, you haven’t fix [sic] the problem, which is bluntly unprofessional.”
That message went to staffers including senior adviser Peter Ragone, who left later that month, and Phil Walzak, who was promoted from press secretary to replace Ragone.
A former City Hall staffer noted that de Blasio typically laces his messages with biting remarks such as “you are screwing up” and “ball is in your court.”
A former campaign staffer said the tone in the e-mails was an echo of his verbal style.
“I used to talk to the guy, and he talked down to me every single time,” the source said.
De Blasio spokesman Eric Phillips insisted his boss “is always professional and is a direct communicator who understandably demands a lot.”
“City government is a fast-paced, demanding environment, and there’s probably a good reason these anonymous sources no longer work in City Hall,” Phillips added.
Several current and former staffers who received the blistering e-mails declined to comment, but Spitalnick downplayed de Blasio’s harsh tone.
“Oh come on,” she tweeted. “I didn’t leave bc my boss sent me some tough emails on the phonetic spelling of Hebrew words. NYers have thicker skin than that.”