Thrive’s Blue mess
Chirlane aide: We dropped the ball
A deputy director with Chirlane McCray’s embattled $1 billion mental-health project ThriveNYC admitted in an e-mail that her group “mishandled” a police training seminar allegedly scuttled over its ties to pro-cop group Blue Lives Matter.
The training session was for first responders and supposed to feature counselors from the initiative founded by Mayor de Blasio’s wife.
Thrive pulled out at the last minute over the involvement of Blue Lives Matter, City Councilman Joe Borelli exclusively told The Post this week — a claim hotly denied by the mayor.
Yet a damning e-mail shows Thrive Deputy Director Sarah Solon wrote Borelli’s chief of staff, Frank Mascia, on Aug. 9, conceding, “Frank, I think our office mishandled this.”
Solon, meanwhile, now claims she had only meant her phone conversation with Mascia was “mishandled” — not Thrive’s backing out of the program.
WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer pushed the mayor about the e-mail on Friday, setting off Hizzoner.
“I don’t know the details of what some midlevel person said or didn’t say,” de Blasio seethed to Lehrer as Hizzoner continued to call the criticism of his wife’s pet program “lies.”
The mayor acknowledged that “there was confusion about whether it was a public event or a by-invitation-only” session but insisted that either way, the issue “could have been fixed” in time.
Borelli, a Republican whose Staten Island office was sponsoring the event, shot back on Friday, telling The Post, “If the mayor doesn’t know what his staff is doing or saying, he may want to rethink calling me a liar.”
The councilman said Thrive clearly yanked its offer to provide therapists for the scheduled mental-health seminar this coming Monday because Blue Lives Matter was recruiting police to attend.
Blue Lives Matter, formed after the fatal 2014 ambush of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, is regarded as a controversial group by some for its juxtaposition with Black Lives Matter, but its core purpose is supporting cops.
“When you say you don’t want to be associated with the group that is hosting the event and bringing the police officers, then OK, we’re not going to have the event,” Borelli explained of the decision not to move forward with the session.
At the time, seven NYPD officers had committed suicide this year. Before another week was out, the number jumped to nine.
E-mails between City Hall staff and Borelli’s office show the administration was initially on board with Blue Lives Matter participating.
On June 27, Mascia wrote to Thrive staffer Charlie Aidinoff, “How about 7/25 we do a training for constituents with a focus on first responders & partner with blue lives matter,” according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Post.
Shauna Stribula, who is with the Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs, was on the e-mail chain and replied the same day, “Works for us!” So the training was scheduled for Aug. 19.
Then on Aug. 9, Aidinoff ’s supervisor, Solon, saw a copy of a flier advertising the training with the Blue Lives Matter logo and called Mascia, the Borelli aide said.
She “was obviously uncomfortable with the flier. She didn’t want their logo used,” Mascia said, recalling their phone chat.
Shortly after, Solon sent the e-mail that said, “I think our office mishandled this. Let me know if you’d like to speak.”
They never had a further conversation about the matter. Borelli said it was because he didn’t like the way Thrive was treating him and shunning Blue Lives Matter was a deal-breaker. Solon had a different take. “I called to tell him about the public-versus-private training issue, and he got frustrated, cursed and hung up the phone,’’ Solon told The Post. “I e-mailed because I thought the conversation could have gone better and wanted to reconnect. I didn’t hear from him again.”