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NYONE searching for a defining moment in the misbegotten mayoralty of Bill de Blasio will find it difficult to top the scene outside City Hall Monday.
As hundreds of charter-school students and parents, nearly all of them nonwhite, noisily protested the city’s failure to give them space in public buildings, the mayor and First Lady Chirlane McCray pulled up in their chauffeured SUV, climbed the steep steps and disappeared inside without so much as a wave to the children who came seeking help.
They were chanting, “Kids before politics.” In response, de Blasio showed them what it looks like to put politics before kids.
For Tiayna Harris, the disgraceful scene was all too familiar. A charter high-school student who had been through similar disappointments in 2014, soon after de Blasio took office, she told The Post what she would say to him if she had the chance: “Mayor, have a heart.” Does she believe in miracles? Because it’s been obvious for some time that de Blasio has no heart for the city or the people in it.
If he did, he would not have wasted precious months on his ridiculous quest to become president. Think of all the good things he could have done for people in the five boroughs if he had spent even half that time on his day job.
Instead, he spent countless hours raising money from the usual suspects and plotting with consultants. Then he traipsed around cornfields and coffee shops, pretending to care about Iowa voters as he promised to deliver on their concerns.
He no doubt took them to be hicks from the sticks, but they showed their smarts by sending him packing. Ditto for Democrats in South Carolina and other states where support for him didn’t register even 1 percent.
As President Trump put it in mocking de Blasio’s delusions, “How do you get zero?”
It takes a special talent to be so thoroughly and uniformly rejected, but that talent was on display outside City Hall Monday. De Blasio claims to care about giving poor and nonwhite children help in school, but his dispute with charters reveals he has a heart of stone.
For him, it’s the teachers union first, last and always. Every school “reform” he announces is nothing more than another bundle of big bucks for union members.
It’s not a coincidence that his reforms generally yield no gain for students. Boosting student performance is never the point.
Apart from hiring a chancellor who obsesses over racial bean counting, de Blasio’s most notorious example of malpractice is his six-year war on charters, for which the unions have lavishly rewarded him with votes and donations. It’s a cold-cash business and charter families wanting nothing more than a good education for their children are mere pawns.
In fact, de Blasio is probably secretly happy that Eva Moskowitz, head of the Success Academy network, keeps pushing for more space. Each of her demands is another reason for the union to draw closer to de Blasio and fatten his slush funds.
The mayor’s frigid refusal even to acknowledge the Monday protest ought to earn him a bonus from the union.
If his fight with charters were de Blasio’s only slap in the face to striving New Yorkers, it would be enough. But he is piling on the pain with two other giant policies.
His push to close Rikers Island and spread the jail population around by building large new facilities in all the boroughs except Staten Island is a dagger to the targeted neighborhoods. And all taxpayers will be on the hook for the bill, which starts at $9 billion and will surely end far north of that.
Not to be forgotten is a similar plan to replace large, fetid homeless shelters with 90 smaller facilities scattered around the five boroughs. Once again, the mayor’s “compassion” is extended to everyone except the people who pay the bills and want to live in safe, clean and orderly neighborhoods. They get only the back of his hand and endless tax increases.
The common thread linking these three issues — his fight with charters, closing Rikers and expanding shelters — is a failure to manage. The regular public schools de Blasio runs failed so many kids, which is why the best charters attract more students and need more space to meet demand.
Similarly, the decision to demolish Rikers reflects his failure to fix it, which would be far cheaper and less disruptive. Instead he wants to break the bank and damage other communities.
As for the homeless debacle, the only thing that can be said is that de Blasio and his inept team of bleeding hearts have made it worse. The city was spending $1 billion a year on the problem before he took office, and the tab is now more than $2 billion.
How much money would be enough? As long as de Blasio is mayor, there is no such thing as enough. Nor is there any heart for New Yorkers.