How Blas Makes the City Ungovernable

QUALITY of life in New York has dropped, but it really has plummeted for those working for Mayor de Blasio.

In less than four months, two commissioners and a senior deputy mayor have resigned from his administration. Two of these senior aides, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Lilliam BarriosPaoli and Homelessness Commissioner Gilbert Taylor, were designated fall guys for the homelessness crisis that confronts New York City and were summarily tossed under the bus.

The other, the former Film Commissioner Cynthia Lopez, was forced out after a disastrous run.

The common thread between these and similar cases, however, is de Blasio’s corrosive, cumbersome management style.

Both Lopez and BarriosPaoli announced their departures within days of one another in August. Both of their positions remain open — Taylor’s possibly for another several months.

De Blasio’s own governing style is making it harder for him to fill these positions. He has a reputation for micromanaging everything, causing bottleneck at City Hall.

On top of this, the mayor has circumvented his deputy mayors and commissioners by giving their portfolios to aides that he has a stron ger relationship with, or at least trusts more.

That is, de Blasio is undercutting his own appointees.

When BarriosPaoli resigned, reports quickly began to surface that despite her being tasked as the point person on the homelessness issue, de Blasio would give Steven Banks, the commissioner of the Human Resources Administration, the last word — and often in private. It undercut BarriosPaoli’s authority and showed he never had full confidence or trust in her.

Now, Taylor has resigned and the whispers are the same: De Blasio would often go around Taylor and defer to Banks.

To make matters worse, the day after Taylor “resigned,” Banks blamed the homelessness crisis not on de Blasio, who has now been mayor for two years, but on former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration. This ridiculous accusation demonstrates just how out of touch de Blasio and his aides are with reality — or how cynical they’ve become.

De Blasio now faces another hurdle in getting qualified candidates to replace Taylor and BarriosPaoli. Which candidates in their right mind would accept either of these positions knowing that their power and au thority would be subverted by others?

Let’s not forget about the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, which has been without a permanent commissioner for some months now after Cynthia Lopez’s departure. Within the entertainment community, Lopez was viewed as an odd selection, a judgment that seemed to be confirmed by her job performance.

In March 2015, after the entertainment community began publicly airing concerns about Lopez, de Blasio’s team defended her record as commissioner by citing how she had secured a $160,000 donation to the city from the Teamsters. The administration also pointed out that Lopez was working on its main goal: making sure more minorities were hired for production jobs in order to promote de Blasio’s equality agenda.

Of course, what the administration did not say is that the number of new film and television projects was down and that Lopez failed to help secure new movies and TV series being filmed in New York City. Without these new projects, it’s impossible to provide additional jobs for minorities — or any New Yorker for that matter — in the entertainment industry.

Gov. Cuomo and his team had to step in and rescue New York’s entertainment economy from de Blasio and Lopez, first by landing an upcoming Disney Marvel series and then by taking the lead on securing Paramount’s agreement to film another Ninja Turtles movie in New York.

Now let’s look at Mindy Tarlow, director of the Mayor’s Office of Operations. She’s a highly qualified and competent member of the administration who holds one of the most important jobs in city government: finding ways to make the government more effective and efficient. Prior directors have been respected and feared, especially Harvey Robins, who served in this position for David Dinkins. Robins had absolute authority, terrified agency commissioners and would constantly meet with the mayor.

Unfortunately, Tarlow isn’t permitted to be the administration’s Harvey Robins. There are indications that her role is mainly symbolic and that she has little to no access to the mayor — and, therefore, no true authority.

Few people would accuse de Blasio of competence. But his overbearing governing style is sapping his administration of whatever competence others might bring to the table — if they even want to be there.