‘I’ll tell all’ Blas heads ‘dodge’ city
Despite assurances that he discloses everything, Mayor de Blasio ducked and weaved Tuesday in response to questions about five investigations swirling around his administration.
At his first press availability on the issue in a week, Hizzoner refused to say if he had directly solicited funds from people with business pending before the city.
The city’s Conflicts of Interest Board warned in early 2014 that such solicitations were not legit.
The Post reported this week that the mayor sought $50,000 from billionaire John Catsimatidis in late 2014 while the supermarket mogul was lobbying the city on legislation that could reap millions for a bio-diesel firm he owns.
The mayor also refused to explain how a businessman who donated $100,000 to his nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, subsequently landed a contract to sell mint-scented, rodent-repelling trash bags to the Parks Department.
“Any matter under investigation, I’m not going to go into play-by-play on,” he said. “The bottom line is everything was done appropriately.”
Common Cause New York criticized the Campaign for One New York for refusing to cooperate with subpoenas issued by a state ethics board.
But the mayor charged that the board, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, was seeking information outside of its purview.
Less than an hour earlier, two of de Blasio’s potential 2017 challengers joined forces to rip the city for “underfunding” its summer jobs program for youths.
Both Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. claimed to be upset that their press conference outside City Hall was being “overshadowed” by questions about the investigations.
But both willingly spent half of their 20-minute session addressing the probes and neither defended the mayor.
“There is certainly plenty of smoke emanating from City Hall these days, but it’s not clear to anyone that there’s fire,” Jeffries said.
A mayoral aide said the summer youth-employment program was the largest in the nation and had expanded from 35,928 jobs in 2013 to 54,263 last year.