CITY'S TOP DOG IS IVY LEAVING
Commish Harvard-bound amid NYCHA probe
City Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett is leaving for a job at Harvard at the end of the month.
Her bailout comes as the Department of Investigation looks into why her agency failed to send reports to the New York City Housing Authority about kids with elevated lead levels in their blood.
Asked whether Bassett’s departure was connected to the probe, Mayor de Blasio insisted at an unrelated press conference on Thursday, “Absolutely not.”
Harvard officials confirmed that negotiations with Bassett began a number of months ago, before the probe was publicly reported.
She will serve as the director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.
She was also named a professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Science.
The mayor appointed First Deputy Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot as acting commissioner.
Bassett, 65, joined the administration when de Blasio first took office in January 2014 and has overseen a relatively wellregarded agency through several crises, including the Ebola scare.
But a scathing Manhattan US Attorney’s Office complaint against NYCHA’s woeful response to lead paint in apartments inhabited by young children also tarred the Health Department.
The complaint noted that between 2010 and 2015, health offi- cials found 202 youngsters living in NYCHA apartments with blood lead levels of 10 micrograms per deciliter or higher — the threshold at which the health agency is supposed to inspect the apartments.
But 81 of the apartments were not visited, according to the complaint.
Asked whether he was interested in getting to the bottom of the lapse, de Blasio replied, “I have interest in fixing the problem once and for all. I really don’t want to retread.”
The mayor praised Bassett’s steady hand, especially during times of crisis.
“She was an extraordinarily calm and clear and methodical voice ad- dressing really complex issues, most notably the Ebola crisis, which I think for all of us was the ultimate in uncharted territory,” he said.
“Mary Bassett, at that moment, really was a particularly powerful and important voice in the city, helping everyone to understand the disease and recognizing how we would work our way through that crisis, and we did.”
Bassett’s announcement came a day after it was reported that another longtime member of de Blasio’s administration was planning to pack for Harvard.
Purnima Kapur, executive director of the Department of City Planning, was headed for a consulting job, Crain’s reported.
Kapur worked at the department for 28 years and led the Bronx and Brooklyn offices before becoming the executive director in 2014 after de Blasio took office.