By Ruth Papazian
7 Deadly Sins of Mayor De Zastero: Pride
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (a/k/a De Zastero) time is simply more valuable than yours—unless you’re a donor:
- He arrived 20 minutes late to the 13th annual memorial ceremony for the 265 people killed in the crash of American Airlines Flight 587, and missed the minute of silence followed by the tolling of a bell marking the moment of impact at 9:16 a.m. on November 12, 2001. According to an attendee who lost a brother in the tragic accident, the mayor didn’t even apologize for his tardiness.
- The following year he missed half the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Rockaway, Queens, and just a few months after that, an entire planeload of passengers was forced to wait an extra 20 minutes to take off because he was unable to get to JFK on time.
- Last year, he delayed for 30 minutes a meeting with a group of blind New Yorkers living in Selis Manor that was meant to reassure them about damage to the facility caused by the September pressure cooker terror attack on West 23rd Street so that he could work out and have a cup of coffee with his wife. This after his initial instinct was to downplay the incident as an “accident,” contradicting Cuomo, who had called it “terrorism.”
- He is so contemptuous of voters, he actually showed up 25 minutes late to a Democrat candidates’ forum in May.
He has lately taken to hopping on helicopters to fly to meetings he doesn’t want to be late for.
New York City ought to have a mayor who treats voters with the courtesy and respect to run on “Lombardi Time” (if you are five minutes early, you are already ten minutes late”), because of traffic congestion, street closures due to never-ending repair work, sluggish mass transit service and weather-related contingencies.
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