Mayor Plans To Meet With Italian Mayors While Vacationing

deblasioJuly15At a press conference yesterday at a Brooklyn middle school, Mayor Bill De Blasio explained his hopes to meet with some government officials while he vacations in Italy for the next 9 days.

“There’s a possibility of seeing some of the mayors in some of the cities I’ll be in, including Rome and Naples… I find when I talk to mayors from anywhere in the world, we share ideas, we compare notes, we work together on a host of issues, and I think mayors are more and more setting the pace for some of the changes that have to happen in the world.”

He acknowleged the value of a New York Mayor building ties with officials in the European nation, from which his mother’s family emmigrated.

“Italy is a very central nation in the world, is now running the chairmanship of the European Union at this point, a crucial American ally, a country from which a huge number of people in New York City and the metropolitan area have their ancestral roots.”

Hizzoner gave some unexpected praise of the former Mayor as well.

“So I think this is part of building upon something that my predecessor, Michael Bloomberg did, I think a fine job on with working closely with mayors around the world on areas of common concern like climate change, like the fight against income inequality, things where we all have to push our national governments for a series of changes looking to the future, so I think they’re an important relationship to development.”

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