As city plowing crews waged a losing battle with a raging storm Sunday night, the man in charge of the operation sent a note of praise to his guys on the street.
“Good snow work by sanitation,” Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith posted to his Twitter account at 11:06 p.m. Sunday night. “Long shifts well executed and continuing.”
Goldsmith, the former mayor of Indianapolis who Mayor Bloomberg brought in this year to cut costs in city government, is widely disliked by the city’s unionized workforce.
As the blame game heats up in the wake of the disastrous snow clean up, many are pointing fingers at Goldsmith – and noting that he wasn’t in town as the flakes started falling.
Goldsmith denied today that his tweet was premature.
“I wanted to show that I appreciated their 14 hours days,” he said while traveling in Queens on a four-borough tour with Mayor Bloomberg.
The tweet was meant as encouragement, he said, not a comment on state of streets.
Jason Post, a spokesman for Goldsmith, said the Deputy Mayor for Operations reported to the city’s emergency command center on Monday.
Post wasn’t certain where Goldsmith was at 11:06 p.m. Sunday but noted that the storm was still in its early stages at that hour.
“The bulk of the storm was overnight,” Post said.
The city’s perilous backlog of 911 calls didn’t happen until hours later.
“What was wrong at 11:06?” Post asked.
He pointed out that Goldsmith, who lives in northern Manhattan, issued another tweet two days later, at 4:13 p.m. on Tuesday.
“Tough couple days for NYC citizens and public employees,” it said. “Looking 4 all possible tow trucks. Mayor asked for review of emergency response.”
{NY Daily News/Matzav.com}
Nebach. 2 Yidelach who failed us all!
Real Bloomberg material. Give him a raise !