Bloomberg Admits He Screwed Up...With Cathie Black Secrecy

NYC Mayor's Office

It's the moment we've all been waiting for! Mayor Bloomberg (allegedly) finally admitted that he screwed up with the ~~trans-fat ban~~ ~~salt ban~~ ~~term limit extension~~ ~~Cathie Black's appointment~~ the way he handled Cathie Black's appointment. One source told the Post, "He's telling people in the educational community, 'We screwed it up.' He ended up alienating people who would have been on his side."

Black's appointment was handled with such secrecy that many education officials did not know of his choice until he announced it to the whole city, and even Black wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Critics pointed to the secrecy as proof that Mayor Bloomberg has singlehanded control over the school system, and believed he didn't take into consideration the concerns of parents and educators when making the decision.

Despite sort of admitting to handling the announcement wrong, Bloomberg seems to still believe he made the right choice. He previously said of critics, "It just goes to show they have no understanding whatsoever of what the job is...The real problem is how do you take all this money and all these people and all the needs and get them all together. And Cathie Black has all the experience necessary."

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By Jaya Saxena in News on December 5, 2010 1:40 PM

Comments [rss]

DrDE

I am sick of hearing that "those who object to Black don't get it." How arrogant and dismissive. It's not that we don't "get" it, we don't "understand" its that we don't agree.I can see the argument that a top "manager" is needed, I disagree that it should be Black (what makes her better than hundreds of other "world class" managers That she's Bloomberg's friend and that she was looking for a new job). But further, I believe that to manage the lives of so many young minds, you need MORE that being a business manager. I get it. I think Bloomberg the narcissist doesn't get it. Or doesn't care.

ANGRYGOD11

BTW, you know what you can get when you don't study the candidate carefully enough? Sarah Palin.

ANGRYGOD11

The best reason why not make appointments this way is to avoid the problems when the embarrassing stuff arrives. Maybe there is no cocaine fueled racist rant on video, but Bloomie won't know until its too late.

jaycjay

What's completely left out in the above story is the very significant fact that the mayor's office, through Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser, denies that Bloomberg has any regrets about the process and says that these conversations supposedly reported by anonymous sources did not happen.

That, in fact, made up about half of the source NY Post article but isn't even hinted at here. As much criticism as the Post often deserves, even they realize that you report both sides of a story -- especially when one side is supported only by anonymous sources.