NEW YORK, N.Y.- This is why people hate politics. Some politicians do not even try to make it look like they are not trying to take care of friends and family.
The latest example of what’s arguably nepotism? Look no further than the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio. He just named his wife Chirlane McCray to head a so-called coronavirus recovery task force.
Of course, the coronavirus has been outed as a racist affliction, so part of de Blasio’s motivation in appointing his wife is to make sure that “racial inclusion and equity” in the recovery was addressed.
What makes this appointment even more controversial is the fact that McCray ran something called “Thrive NYC,” which has been roundly criticized in the city as a “mismanaged money pit,” that produced no results despite the fact that it gets $250 million a year.
The same wife you made the head of Thrive NYC, the failed program that spent 850 taxpayer dollars that you guys now can’t account for? https://t.co/qua9fkux8X https://t.co/DTMVw0HSXu
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) April 27, 2020
According to the New York Post, the program went through over $565 million in taxpayers’ money prior to last year and had basically achieved nothing.
City Councilman Ritchie Torres said:
“There’s no evidence it’s working. We have to evaluate the effectiveness of each program. It should be done on a case by case basis.
“If there’s a program that’s been found to be ineffective, we should pull the plug. If there’s a program that’s found to be effective, we should continue it.”
@NYCFirstLady botched the leadership of Fund for City of New York. Thrive, a 1B program which she heads was placed on watch list for poor performance by @NYCComptroller. So, DEB appts her head of CV task force, & is angling her 4 Bklyn BP! https://t.co/xZFBRTc3ht
— Sal Albanese (@SalAlbaneseNYC) April 27, 2020
According to National Review, the city has spent over $1 billion on the program since it was founded in 2015. Between 2015 and 2018 they said:
“The number of police complaints in the city involving mentally disturbed people rose 23 percent, and the number of mentally ill homeless individuals rose by over 2,000 over the same period.”
Despite the fact that the program hadn’t shown much as far as results, McCray criticized her detractors, saying:
“The truth is haters gonna hate. The haters want to hate because Thrive is doing very important work.”
Last year, the program was the subject of some controversy after it pulled out of an event for first responders, because the pro-police group “Blue Lives Matter” was co-sponsoring the event, this despite the fact that there had been a rash of suicides in the ranks of the NYPD.
Councilman Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, criticized the decision.
“This was going to train police officers how to recognize signs of depression. We had people in the police department who wanted to save lives, and not it’s canceled, and we have to reschedule it because of the PC environment that de Blasio has caused.”
Borelli noted that his office was approached by Blue Lives Matter last June about helping to set up mental health programs for police, and at first Thrive was glad to take part.
However, once Thrive’s directors saw the involvement of Blue Lives Matter, they were explicitly asked to remove “other groups”—ostensibly Blue Lives Matter—from the flyer. After the request was refused, Thrive pulled its support of the event.
Because Thrive pulled out, they were forced to postpone the event until last September while police suicides continued.
“This program, it could have done a lot of good things,” said the head of Blue Lives Matter, Sgt. Joseph Imperatrice. “This is the problem: You reach your hand to try to do good things and, in this case, save lives, and because of political agenda, they want to pull it back.”
THRIVE BACKS OUT ON COPS: Mayor de Blasio and his wife are under fire again after their criticized Thrive NYC mental health program backed out of an event that was sponsored by the pro-police group Blue Lives Matter. https://t.co/oKDkP3zi4T #CBSNewYork pic.twitter.com/rdHzSrsDp5
— CBS New York (@CBSNewYork) August 15, 2019
Back to the coronavirus recovery task force. De Blasio, appointed his wife to co-chair the task force as the Big Apple looks at the eventual reopening of businesses and other activities in the city.
“The economic and racial disparities that have been made so clear by this crisis, we knew about them before,” de Blasio said. “A powerful, painful exclamation point has been put on them by this crisis.”
In the pandemic, the poorest zip codes in the city seem to have been hardest hit by the coronavirus, according to city data. Minorities, who tend to be among the city’s essential workers, have died at disproportionately higher rates. Which actually makes sense, since they would have been more likely to have been exposed than individuals whose businesses are closed and who are subject to stay-at-home orders.
De Blasio noted that the task force was formed to ensure that the city’s “underdogs” aren’t left behind in the recovery.
The appointment of de Blasio’s wife by the mayor drew some confusion on both sides of the city’s political aisle.
Borelli said, “Chirlane doesn’t have an impressive track record running task forces or agencies.” Noting that McCray has political aspirations, Borelli continued, “This is too serious an issue to use it as a profile raiser.”
Democrat Robert Holden didn’t hold much back, saying that the appointment smacked of nepotism with de Blasio trying to raise his wife’s visibility at a time when she has been widely rumored to be running for Brooklyn borough president.
“This is political I wish de Blasio would stop doing this,” he said. “Let her win the Brooklyn borough presidency on her own merits.
“Her track record on Thrive and the statue commission hasn’t been good,” he said, referring to another boondoggle that McCray had been involved with.
This surrounds a controversy that blew up in 2019 when the city was searching for women to memorialize with public monuments. A public poll had selected Italian American nun Mother Cabrini, which McCray vetoed, causing a lot of consternation among the public.
Speaking of not pulling punches, Republican Councilman Eric Ulrich of Queens tweeted, “’Putting @NYCFirstLady in charge of the newly created task force on racial inclusion is a great idea,’—said No One Ever. By the way, what ever happened to all that money for ThriveNYC?”
“Putting @NYCFirstLady in charge of the newly created task force on racial inclusion and equity is a great idea,” -said No One Ever… By the way, what ever happened to all that money for ThriveNYC? @MentalHealthNYC
— Eric Ulrich (@eric_ulrich) April 26, 2020
In an apparent acknowledgment of Thrive’s problems, New York last month said that it was going to cut half of its 54 sub-programs and cut back spending—a move once again that sources believe is to grease the skids for McCray’s anticipated run for borough president.
De Blasio of course thinks his wife has done a peach job. He said that her work at Thrive was the reason why she should head the coronavirus recovery initiative.
“I think what Chirlane has done over these last six years is take this issue, put it in the light, open up access for millions of people and then continue to build out a structure that could focus on effective delivery and equity. I think that’s exactly the kind of mindset needed for this task force.”
The purpose of the group is to make sure that hardest-hit areas, along with minority and women-owned businesses get fair treatment as the city recovers from the pandemic.
We must first demand a full investigation & accounting into
ThriveNYC, Chirlane McCray’s mental health project,& the fact that
about one billion dollars in taxpayer money is missing. No transparency, City Council members say we don’t know. https://t.co/4eL2uqGuJU— Lynn Shaw (@LynnShawProd) April 26, 2020
Supposedly, McCray will not get paid for this post, however the city didn’t respond to the New York Post when asked about what the task force had allocated for a budget—or if it even has one.
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