De Blasio: Bloomberg Has Achievements, But Dropped Ball On Inequality
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio on Sunday said the man whom he will soon replace has many achievements to his credit, but still took Mayor Michael Bloomberg to task for what he said was the outgoing mayor's failure to address inequality.
Speaking at a news conference Sunday in which he announced the appointment of Gladys Carrión as commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services, de Blasio said Bloomberg had many noble achievements on a variety of different fronts.
"(There are) some areas where history will smile on him, in terms of his efforts on the environment, on resiliency, on sustainability, on public health – areas that I have very often agreed with him. I think some of his investments in education, writ large, were very important," de Blasio said.
But despite all that, de Blasio said Bloomberg failed to address one of the most important issues of all.
"There's areas where he will actually be able to say a lot of good about his legacy, and then there is the core problem – he did not address inequality," de Blasio said. "He governed during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and he never addressed it; spoke to it; changed his policies to address the suffering of our people."
Inequality in New York City was a principal theme for de Blasio's mayoral run. He characterized the current situation in the city as "a tale of two cities."
"I've spoken throughout this campaign of a tale of two cities. That inequality, that feeling of a few doing very well, while so many have slipped further behind, that is the defining challenge of our times," de Blasio said in his victory speech last month.
The problem needs to be addressed, or the city will suffer, de Blasio said.
Bloomberg's last day in office is Tuesday, Dec. 31.
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