The Red Hook Star-Revue invites Mayor Bill de Blasio to a community forum to tell us in person how he has saved healthcare in South Brooklyn.
This newspaper began publishing in 2010. By that time, Brad Lander had already succeeded de Blasio in the city council. We did not get to know him as councilman.
We did finally meet de Blasio on a hot day last summer, spotting his small entourage walking up Hicks Street to join a LICH rally. Frequent rallies were being organized by the nurse’s union in their fight with SUNY Downstate. We became friendly with him, his spokesperson Wiley Norvell, and his assistant, Emma Wolfe. Attending LICH rallies became part of his campaign strategy, and we followed him through his arrest, his vigil at 97 Amity and his leadership at many pro-LICH demonstrations.
The future mayor said all of the right things, until at one point he stopped using the word “hospital”, and starting talking about saving “healthcare.” Those paying attention noticed the subtle shift, but kept hoping that the hospital would be saved.
With the court cases now played out, resulting in LICH’s demise, we did not need to be reminded of the mayor’s failure.
Last week we were not only reminded, but jarred. A letter arrived in everyone’s mailbox telling us of the great job the mayor has done saving healthcare. A bit of research revealed that the mailing was executed by a mayoral advocacy group.
Local Assembly candidate Pete Sikora writes in Crain’s NY:
“LICH was indeed mismanaged and very poorly marketed, yet better management, marketing and some collaborative cost-cutting with doctors and unions would have saved the institution. Instead, people have already died as a result of the closure and over a thousand jobs are lost. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and SUNY were determined to sell the property to real estate developers. Sadly, greed—not the public interest—appears to have won the day.”
Please Mr. de Blasio – come back to our neighborhood to tell us in person what a great job you have done saving our hospital. You can pick the time and place.
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2 Comments
Mayor DeBlasio certainly owes Red Hook a visit & an explanation but do you think even knows about this invitation?
People interested and involved in politics read our paper. We will be publishing this request in the next print edition, out later this week. We think the question is not whether how might now about our invitation, but whether he would care. And trust that he would only make the visit if his public relations staff would think he might have something to gain.