NYC Mayor de Blasio Defends Wife’s $2M Staff as Trash, Rat Problems Grow Due to Budget Cuts

NYC Mayor de Blasio Defends Wife’s $2M Staff as Trash, Rat Problems Grow Due to Budget Cuts

New York City residents and officials have exploded over the fact that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife Chirlane McCray has a staff of 14 people worth $2 million.

The city has slashed a lot off of its budget. Trash has piled high on the streets, which has led to a massive rodent problem.

De Blasio sees no problem with his wife’s staff despite his city becoming a literal wasteland.

While the city needs money, McCray has doubled her staff in two years. The staff includes “a $70,000 videographer who captured her baking ginger snaps during the peak of the city’s pandemic in April.” Her speechwriter makes $117,000 a year. A senior advisor takes in $150,000 a year.

De Blasio said the complainers do not “take into account the work that’s being done.” The work they do is absolutely “helping New Yorkers recover from the coronavirus pandemic.” How? I do not know.

Others want to know:

Some of the Chirlane McCray staffers, who cost city taxpayers nearly $2 million a year combined, work for the first lady’s $1.25 billion mental health initiative ThriveNYC, which has come under fire for its lack of metrics.

“Whatever happened to the money from ThriveNYC?” asked City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Queens).

“How much taxpayer money will the mayor’s wife pilfer before leaving office? How can she sleep at night hiring these hacks knowing so many other city workers are facing layoffs this fall? This is a disgrace!” Ulrich fumed.

The pandemic caused the city to make major budget cuts. De Blasio insisted NYC does not have enough “to maintain parks or pick up trash.”

The Sanitation Department lost $21 million in the cuts. They offer service three days a week instead of seven days. Officials alluded to the Disney movie Ratatouille:

“These rats have the run of New York City,” said Comptroller Scott Stringer at a Harlem press conference about the infestation.

“These rats are walking around waiting for a table at outdoor seating,” Stringer quipped, invoking the animated 2007 Disney film about an alliance between an anthropomorphic rat who wants to become a chef and a a restaurant’s garbage boy.

“I’ve seen them walking upright. They come up to me and say, ‘Good morning Mr. Comptroller.’ They have become part of the fabric of this city because city government has failed to get trash and sanitation under control,” he said at the press conference with Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan).

Stringer and Espaillat told the department the garbage is “both unsightly and unsanitary.” The piles discourage “customers at a time when small businesses are struggling to survive.” The rats and vermin help “spread disease while our city is in the midst of a deadly pandemic.”

The officials want the city to allow businesses “to put their own trash bins in front of stores without facing fines, use sealed bins for garbage collection days to reduce vermin, and find ways to combat rats with the advent of outdoor dining.”

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