Mayor Bill de Blasio is such a blunderer that he can’t even go after Donald Trump without it backfiring.
“It doesn’t make sense,” the mayor admitted Monday, that City Hall effectively gave a homeless-shelter operator a contract to take over the golf course previously run by the Trump Organization. The issue hit the news because of CORE Services’ scandals, but the outfit also had no relevant experience — only the right political contacts.
De Blasio rushed to ditch all Trump Organization contracts after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. But he didn’t bother to make sure qualified people took over.
Ferry Point Links LLC, the newly created outfit that got the no-bid, 13-year Parks Department deal to take over the 18-hole Ferry Point links, is run by no less than CORE’s CEO, Jack Brown, and out of the same address, The City reports. He partnered with an out-of-town firm that does run golf courses, but the deal sure looks smelly now that he’s been exposed as using a web of for-profit firms to make big money off the nonprofit CORE, which pays him a salary of more than $1 million a year.
This fiasco follows news this summer that the firm handed the Wollman Rink contract (after Blas booted the Trump company there) promptly moved to hike skating fees. “They told us we’d get a more responsible operator than Trump. This is more expensive than Trump,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said.
That’s our mayor: rushing to make political hay and managing to make his despised target look good.