Even in Albany, Mayor Bill de Blasio couldn’t shake questions about the leadership of the city’s troubled Housing Authority.
On Monday, Republican state Sen. Catharine Young grilled Hizzoner over the agency’s woes — reading from investigative reports, audits and media accounts that exposed repeated instances of poor management.
“A very basic but burning question is, Mr. Mayor, why is Shola Olatoye still at NYCHA?” asked Young, chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
The mayor tried to argue that the mess at NYCHA — including the revelation that the agency had lied to the feds by saying it had been conducting required inspections for lead paint for four years — pre-date his administration and Olatoye’s hiring as its leader.
“The fact is that is a problem that we inherited, that’s now being addressed,” said de Blasio, who was in the state capital to fight for more funding for the city.
But Young questioned that account, noting that the inspections had lagged for three years under de Blasio’s watch through mid-2016.
“I think that someone ultimately needs to be held accountable for that. So I don’t understand why you seem to be laying the blame on everybody else,” said Young. “But there’s an old saying, ‘The buck stops here.'”
The upstate Republican concluded the back-and-forth by telling the mayor, “I think you’re defending the indefensible.”
Earlier in the three-plus hours of questioning by state lawmakers, Democratic state Sen. Diane Savino of Staten Island also hammered de Blasio on the public housing crisis — saying state authorities would never tolerate a private landlord operating like the Housing Authority.
“The conditions in the New York City Housing Authority, as you know, are deplorable,” she said. “We would not allow any other landlord in the city of New York to get away with that.”
Through it all, Hizzoner repeatedly defended the NYCHA chair, at one point saying, “I stand by her because she has achieved a lot for 400,000 people and she will continue to.”
Other top agency officials haven’t been as lucky.
At least four top NYCHA officials — including general manager Michael Kelly — have departed in recent months.
The agency has faced heat over its opaque response to the lead paint scandal, a series of heat outages during the coldest spell of winter, and a ceiling caving in on tenants whose complaints about constant leaks were ignored.