Classy!
Gov. Cuomo slammed the MTA on Monday by comparing it to the corrupt old Board of Education — as he made his pitch for absolute control over the transit agency.
“We had a Board of Education in New York City. Everybody [was] on the board and no one was in charge,” Cuomo said on Albany’s WAMC radio, arguing he should be allowed to appoint a majority of the MTA board’s 17 members.
“Someone needs to be in charge,” he added, raging that the New York City mayor and a cadre of suburban county executives combined get to make more board appointments than he does alone.
Cuomo already gets six appointees, including the board chair, while the mayor gets four and the county executives get a total of seven appointees who wield a combined four votes.
Cuomo also shares full veto power over the agency’s budget with the Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader, while the mayor has veto power only over the New York City Transit budget.
The governor — who has taken credit for the MTA’s successes, such as the completion of the Second Avenue Subway, while shirking blame for the agency’s foibles — claimed Monday, “The MTA was put together to avoid any liability for any elected official.
“It was Machiavellian the way they did it.”
The governor leveled the claim the day after his budget director issued a 1,500-word press release Sunday arguing that Cuomo should be given total control of the MTA — but that New York City should still cover 50 percent of the subway system’s debt.
Also on Sunday, MTA board leaders blindsided their own members and announced an emergency meeting to go over the details of Cuomo’s 11th-hour plan to avert the L train shutdown.
Mayor-appointed MTA board member David Jones slammed Cuomo Monday for trying to downplay his sway over the agency.
“It’s a red herring. He obviously has the six appointees and appointed the chair,” he fumed to The Post, adding that the governor also hires the authority’s major players outside the board.
“The notion that we are a major impediment is disingenuous. If he wants two more seats, it wouldn’t make any fundamental difference.”
Mayor de Blasio called the Board of Education comparison a “bad analogy” and said if Cuomo is looking for a Machiavellian figure, he should go no further than the governor’s mansion.
“What has been true and the governor — Gov. Cuomo said this, and I agree with him — is that there’s been an effort to obscure who’s really in charge for a long time. But in practical terms, the state of New York and, specifically, the governor of New York have been in charge for decades,” de Blasio said at an unrelated press conference.
“So no, it’s not like the Board of Education.”
De Blasio also trashed Cuomo’s suggestion that the city should pick up half of the tab for fixing the crumbling subway system.
“If anyone thinks that money can be found in the city budget they may be smoking marijuana,” Hizzoner said.
Cuomo admitted in 2002 that he “tried marijuana in [his] youth,” but his office would not confirm or deny he was high when he cooked up the 50-50 funding-split idea.
It was the latest salvo in an ongoing war between the two executives over how to fund the MTA.
De Blasio wants a millionaires tax to pay for subway fixes, but has been unable to get approval from Albany.
The MTA declined to comment.