Mayor Bill de Blasio showed up at a Black Lives Matter mural in Harlem on Friday, just hours after he abandoned his much-talked-about plans for a similar event in front of President Trump’s Midtown Tower.
Hizzoner did not mention his 11-hour cold feet case on the Trump Tower wall plans, for which 16 police officers and several commanders had received overtime on Wednesday night, NBC-4 New York reported, or the president while helping. to paint the ‘Black Lives Matter’ civil rights mantra on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.
“This was the place where the message of black America spread throughout the country, throughout the world. So this is a place where we should have this mural, ”he told the small group of community activists.
De Blasio also did not allow an explosive political controversy over claims that he misled the City Council about the Police Department’s budget cuts again preventing him from promoting his spending plan for the New York police.
“We don’t just need police. Surveillance is not enough. You don’t watch your youth, you reach them, you lift them up, you support them, ”de Blasio said at the uptown meeting.
His office promised that the painting event set for the Trump Tower in Midtown would be rescheduled for next week, but declined to provide additional details.
Meanwhile, the downtown political storm continued to grow after authorities quietly revealed that one of the biggest changes Blasio promised to make to New York police, transferring the $ 326 school security division million a year to the Department of Education, will not take effect this year.
That move only accounted for nearly a third of the $ 1 billion in spending de Blasio promised he would cut or move from the New York Police Department’s $ 6 billion a year budget in response to intense pressure from lawmakers in the city and Black Lives Matters activists.
The push to “disburse” New York police was a central demand for protests that erupted in New York City and across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s violent death by police in Minneapolis.
“We have a commitment from the de Blasio Administration that school safety will be removed from the NYPD budget this fiscal year, and we will keep the mayor on his word,” tweeted President Corey Johnson, who was affected by the change. .
Instead, press secretary Freddi Goldstein, who will be leaving soon, argued on Twitter that the $ 326 million transfer would never be included in the 2021 budget and said it would be included in the non-binding spending guidelines for future years, No, however, it has been made public.
“The mayor said on live television (@InsideCityHall w / @errollouis) Monday night, 24 hours before the City Council voted, that this transition would take several years,” Goldstein tweeted.
However, that defense seemed to contradict Blasio’s own statements from his press conference on June 30 announcing the budget agreement with the City Council.
“I’m sure this budget does exactly that: $ 1 billion is displaced from the NYPD in a variety of ways,” de Blasio said, clearly referring to the city’s budget for 2021.
“We will cancel the next class of recruits that would have started in July,” he added, before referring to the next transfer: “And we will ensure that the patrol force is consistent through reassignments from administrative duty to patrol duty, by ensuring that the NYPD make reviews of some of the functions it performs, handing over certain functions to civilian agencies. “
De Blasio was even asked during that press conference about the transition period for the NYPD’s DOE division of school safety.
He never mentioned any delay in transferring his financing.
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