"The most transparent mayor in history"

Is it true? (spoiler:no) #59

This week, Maya Kaufman of Politico wrote about a scary increase in tuberculosis cases across New York City — 500 cases of active tuberculosis so far this year, which is around 20% higher than the same time last year. This information was not easily obtained. It came from internal preliminary data, and the health department was not very eager to talk about it.

As Maya wrote:

The city Health Department declined to make commissioner Ashwin Vasan or the director of its TB control program, Joseph Burzynski, available for interviews. Burzynski told staff not to respond to POLITICO’s inquiries about the city’s tuberculosis control efforts, according to a copy of the email sent to the bureau.

Let’s see that again.

Burzynski told staff not to respond to POLITICO’s inquiries about the city’s tuberculosis control efforts, according to a copy of the email sent to the bureau.

This is scary and yet unsurprising behavior from a public health agency. I say it’s not surprising because there are always varying degrees to which agencies block information from the public, from willful ignorance to stonewalling to just ignoring calls, texts, or emails.

Publicly-paid public information officers and officials often seem to spend more time going out of their way to shield information that is in the public’s interest than actually sharing it. Or they gaslight you, like we saw as Mayor Adams responded to his administration’s terrible response to last week’s rain. Or they fail miserably at trying to fight with you on Twitter, making themselves look even dumber than before. I have Freedom of Information requests that are four years old, and the newer ones I’ve filed keep getting delayed. Of course there are legal mechanisms to expedite these documents and this information, but it sometimes all feel designed to exploit an understaffed and generally tired workforce in the media.

I mean: Mayor Adams doesn’t release his full schedule. His admin will now only take off-topic questions once a week (Off Topic Tuesday). The NYPD plans to encrypt even more radios. And on and on.

Errol Louis wrote this week with advice for the mayor on handling emergencies. He and his team could really use the guidance on what to do before, during, and after an emergency — and it isn’t telling New Yorkers they were “living under a rock” to not know about it.

Back on Thanksgiving Eve 2021, which sometimes feels like two lifetimes ago, the then mayor-elect told an impromptu gaggle of reporters that he was going to be the most transparent mayor in the city’s history. I knew that video would come in handy, and it has. Let’s hope it gets better instead of getting worse.

💫Other interesting stories 💫

Here’s some coverage of the mayor’s trip to Mexico City and Quito (he’s headed to Bogotá and the Darién Gap after.) [POLITICO] [NYPOST]

The federal monitor for Rikers Island chides increased violence [THE CITY]

The City Council is mulling a bill to ban bird releases [THE CITY]

Also: The ORIGINAL H Mart, which happens to be very close to my apartment, officially reopened this week! This shop opened in 1982 and until now did not have the same H Mart logo and design, and Patch reported that it wasn’t affiliated with the supermarket chain. I guess they settled whatever differences they had.

I feel truly blessed by the abundance of food shopping I can do in my neighborhood — my closest supermarket being G Mart, which sells a lot of Asian specialties but also cheap produce and a very useful “$1 bin” with closeout snacks and sauces. Plus I’m minutes from the 24-hour Food Bazaar, and both the original H Mart and a new giant one that took over Stop and Shop on 48th Street. I hope all my readers are as lucky for cooking and eating purposes.

Thanks for reading!