Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have never had a close relationship, and the storm only made it frostier. NY1’s Grace Rauh filed this report.
With a blizzard threatening to blanket the five boroughs this week, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio could have spoken to New Yorkers with one voice. One voice telling people to stay indoors. One voice warning that the streets and subways would be closed.
Instead, New Yorkers heard from two men - both Democrats - at separate news conferences. At times, they seemed to create more confusion than clarity for the public.
“We're all just trying to get information out as soon as it is ready,” said the mayor. “There has been a lot of coordination and communication between our teams throughout.”
The coordination, though, did not appear to include the Governor's decision to shut down subway and bus service at 11 p.m. Monday.
“We did not get a lot of advance notice,” said de Blasio.
An aide to the mayor says de Blasio was told about the subway shutdown around 4:30 p.m. - a mere 15 minutes before the governor's press briefing was set to begin - when he announced it to the public.
At one point on Monday, the pair even scheduled news conferences 15 minutes apart. Had they gone forward, the events would have undoubtedly overlapped, forcing news organizations like NY1 to decide which official to air live on TV.
When asked why the mayor and the governor did not do these briefings together, Governor Cuomo suggested it was simply because the storm was set to hit more of the state than just New York City.
“This is a thirteen county region. We could invite all thirteen local officials here today, but that is a lot of officials,” said Cuomo.
Last year during the Ebola scare, the Mayor and Governor did team up to talk about New York's first case. But soon after, the Governor left the mayor behind, announcing new quarantine rules without input from City Hall.
As for the subway shutdown, the mayor says he would have liked to have had more discussion about it before it was announced.