Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito teamed up Monday at the Museum of Natural History to make an announcement about municipal IDs, an appearance that comes after some recent awkward moments between the two. NY1's Grace Rauh filed this report.
"I'm not going to allow anyone to attempt to save face at the expense of this council," City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said Thursday.
That was then.
This is now: "The mayor and I have a good working relationship and it is all in the best interest of New York City," she said Monday.
Less than a week after Mark-Viverito publicly blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio over his handling of a deal with car-service company, Uber, she seemed ready to move on. Mark-Viverito appeared at a press conference with her usual progressive partner. While she made nice with the mayor in front of the cameras, he was the one who seemed most intent on projecting a strong relationship to the public.
"I've known the speaker well since she first ran for office, and we have been friends and allies ever since," de Blasio said.
That friendship took a hit when the speaker aired her grievances in front of the media last week. Her statements revealed a high level of frustration with de Blasio. She seemed upset that he tried to claim credit for the Uber agreement and downplay her role in the negotiations.
A similar situation happened earlier this year. Mark-Viverito had been urging the mayor to hire 1,000 more police officers. He ultimately agreed to hire even more, but credited his police commissioner with ultimately convincing him to pull the trigger.
Mayor de Blasio has also had trouble getting along with another high-profile Democrat—but he tried to make it clear that his spat with the speaker was very different from his feud with Governor Andrew Cuomo.
"Have you heard of the concept of apples and oranges?" de Blasio said.
Interest in the relationship between the mayor and speaker overshadowed the official announcement of the day. The mayor says more than 400,000 New Yorkers signed up for municipal ID cards in the first six months of the program.