Revolt: NY City Council members rip Bloomberg over snow removal, vow to hold hearings

Simply devastating. And by “devastating,” I of course mean hilarious. Somewhere Bloomy’s sitting in a dark room, a bottle of Jack in hand, listening to the “No Labels” theme song to try to cheer himself up.

You guys realize what’s happening here, right? One of the media’s fondest, dumbest fantasies — a serious Bloomberg third-party bid for the White House — is buckling before our very eyes. If you’ve got champagne stashed away somewhere for New Year’s, pop it now.

Yesterday, Brooklyn City Councilman David Greenfield, who Bloomberg endorsed in his election bid last year, even sending some of his political troops to help with get-out-the-vote efforts, appeared on a Jewish radio show and blasted the snow-removal.

“This could easily be the beginning of the end of Mayor Bloomberg’s political career. It’s such a big deal. And I am telling this as somebody who has always had a good relationship with the mayor and who has always worked well with him,” Greenfield said. “This is a mayor who prides himself on saying the buck stops by him. And at the end of the day the buck does stop by him. We are going to hold him responsible. He is on notice. He better fix this or we are going to hold him personally accountable.”

Queens councilman Eric Ulrich, who helped the mayor secure the backing of the Queens Republican Party and who was sworn in by Bloomberg when he won his seat in 2009, said the Mayor telling New Yorkers to go see a Broadway show was “like Marie Antoinette saying, ‘Let the people eat cake.’

“I supported the mayor for a third term because I thought he was the best choice. I thought he was a good manager. Now I am starting to have doubts. You can’t manage a snowstorm after Christmas? I think people are starting to question his leadership ability,” Ulrich added.

Said Council Speaker and mayoral aspirant Christine Quinn, “The collective storm response was not anywhere near up to the standards New Yorkers are accustomed to. This is unacceptable.” The first oversight hearing is scheduled for January 10. Two clips for you here from NY1 to give you a sense of just how bad it is, the first filmed in Queens and the second in Staten Island. This is how it looks in my area, too; it’s not simply that there’s snow in the streets, it’s that there’s so much of it that it’s not much easier to walk in the tire treads on the road than it is on the sidewalk. On the contrary, most of the sidewalks are passable now as residents have dug out the areas around their homes, but even as I’m writing this, I can hear someone outside spinning his tires trying to get out of a snow sinkhole in the street. Exit question: We’re just a bunch of whiny privileged punks like the southerners say we are, aren’t we? Click the images to watch.

Update: I want to quote from this piece too, but there’s simply too much excellence to choose from. Go ye and read of it.

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