Because of their despicable tendency to buy votes with our money, I view politicians with considerable disdain. But when a politician goes above and beyond the call of duty by doing something laughably awful, I give them special recognition.
Here are some past winners of my “Politician of the Year” award.
- Gavin Newsom, Eric Garcetti, and Stacey Abrams
- Elizabeth Warren
- Richard Blumenthal
- Nancy Pelosi and Mayor Jim Kenney
- D.C. Councilman Jack Evans
- Malaysia’s Prime Minister
- France’s President
- President of the Philippines
Today’s column adds someone to this rogue’s gallery. Congratulations to the Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams.
In a story for the New York Post, Susan Edelman reveals a cozy and corrupt arrangement between the Mayor and one of his top appointees.
Schools Chancellor David Banks quietly promoted Mayor Adams’ girlfriend to a top job at the Department of Education, just months after Adams hired Banks’ girlfriend as a deputy mayor, The Post has learned. Banks named Tracey Collins — Adams’ longtime partner and NYC’s unofficial First Lady — the DOE’s “senior advisor to the deputy chancellor of school leadership,” Desmond Blackburn. She started the new job in July, and got a giant, 23% raise to $221,597 a year, records show. Hizzoner named Banks’ girlfriend, Sheena Wright, and four other women deputy mayors last Dec. 21. Deputy mayors made $251,982 in FY 21. …David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor, said, “It’s not only a bad look, smacking of favoritism and cronyism. It displays a degree of insularity and groupthink that’s adverse to organizational effectiveness.”
Needless to say, everyone involved claims that the appointments were based on merit.
DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said Collins, “a veteran educator with 30 years of experience,” replaced another senior advisor, Mariano Guzman, who retired. Styer said Collins “went through a rigorous process that did not include City Hall’s oversight. …City Hall spokesman Fabien Levy said, “Mayor Adams was not involved in the hiring for this position and has a strict firewall when it comes to any matters involving her employment.”
Needless to say, these claims don’t pass the laugh test. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature understands that Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks are helping to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers.
But I want to make a different point.
If you paid close attention to the above excerpts, you noticed that the girlfriend of Mayor Adams is making more than $221K to serve as “senior advisor to the deputy chancellor of school leadership.”
I realize this is just a stab in the dark, but that job should not even exist, just like the job of “deputy chancellor of school leadership” should not exist (and the same is true if there’s a “chancellor of school leadership”).
In other words, all of these slots are sad examples of the self-serving bureaucuratization of government schools.
And let’s not forget about the girlfriend of Chancellor Banks, who is getting nearly $252K to be one of a plethora of deputy mayors.
Once again, I’m going to take a wild guess and assert that none of the deputy mayors serve any necessary function. These slots almost surely are patronage appointments that allow insiders to get fatter and richer at the expense of taxpayers.
That’s the real scandal, financed by you and me.
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Image credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority | CC BY 2.0.
