Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article on the two faces of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  A month ago he rallied for the public disclosure of evaluations of 18,000 school teachers claiming “the public [has] a right to know” even though there were flaws in the evaluation system and had wide margins of error. In the past few days, he has sung  a different tune and  has fought hard to keep secret a continuing evaluation of the 911 system, which is rumored to be critical of its operation after the city spent $2.1 billion to overhaul it. Mr. Bloomberg maintained that “the public was better off not seeing a draft of a report that he commissioned after the December 2010 snowstorm, when the city couldn’t keep streets cleared and ambulances got stuck in the snow while critically ill people waited for help.”

It is typical of the way Bloomberg has run the city, he knocks and kicks down workers while scrupulously guarding anything negative about himself and senior staff.

Tony