{"id":1449,"date":"2006-08-22T08:59:44","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T16:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/08\/or_maybe_the_office_of_public_advocate_is_just_lame.html"},"modified":"2006-08-22T08:59:44","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T16:59:44","slug":"or_maybe_the_of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/08\/or_maybe_the_of.html","title":{"rendered":"Or Maybe The Office Of Public Advocate Is Just Lame"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Post is on Betsy Gotbaum’s case<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The first six months of Betsy Gotbaum’s second term were a whirlwind of private lunches, dinners and strategy meetings with precious few government initiatives to show for it, a Post review of her schedules found.<\/p>\n

From Jan. 1 through June 30, she attended several political fund-raisers and social events, held sit-downs with advocates for social issues and saw several City Hall commissioners.<\/p>\n

During that time, she released just three reports, a policy brief and two guides, drafted seven bills — and held only a handful of public events to support them.<\/p>\n

Instead of the outraged press conferences her predecessor, Mark Green, held almost every weekend — and on many weekdays — her Saturdays and Sundays were mostly personal.<\/p>\n

They included a June trip to education expert Diane Ravitch’s Hamptons home, for which Gotbaum used her city-funded car and driver. She took the Jitney back.<\/p>\n

Aides to Gotbaum, who used the car to pick up her grandson at the airport last week, said she pays back the office “as required,” but couldn’t provide a reimbursement list, saying the staffers who handle it were off.<\/p>\n

In 2002, Gotbaum complained her office was so strapped that she couldn’t do much, but it’s now back to pre-2002 levels, with a $2.99 million budget for fiscal year 2007 and 43 staffers.<\/p>\n

The $150,000-a-year ombudsman post has little power, but is seen as a stepping stone for higher office. Gotbaum, 68, who raised eyebrows by staying mum during the recent Queens blackout, is considering a run for either mayor or city comptroller, sources said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See also: The Office of City “Shusher”<\/a> (July 6, 2005).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Post is on Betsy Gotbaum’s case: The first six months of Betsy Gotbaum’s second term were a whirlwind of private lunches, dinners and strategy meetings with precious few government initiatives to show for it, a Post review of her schedules found. From Jan. 1 through June 30, she attended several political fund-raisers and social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}