A: Berating, Belittling, Brusque; And Did We Mention Condescending?

Q: “Why Have So Many Women Quit on Mayor de Blasio?”:

Thirty-one high-level officials hired by Mr. de Blasio have left City Hall since he took office in 2014. Of those, 22 were women, more than twice the number of men who left.

The gender imbalance of the departures has raised questions as to why so many women, including many who are black or Hispanic, have jumped ship on a mayor seen as welcoming to women and minorities.

Interviews with a dozen women who either have left City Hall or continue to work there pointed to several factors fueling the departures. Several of the women spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to damage relations with the mayor or other city officials.

One factor mentioned repeatedly was the mayor’s management style. It can be deliberative to the point of plodding, and several people said that it had produced a high level of frustration among top officials. They said that promising projects sometimes go many months awaiting approval or simply languish, drowned in a flood of memos, indecision and political strategizing.

Another factor cited by some who frequently dealt with the mayor involved his personality; he often lectures his staff during meetings in what people describe as a condescending tone, and he is known for berating or belittling subordinates in front of others or shooting off emails criticizing them in brusque terms.

Nearly everyone experiences this, the women said, but they suggested that women may have less patience.

“You’re at a point in your career where, why should you put up with the nonsense,” said one woman who left a senior job at City Hall. “If you came to make a change and to make a difference, your tolerance is going to be a lot lower than if you just came for the title.”

But some found the work environment at City Hall directly hostile to women.

“I just found it to be a totally inhospitable workplace,” said Lindsay Scola, Mr. de Blasio’s former scheduler, who had previously worked with the former first lady, Michelle Obama, and the Energy Department.

Ms. Scola and two other women recounted repeated instances where they felt they were marginalized or talked down to by a male colleague, because they were women. Ms. Scola said she was once told that her “job was to hold time on the Outlook calendar and nothing else, like I was a little girl.”

Ms. Scola said that the mayor was aware of the behavior and “knowingly tolerated it.”

Petulant, Withdrawn; Who So Fiercely Poses . . .

The mayor field tests his ideas about building a low-information coalition:

After arriving in a ferryboat festooned in bunting, with big-band jazz blaring from the shoreline, Mayor Bill de Blasio made an announcement on Monday that New York City’s new ferry service would soon begin. Then he walked away.

No questions were asked; no questions were allowed.

Most other times, this would be a strange sight — the mayor of the nation’s largest city passing up a chance to pontificate and parry with the City Hall press corps. But over the past four weeks, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has staunchly exhibited an approach that might be described as “don’t ask, don’t answer.”

No questions were allowed after a Police Academy graduation, beside the statue known as “Fearless Girl” in Lower Manhattan, or even at the handful of events during the mayor’s weeklong road trip on Staten Island last week.

[. . .]

“It’s very unusual for a mayor of New York City,” said Robert Shrum, a former Democratic political consultant, presidential campaign adviser and speechwriter who teaches politics at the University of Southern California.

“Unless you’re Donald Trump, appealing to a very different electorate, it’s just a loser,” he added. Voters may not care about whether this or that question is answered as much as the news media does, but “after a while, people get upset, too,” Mr. Shrum said. “Over time it can make you look petulant, withdrawn.”

. . . and rises to the level of the Times editorial board:

As for reporters being stifled at staged events: “You don’t want to be a part of it, you don’t have to come.”

That is a bad, bad thing to say. Especially now. This is the age of President Trump, defamer of the news media, suppressor of facts, denier of reality. When shutting down reporters for doing their jobs, Mr. de Blasio — who so fiercely poses as an anti-Trump — displays his inner Donald.

When Faced With Doubt, Pick A Fight With The Press . . .

“‘O.K., that’s great guys,’ he said. ‘I’m done. Thank you.’ He strode away and got into a waiting S.U.V.”:

Mayor Bill de Blasio walked out on his own news conference on Thursday without answering any questions, irked that reporters were not asking what he wanted them to ask.

In an extraordinary test of wills with the City Hall press corps, Mr. de Blasio refused to respond to questions that might ordinarily be considered well within the bounds of what the mayor of New York City would be expected to address. He was asked about the murder of a black man who police said was stabbed to death in Manhattan by a white man who had come to the city to harm black people, and the arrest in Israel of a man accused of making a string of telephone threats against Jewish community centers and other sites in the United States.

The mayor had called reporters to a chilly block of East 56th Street to make a pitch about his proposal for a so-called mansion tax on the sale of apartments or houses of more than $2 million, to pay for rent relief for older New Yorkers. The plan would need approval by the state legislature and is seen as having little hope of success in a State Senate that has generally responded with hostility to both new taxes and the mayor’s initiatives.

Against the backdrop of a luxury high-rise (with a handwritten sign in one window reading, “De Blasio doesn’t care about the working middle class”), the mayor spoke about the tax over the din of construction, passing trucks and a heckler who shouted, “Everyone hates you, de Blasio!”

BNB? BRB –BDB

“But emails obtained by the Daily News make clear that City Hall cut off talks with Airbnb days after the mayor’s non-profit got the six-figure check”:

After City Hall had engaged in cordial talks with Airbnb for two months in 2015, a politically powerful opponent of the home-sharing website gave $200,000 to Mayor de Blasio’s now-defunct non-profit group, Campaign for One New York.

The cordiality quickly stopped.

Shortly after the donation, top aides to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen broke off communications with Airbnb. And the shift came as the mayor began ratcheting up enforcement against so-called illegal hotels that use Airbnb to attract customers.

The sequence of events came to light in the Daily News ongoing investigation of de Blasio’s fundraising, and represents the closest timing to date between a big-dollar donation to CONY and mayoral action.

[. . .]

The donor, UniteHere, a national union affiliated with the union that squared off against Airbnb, the Hotel & Motel Trades Council, insisted the donation had nothing to do with opposition to the home-sharing company.

How The Limousine Liberal Gave Way To The Rise Of The Helicopter Progressive

Just a good look all around:

Mayor de Blasio shut down a Little League baseball game in a Harlem park for more than an hour in August so police could ready a field for his helicopter, The Post has learned.

The chopper landing was then abruptly canceled after an angry dad started griping to cops about the intrusion, threatening to post pictures of the mayoral interruption on social media, a source said.

The extended seventh-inning stretch got underway at Harlem River Park during an Aug. 9 Little League game when the NYPD cleared the diamond of two under-14 teams, one dad told The Post.

The cops “basically told everybody to get off the field,” the dad said.

[. . .]

A former cop familiar with the situation told The Post police “were not happy” about having to arrange for de Blasio’s park landing.

The mayor’s office refused to comment on the aborted chopper ride, instead referring questions to the NYPD.

“The security and transportation of the mayor are determined by the NYPD,” said Deputy Commissioner John Miller. “We do not discuss the specifics of security.”

That was the same canned statement the department issued less than two weeks ago after The Post reported de Blasio had been picked up by a chopper landed in a Prospect Park ballfield.