De Blasio Used Last-Minute Text to Tell Cuomo Schools Would Stay Shut

So the mayor sent a text message.

Less than three hours later, Cuomo used his news briefing to discount the mayor’s decision as a mere “opinion” and insisted that he, not de Blasio, controlled the destiny of the city’s own school system, the nation’s largest.

The episode was a glaring example of the persistent dysfunction between the two men, an often small-bore turf war that now has surfaced during an urgent crisis in which nearly 800 New Yorkers are dying daily, adding to uncertainty over when and how the city will reopen.

The disagreement between the mayor and governor frustrated and confused parents, teachers and other school employees, many of whom have scrambled to adapt to the extraordinary challenge that online learning has created and have been anxious for news about the rest of the school year.

It also exasperated union leaders and some public officials, including Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and Democratic mayoral candidate, who said the argument over whose authority it was to close schools should not play out “in the middle of a deadly pandemic.”

His advice, issued on Twitter, was blunt: “Cut the crap.”

On Sunday, Cuomo and de Blasio seemed slightly less confrontational about the issue. The mayor said he had spoken to the governor and framed the schools’ closing decision as “not a legal or jurisdictional question. This is a moral question.”

Cuomo continued to press his case that the status of schools should take into account when the broader society will be functioning in the entire New York City region, though it appears highly unlikely that Cuomo will reopen the city’s schools before September.

Cuomo’s office said his authority stems from an executive order from last month requiring that public schools in the state close, with language allowing the governor to decide the length of the closures.

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But the governor did not sound hopeful Sunday that there would be a quick détente with the mayor.

“We are where we were,” he said.

Where that is, exactly, may not be of great comfort to New Yorkers.

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The two leaders have been squabbling over the power to take action in New York City since the early months of de Blasio’s tenure as mayor in 2014. Back then, they fought over funding for de Blasio’s signature initiative, universal prekindergarten. The mayor planned to fund the major project with a tax on wealthy New Yorkers, but Cuomo shot down that idea, though he provided $300 million in other funding.

Even an abbreviated list of their spats seems lengthy: There was the time Cuomo shut down the city’s subways in a snowstorm without first telling de Blasio, or the time when they fought over whether to euthanize a single deer in Harlem. On more serious issues, Cuomo has overruled the city on a ban on plastic bags, enforced his will on subway repairs and recently demanded the de Blasio administration rein in Medicaid costs.

The sniping has continued during the coronavirus outbreak.

In mid-March, de Blasio began calling for a shelter-in-place order, similar to an order that had been issued in the Bay Area. Cuomo chafed at the mayor’s suggestion, saying he disliked the phrase, before unveiling — several days later — what was in effect a shelter-in-place order by another name: “New York State on PAUSE.”

Other mixed messages have included de Blasio’s call in early April for city residents to wear face coverings in public; Cuomo, who has not worn a mask in public, suggested such a move might engender “a false sense of security.” (On Sunday, Cuomo announced an order to employers to provide masks to any worker interacting with the public.) The two men have also differed on the timing of the closing of city playgrounds and the cancellation of elective surgery.

On Saturday, their grievances had spilled over into the lives of untold numbers of parents, teachers and other school employees, all suffering whiplash from their contradictory pronouncements.

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“Keeping school buildings closed is the right decision — regardless of who is responsible,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the city’s teachers union. That sentiment was echoed by Mark Cannizzaro, president of the union for principals, who called the day “very unfortunate” and said it had “led to some confusion among members and families.”

Robin Broshi, who lives in Manhattan and is a mother of two public school students, said “emails were flying” all day Saturday among parents who were trying to make sense of the competing announcements. Some posted on Facebook, seeking more information from peers.

“It was very disappointing but very on brand that even in a crisis of this magnitude they couldn’t get on the same page,” Broshi said.

Rebecca Katz, a former senior aide for de Blasio who has been critical of both the mayor and Cuomo, said the governor had “done an excellent job communicating throughout this crisis” but that his dealings with the mayor revealed a stubborn character flaw.

“His biggest weakness is his lack of self-control when it comes to taking pot shots at de Blasio,” she said.

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The schism between the governor and the mayor is so pronounced that the two men have not appeared on the same stage since March 2, a day after the first case of the coronavirus in the state — a woman from Manhattan who had traveled to Iran — was announced.

Cuomo’s actions had the effect of putting the mayor’s leadership into question, said city officials. One reason City Hall officials gave Cuomo’s staff such short notice of the decision to close schools was that they were worried that he would once again contradict or subvert them.

“He’s concerned about being made to look ineffectual,” said one person familiar with the mayor’s decision-making process.

The lack of coordination with de Blasio was probably jarring for the live national television audience now tuning in regularly to see Cuomo, who has struck a more beneficent tone in his daily briefings, praising adversaries like President Donald Trump and scolding those seeking to politicize the coronavirus. Indeed, just moments before he rebuffed the mayor, Cuomo had said, “We’ve kept politics out of this crisis.

”I’ve worked very hard to do that; I’ve worked very hard to keep myself out of the politics,” Cuomo said Saturday. “I have no personal politics.”

Such a statement, of course, probably provoked guffaws in certain quarters in Albany, where the governor’s taste for political combat — particularly with de Blasio — is as well known as his fondness for muscle cars. (He pulled up at a Sunday morning event in his vintage Pontiac GTO.)

Still, while Cuomo has basked in positive reviews about his steady and sympathetic response to the contagion, de Blasio has fielded persistent questions about whether his deliberate decision-making process has hampered the city’s coronavirus response. Top city health officials threatened to resign when the mayor hesitated to close schools, bars and restaurants.

De Blasio has seemingly taken notes from Cuomo’s approach to the president, tamping down his politically charged rhetoric and even thanking Trump, whom he has previously accused of betraying the city he grew up in. At the same time, he has moved his own daily briefings from late afternoon to the morning, conveniently positioned just before the governor’s news conferences typically take place.

It was just such timing that resulted in the discordant messages Saturday. Shortly before 9:30 a.m., when de Blasio announced that New York City’s public schools would remain closed, senior aides to the mayor and governor communicated about the move.

The governor’s office said that while they knew that de Blasio wanted to discuss the issue of school closure, they said that it was not made clear that the mayor would imminently announce that city schools would be shuttered through June.

Freddi Goldstein, the mayor’s press secretary, disputed that assertion, saying that the mayor made clear his intent to keep schools closed.

In any case, the governor’s office maintained that such short notice did not allow for such a major policy move to be seriously discussed or refined. And the governor was not pleased.

City officials said that officials from Cuomo’s office contacted them in the middle of the mayor’s news conference. “They said we couldn’t do it on our own,” said one city official, who added that the governor’s office said that the decision was “not coordinated.”

Cuomo then made clear that the decision to close or reopen city schools could not be done “without coordinating that decision with the whole metropolitan region.”

Asked if the mayor’s announcement on schools was invalid, the governor was blunt. “He didn’t close them,” Cuomo said. “And he can’t open them.”

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De Blasio’s communication director, Wiley Norvell, soon shot back on Twitter, suggesting the governor’s actions were about “politics or machismo” and citing the opinion of health experts that schools should remain closed. “It’s about what’s best for kids and parents,” Norvell said.

Goldstein followed suit, writing on Twitter that de Blasio had been proven correct in calling for a shelter in- place over the governor’s initial objections. “Schools will remain closed, just like how we eventually — days later — moved to a shelter in place model.”

Dani Lever, the governor’s communications director, said that the state’s “decisions are not based on politics but based on data and science,” adding that they “will continue to be made on a regional basis, which is acknowledged by all experts as the best governmental policy.”

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By Easter Sunday, both men — perhaps moved by the holiday spirit or just wary of bad press — were striking less noxious tones.

“I don’t think if you literally look over the whole course of this thing, you are going to find very many times where there was substantial disagreement,” de Blasio said. “You are going to find, on a vast, vast majority of the moves that were made, agreement on the nature of the timing of what was done.”

About two hours later, when Cuomo’s daily news conference went live, the governor also offered a more gentle analysis about the challenges of working with local governments, including New York City’s.

“Sometimes,” he said, “it’s less coordinated than we would like.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .