Mayor Bill de Blasio left major issues unaddressed in his annual state of the city speech Monday night. But that's the way he likes it. Tuesday, he defended omitting discussions of homelessness and child protection — saving it for future remarks. Josh Robin has the story.
Hours after he walked off the Apollo stage Mayor de Blasio walked on to what may be a future sound stage.
"As we say in film, 'places everyone,'" the mayor said from the proposed redevelopment site in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
The city is turning this old warehouse into a hub for film and fashion.
"The goal is to get more and more people good paying jobs," de Blasio said.
1,500 jobs at this Brooklyn spot, after the city pumps about $140 million into retrofitting it.
That's part of 100,000 of those "good paying" jobs within the decade as de Blasio announced Monday.
During Monday's speech, de Blasio talked about the crisis of affordability in New York. It's not a new topic for him — it was central to his first bid for mayor four years ago. That his final state of the city speech of his first term didn't delve much into anything else drew notice."
"I'm quite comfortable this was the right thing to do," the mayor said.
He says affordability is what people talk most about.
"This is the issue where we have to go in a new direction. I thought it was very important to use that opportunity to really go into detail about what that vision looks like."
Although observers thought the details weren't as apparent as the Mayor thinks.
What's more, homelessness is often a result of limited affordability.
And de Blasio's speech ignored any solutions to a climbing population of people in shelters.
The same goes with the Administration for Children's Services — which has been beset with allegations that mistakes and oversights left kids dead — and which currently lacks a commissioner.
"You could touch upon a whole lot of different issues — or you could really concentrate on one — and provide a deeper explanation and strategy. And I thought this was a strategy people of this city would want to know about."
He says future remarks on issues avoided are coming, not specifying when.