Gov. Cuomo is so angry about his dad being dissed by Mayor Bloomberg, he’s holding funding for the 9/11 Museum hostage until a new mayor is elected, sources told The Post.
Officials close to Cuomo said it all became personal because of how his father — former Gov. Mario Cuomo — was treated by the mayor’s people at Ground Zero ceremonies last Sept. 11
The elder Cuomo was first hassled about 6:45 a.m. that Sunday as he tried to clear security and get into the perimeter of the World Trade Center site.
A short time later, he was again blocked — that time as he tried to access the 9/11 memorial. That confrontation was defused only when a PA official intervened,
One of the governor’s top aides, Joe Percoco, was also hassled by city staffers at the event, even though he was in the governor’s entourage.
Events that day only added insult to injury for the governor.
He was already enraged over the way he felt City Hall tried to minimize his role in planning the ceremonies. He was also angry at being assigned a reading from Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech, because it had been read at a previous 9/11 event by former Gov. George Pataki.
“Mario didn’t want to cause a scene [on 9/11] so he was quiet about it, but it was certainly raised internally. Everybody has heard about it,” a source involved in the city-state museum talks told The Post.
A source close to the mayor said Bloomberg’s feeling about the governor’s reaction is that “on the chart of crazy, it’s off the charts.”
Josh Vlasto, spokesman for the governor, insisted that talk of any connection between the stalled museum talks and the treatment of the elder Cuomo or Percoco “is an absolute lie.”
City Hall declined to comment.
The World Trade Center is owned by the Port Authority, which is controlled by the governors of New York and New Jersey.
Bloomberg believes that the agency should cover all outstanding costs while letting the museum function independently.
Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie contend the PA is willing to pay its share but won’t write a blank check that could amount to hundreds of millions down the road.
The governors also insist that the PA maintain day-to-day control over the entire WTC site.
The 9/11 Museum is operated by a private foundation chaired by the mayor.
Officially, negotiations have broken down over three points: construction costs, funding for the estimated $60 million a year it will cost to operate the museum once it opens, and control over its 1-acre parcel.
One PA official said the incident with Mario Cuomo has become a symbol of the private battle royale between New York’s top political figures.
“This whole fight is Cuomo and Bloomberg,” the official said. “And it’s about which one of them is going to control the legacy of 9/11.”