Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty looked like the naughty kid outside the principal’s office Thursday as he waited on a City Hall bench for a meeting with Mayor de Blasio’s aides about the botched snow cleanup on the Upper East Side.
“I don’t know what the real problem was. The problem was it snowed,” Doherty said after the meeting, when he was asked about his department’s failure to adequately clear the neighborhood of snow Tuesday into Wednesday.
With de Blasio at a national mayors conference in Washington, Doherty was consigned to meet with Hizzoner’s aides — whom he refused to name.
“Various people,” he said.
The day before, de Blasio hung Doherty out to dry, foisting blame for the fiasco on his plower-in-chief — whom the mayor said he had to instruct to “double-down on cleanup efforts” in the neighborhood.
“The mayor made a statement, put it out to the press. I think that’s the city’s position,” Doherty said Thursday. “I have no comment other than that.”
The cowed-looking commissioner wouldn’t say whether the mayor was disappointed in him.
“I think the mayor said it was disappointing in his comments, and he had us look at the district again and work at it,” Doherty explained.
Amazingly, Doherty claimed he hadn’t spoken to de Blasio directly.
“I have not talked to him,” Doherty said when asked whether he had misled de Blasio about the treacherous conditions that remained in the neighborhood for more than 24 hours.
“I don’t think he was misled,” Doherty said before skulking off. “It was a storm. We have to move forward.”