Mayor de Blasio’s attention-drawing turns as an average Joe shoveling snow in front of his Park Slope home in January were premeditated, records show.
Hizzoner’s schedule, obtained by The Post under a Freedom of Information Act request, shows the snow clearing was blocked out beforehand — and even planned from the outset to include his popular son’s cameo.
“7:00 – 7:20 am: Snow Shoveling Front of Residence with Dante de Blasio,” reads the mayor’s schedule on January 3.
A separate entry on January 22, following another blanketing of the city, shows a shorter shoveling shift was planned: “7:00-7:15 AM SNOW SHOVELING.”
The mayor’s hokey snow-clearing routine early on in his tenure — which included advice to “bend the knees” for proper technique — helped solidify the everyman image he had honed during the mayoral campaign.
City Hall spokesman Phil Walzak said de Blasio had merely been “fulfilling his obligation” to keep his own sidewalk clear.
The schedule of the mayor’s first month in office also portrays Chirlane McCray as the administration’s screener-in-chief, having jointly interviewed almost all of the mayor’s top officials before they were appointed. Those getting the green light from the first lady and mayor included the commissioners of aging, health and NYCHA.
McCray was also involved in the interviews of soon-to-be-hired senior advisor Gabrielle Fialkoff, counsel Maya Wiley and anti-domestic-violence chief Rose Pierre-Louise.
Other highlights of de Blasio’s first month:
- His first scheduled phone call as mayor was the afternoon of Jan. 2 with Harry Nespoli, head of the Municipal Labor Committee — a sign of the urgency of the 152 open labor contracts;
- Hizzoner often starts the day with an hour-long senior staff meeting at 8:30 a.m. in City Hall’s second-floor “Committee of the Whole” room with deputy mayors, senior advisors and chiefs of staff;
– His first scheduled dinner was on Jan. 2 with brother Stephen Wilhelm at his local special-occasion spot Convivium Osteria in Park Slope.
Other pre-planned dinner guests that month were Richard Buery — before he was named deputy mayor — at Gracie Mansion and Republican Staten Island Borough President James Oddo at New Dorp’s Brioso.
The mayor’s schedule showed no pre-planned phone conversations with President Obama or Gov. Cuomo, although he visited Washington and met with Cuomo in Albany.