Memo to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio: You’re supposed to advocate for the public — not the teachers union.
Now, we understand that the United Federation of Teachers held the lease on de Blasio’s soul while he sat on the City Council. That’s ex officio.
What we didn’t realize is that the union managed to renew that lease as de Blasio made the transition to the advocate’s office 17 months ago.
That it did is clear from a brief look at de Blasio’s official Web site. That is — before it was scrubbed clean.
De Blasio threw the weight of his office, such as it is, behind the effort to force Mayor Bloomberg to rescind plans to lay off 4,100 city teachers.
On his public Web site, de Blasio urged parents to write New York newspapers — linking to the UFT’s own site for explicit instructions on how to do it.
The link came down just moments after we asked about it.
Perhaps de Blasio is that rarest of birds — a New York City pol who’s capable of embarrassment.
Then again, he was a member of the City Council back in 2009, when members interrogated city education officials literally by reading questions from cue cards supplied by the UFT.
So, who knows?
But it remains that de Blasio — who took thousands in UFT cash while running for advocate — is putting the union’s interests above the city’s need for a sensibly balanced municipal budget.
Would he lay off firefighters to save teachers? Cops? Even more day-care workers than are already scheduled for ax?
Or raise taxes even further — and chase even more productive people out of New York City?
Bill de Blasio presumes to be mayor. Does he really want to inherit that sort of a mess?
More to the point, can the city afford to have a wholly owned puppet of the United Federation of Teachers living in Gracie Mansion?
We think not.