Just hours before a protest yesterday outside the Mexican Consulate in Midtown over a mayoral appointee’s explosive claim that Mexico must “get a grip on its banditos,” the appointee resigned.
Betsy Perry said she was stepping down from her unpaid post on the Commission on Women’s Issues because the controversy she sparked — in an online Huffington Post column disparaging Mexico’s role in the swine flu outbreak — had become a “distraction” to the Bloomberg administration.
Outside the consulate, Comptroller Bill Thompson attacked the mayor for not firing Perry last week.
“This insensitivity should have been dealt with a lot earlier,” charged Thompson, who’s trying to unseat Bloomberg.
The mayor reacted angrily when told Thompson had suggested he wasn’t sympathetic to immigrants.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “That doesn’t even deserve an answer. . . If there’s anybody who’s worked hard for immigrant communities and believes that this city should be open to everybody, it’s me.”