Can someone get this guy a watch?
Chronically late Mayor de Blasio showed up 35 minutes after the scheduled start of his first State of the City speech on Monday. And he appeared to be in no rush.
An hour before the planned noon start, the mayor’s office tweeted a picture of de Blasio giving his speech “one more read-through.”
The mayor’s office offered no explanation for the latest in a series of de Blasio’s late appearances — some by as much as an hour.
During the mayoral campaign, some aides tried to blame their boss’ tardiness on the fact that he has just one bathroom in his Park Slope row house, which he was sharing at the time with his wife and two kids.
But other aides who once worked for the mayor say that was just an excuse and that he’s constantly late because he routinely oversleeps and is always behind schedule.
“The weirdest thing is that he doesn’t care that he’s late. He doesn’t care about anyone’s time but his own,” one former aide told The Post.
When asked about his chronic tardiness on Jan.7, de Blasio, unapologetically, said, “ I’m very comfortable with the way we’re doing things and I think it will be effective and efficient,” he shot back at a reporter who dared to ask. “We start when we think everything is fully prepared. Sometimes things happen during the time that we had scheduled to start that are priorities that we have to deal with.”
But some officials on the waiting end are getting fed up.
The mayor was 41 minutes late on Jan. 17 to a press conference outside a Bushwick restaurant announcing his proposal to expand paid sick leave.
While everyone waited outside in the freezing cold, he was cozy inside, chatting away.
Former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was not amused: “37 minutes . . . 37 minutes!” he sighed, unaware of an open microphone nearby.
As the crowd started to chant “Sí se puede, sí se puede” – Spanish for “Yes, we can,” — Public Advocate Letitia James started her own chant: “Hace frio, hace frio!” which means “It’s cold!”