NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio defends gym routine against critics

“The concern from a transparency perspective will be if City Hall orders the delay or partial release or in any way impedes anything but a full and robust response”, said John Kaehny, director of the nonprofit Reinvent Albany and a co-chair of the New York City Transparency Working Group.

The mayor drew criticism Friday when he remained at the gym during an armed standoff on Staten Island in which a firefighter was shot.

And, he said, a leader needs his exercise.

“Louis from the Village”, said the mayor shouldn’t spend “all his time bragging and taking victory laps”. That requires seven days a week, but it also requires figuring out what’s going to help me be as effective as I can be. He comes on at the 18:38 mark.

When asked by NY1’s Grace Rauh if his day-to-day routine was leading some New Yorkers to believe he was distracted by his day job or question his focus on it, de Blasio said he is required to be on top of everything related to his job as mayor at all times.

The mayor’s spokeswoman Karen Hinton said that de Blasio, who lives in Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, was late in getting to the gym because he was on the phone shortly after the 6 a.m. standoff began with Police Commissioner William Bratton and Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

Critics said Mayor de Blasio (l.) should have been on the scene after Hayes was shot. They still regularly return to the neighborhood.

That broad mandate, outlined in a May 5 email obtained by The Associated Press, could give de Blasio’s office control over virtually all newsworthy Freedom of Information Law requests from journalists, watchdog groups or members of the public.

“We’re briefing you all on a very serious situation, and that’s not a serious question”, de Blasio said at a press conference about the incident at Staten Island’s 121st Precinct.

“There is no such thing in this job as being off duty”.

The topic of Tuesday’s show was a recent New York Times article on De Blasio’s declining poll numbers, which were quickly overshadowed by online speculation that “Louis” was in fact Louis CK, including by the show’s host station, WNYC.