Mayor Blows Off Resiliency Meeting With Pols For Walk In The Park

EAST VILLAGE, NY — Hizzoner took an afternoon stroll through East River Park Friday, after bailing on a meeting with local council members over a major resiliency plan to bury and rebuild the park to protect from the impacts of climate change.

Patch spotted Mayor Bill de Blasio speaking to a local in East River Park about the $1.45 billion flood protection project planned for the east side.

"I can't talk to a journalist. I'm in the middle of doing this," de Blasio said.

"Sometimes you gotta take no for an answer," he said, shuffling northbound from the Williamsburg Bridge with top Department of Design and Construction officials Lorraine Grillo and Jamie Torres-Springer, before security personnel stepped in.

A briefing was previously scheduled Friday with de Blasio and three local council members — Carlina Rivera, Keith Powers, and Margaret Chin — who represent parts of the project area, according to Rivera.

"Today the Mayor's Office cancelled an important negotiations meetings over [the project known as] ESCR so that they could take a long overdue tour of East River Park," said Rivera.

"We could have used the City's undivided attention on this resiliency project — the first one in the city's history — a year ago when the agencies suddenly changed the design without community input. We were promised an update months ago and yet again, they delay critical answers," she said.

City Hall said the briefing with council members was postponed so they'd be prepared for local pols' unanswered questions about the project, which would bury the East River Park with about eight feet of soil to build a flood wall of sorts. Locals have scrutinized the plan for months since it requires the park to shutter for three-and-a-half years of construction work.

"The Mayor knows how important the East Side Coastal Resilience project is to protect the homes of 110,000 New Yorkers," mayoral rep Seth Stein said.

"This tour of the promenade today, accompanied by DDC and other City officials, is an essential part of his hands-on approach to addressing the needs of the neighborhood," Stein said.

De Blasio's stroll came before a pivotal hearing in City Council, expected as soon as next week, as a part of the city's review process.

Though he declined to talk to Patch, he did speak with Kate Horsfield, a member of the East River Park Action group who recently marched in the East Village with hundreds of others against the plan.

.@NYCMayor is walking with @NYCDDC commissioners through East River Park this afternoon pic.twitter.com/lRkF2nVGGa
— Sydney Pereira (@sydneyp1234) September 27, 2019

"I'm very grateful to see the mayor walking through the park," Horsfield said after her brief "fortuitous" meeting with the mayor.

Horsfield, who lives on Avenue D, lost her car and many other belongings during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. But though she supports flood control, she said, "There has to be a smarter way."

"It's just not a smart plan," said Horsfield, an East Villager since 2002 who frequents the park daily, often with her bike and dog.

"My impression was that he is looking for some kind of a solution, to give him a little bit of credit," she said. "Somehow they have to know this is not a good idea."

A previous resiliency scheme was mostly overhauled last fall. City officials have touted the new plan would protect the park itself from future floods in addition to residents.

Chin's spokesman Rush Perez said the Lower Manhattan council member is disappointed in the administration over the briefing cancelation and did not attend the walk through.

The administration is "not stepping up to the plate right now," Perez said.

Powers' office was scheduled to attend the briefing, but was not invited to the walk through since the park isn't in his district. The Stuy Town pol has previously echoed concerns of Rivera's — who has been advocating for a phased construction plan to avoid a full park closure — but he supports the plan.

"My neighbors need protection," Powers told reporters at a recent town hall in Midtown. "I don't want to have to live through that experience [of Sandy] again. It would be hard for me to look at my constituents and my neighbors again and say we didn't protect you in the last seven or eight years.”