Mayor de Blasio has been ducking for cover while getting battered by probes and negative polls.
Hizzoner hasn’t answered questions from the City Hall press corps in more than a week and he wasn’t even in town over a three-day weekend while visiting his brother in Seattle.
Even when he’s in the city, de Blasio’s schedule has been made up largely of radio appearances and three events that were closed to the media, including a reception on the USS Bataan Wednesday to launch Fleet Week.
After one of his few recent speeches downtown Tuesday, the mayor scurried out using a service elevator to avoid reporters.
“When you go out and you’re trying to do anything and all the members of the media want to talk about is the investigation, it’s a little hard getting things done publicly while that happens,” said Sid Davidoff, a lobbyist and lawyer at Davidoff Hutcher and Citron who is close with de Blasio.
City Hall says it’s been business as usual from its perspective and that de Blasio has scheduled a Q-and-A with reporters Thursday in Washington Heights.
“As the story gets more stale, he’ll be able to get back to doing things that a mayor should be doing – and I suspect that’ll be soon,” he added.