De Blasio promises new enforcement, heat plan during summer of coronavirus

[Right_in_Virginia]

De Blasio promises new enforcement, heat plan during summer of coronavirus
NY Daily News, Apr 17, 2020

New Yorkers can expect a drastically different summer because of coronavirus as the city plans for different ways to keep residents cool and ensure they don’t drown if beaches are closed.

Mayor de Blasio said Friday the city can’t open beaches by Memorial Day if at all, and that officials would be deployed to make sure New Yorkers aren’t swimming without lifeguards on duty.

Outdoor public pools are already closed for the summer and de Blasio said the city needs to come up with plans to keep residents cool during dangerous heat waves without those outlets.

But Hizzoner shrugged off concerns that younger New Yorkers – particularly those in low-income communities – would swim and risk drowning in rivers, ponds and lakes if the city closes beaches, too.

“We’ve seen, already, New Yorkers of all ages adapt to this really, really tough crisis,” he said. “We do not see, and we’ve never seen, our young people swimming in city rivers in large numbers.”

“If we saw anything like that, we would create the enforcement to deal with it,” he added.

De Blasio said the city shouldn’t risk coronavirus spreading at crowded beaches and pools just to avoid the possibility people could drown.

“Whatever we do we have to be careful, yes. We need enforcement, yes,” de Blasio said. “But no, no, you cannot say let’s do something that’s going to exacerbate the coronavirus crisis, put people’s health and safety in danger cause we fear some other outcome.”

De Blasio said cooling centers could still be opened with social distancing restrictions and that the city will plan for alternatives to beaches and pool for those without air conditioning.

“We have to have a plan to prepare for a potential of a hot summer and make sure we can keep people safe in that vein,” he said.


http://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-summer-nyc-pools-beaches-closed-20200417-vyltedv7xjg65jjbg6zbcibuj4-story.html

[Gefn]

Btw, summer in this city really is like the Lovin Spoonful song. Miserable. If you have money, you get out of the city on weekends.

[mountaineer]

 De Blasio’s years of overspending make NYC’s coronavirus fiscal mess far worse
By Nicole Gelinas
April 17, 2020

COVID-19 is a catastrophe for the city’s $89.3 billion budget, likely tearing 20 percent — or more than $13 billion — off the city’s tax revenues by winter. It would be a challenge for any mayor.

It’s our luck, though, not to have just any mayor, but Bill de Blasio — who took actions during the boom years that make things much worse now for almost everyone, from parents hoping to take their toddlers to the pool in late summer to at-risk teens who’ll be without summer jobs after being stuck in an apartment all spring.

When he took office in 2014, de Blasio was the first mayor since John Lindsay not to inherit a fiscal crisis from his predecessor. That’s because Mike Bloomberg — never exactly a fiscal conservative in his first two terms — did take actions in his third term to control spending. ...

It was never a good sign that back in 2014, de Blasio felt the need to resort to what is effectively borrowing from the future to pay past operating expenses. Now, the future is here, and it needs its money back. ...

NY Post

[skeeter]

De Blasio's behavior here is hilarious. The pandemic is finally flattening and suddenly, after sitting on his arse for most of the spring, he's all action.