'We screwed up'
Mike 'admits' Black secrecy a mistake
Last Updated: 10:24 AM, December 5, 2010
Posted: 12:12 AM, December 5, 2010
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David SeifmanINSIDE CITY HALL
Mayor Bloomberg is privately expressing regrets at how his administration handled the appointment process of incoming Schools Chancellor Cathie Black, according to two sources.
"He's telling people in the educational community, 'We screwed it up,' " said one source.
A second source said the mayor has come to realize that the nuclear-level secrecy behind Black's selection -- in which even longtime allies were left in the dark -- backfired.
"He ended up alienating people who would have been on his side," the source explained.
Black, an accomplished publishing-industry executive who packed enough persuasive power to persuade Oprah Winfrey to launch a magazine of her own, was also muzzled by City Hall -- so she wasn't able to line up support in advance of her appointment.
The sources said one of those who received a mea culpa call from Bloomberg -- who almost never admits mistakes -- was Mike Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.
Even though they're often in adversarial positions, Mulgrew has a good relationship with the mayor and the two men rarely clash in public.
Stu Loeser, the mayor's spokesman, denied Bloomberg had any second thoughts about the selection process and firmly refuted the accounts of the two sources.
"The conversation in which the mayor supposedly said this [to Mulgrew] never happened," insisted Loeser.
Bloomberg "also doesn't believe"
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