Bernard Kerik and others are raising questions after NYC Mayor de Blasio appointed his wife to a new “Coronavirus Racial Inequality” Task Force. The new task force that Chirlane McCray will head up will focus on “inclusion and equity” to make sure the city “rebounds as a better and more just society than the one we left behind.” McCray will address “transformation” because the mayor believes  “many things that are broken in our city and in our country.”

While there was no announcement of the amount Mayor de Blasio’s wife would be paid for her new position, the mayor is also asking for $7.4 billion in aid for the city. Rahn Emanuel’s quote from 2008 comes to mind: “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

De Blasio is using this opportunity to work the system. He spoke on Sunday to say that it will take more than 20 months to rebuild New York City. His new advisory councils will help coordinate to reopen the city. He hopes to have plans on how to rebuild by June 1st.

The mayor said the city can’t begin reopening until decreases in coronavirus continue for 10 to 14 days.

The problem with Mayor de Blasio appointing his wife to ANY task force is that the mayor’s wife doesn’t have a good track record handling funds. When Mayor de Blasio appointed his wife to lead the Thrive program in NYC, it had a budget of over $850 million, but much of that money has not been accounted for because there was no record-keeping. McCray’s Thrive program sounds great because it focusses on mental health in NYC. The problem is that when city council members held a meeting to ask where funds were being spent, they were shocked to see that there was no accounting for the millions spent.

Politico investigated where the money was going for the Thrive program and came up with an “opaque budget and elusive metrics” for the $850 million boondoggle:

Since its inception in 2015, ThriveNYC — the city’s sprawling $850 million initiative to address a variety of mental health issues — has operated without much scrutiny or accountability.

With few public metrics by which to measure its success so far, and the broad strokes used by city officials to describe its operations, the city has offered little insight into how it has assessed Thrive’s efficacy since it began.

The boondoggle has ballooned to $1 billion in 5 years:

McCray’s ‘Thrive’ initiative on track to spend $1B in 5 years

Kerik tweeted out to ask what race has to do with coronavirus and ask why NYC is letting the mayor’s wife handle funds again.

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