Page 199 - Demo

Ed Koch Talks About How He%u2019s DoingBY CLAUDIA LORBERGetting to Mayor Koch%u2019s office in City Hall is like going through any wonderful old New York house, full of unexpected nooks and turns. You enter City Hall, turn left at the rotunda and walk along to a wrought iron gate. A guard buzzes you through. At the end of the corridor you turn right, pass through a room with several secretaries, go left into another room whefe some top aides work, and then right again%u2014into the Mayor's inner sanctum.It%u2019s a cheerful room, not too big, fitted out with red and gold carpeting, matching draperies and upholstered chairs. On the wall are three paintings lent by the Metropolitan Museum. One, %u201cTwo Girls,%u2019%u2019 by New York artist Isabel Bishop, hangs above a small fireplace on the west wall, between two windows. On the opposite wall is a soft impressionist landscape by Bonnard. Behind the Mayor%u2019s desk, between two large windows on the north wall, is a Matisse %u201c Odalisque.%u201d And opposite the desk, on the weall where the Mayor%u2019s eyes most frequently rest, is a painting owned by New York City. It is a portrait of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia by New York painter Sidney Dickinson. Mayor Koch has said that, among his predecessors, LaGuardia is the one with whom he most identifies.When a reporter entered the room, one day last week, Mayor Koch was standing with his back to the door. He was looking out a window that faced west into City Hall Park. He stood easily, hands on hips, fingertips lightly massaging the small of his back.WITHOUT A SMILEThe mayor turned and greeted his visitor without smiling. He was in shirt sleeves, wearing a light blue shirt, navy tie, grey slacks. He seemed subdued, preoccupied. The jaunty air and frisky good humor of a previous meeting three months ago were not immediately apparent.But these had not been easy months for Mayor Koch. He had announced the departures and demotions of some close City Hall associates. The furor over hospital closings, the resignation of Herman Badillo and Haskell Ward, the highest ranking Puerto Rican and Black in the administration had cost him in those communities and even among some liberal Democratic colleagues.The four outlying boroughs were charging that the Mayor was courting glamorous Manhattan and giving them .the cold shoulder. A campaign had been underway to challenge the Mayor%u2019s and CityCouncilmembers%u2019 right to give themselves a raise.It was, in short, a typical day for the Mayor of New York City.OPTIMIST BY NATURE%u201c Doubts?%u201d he responded to a question. %u201c Of course 1 have doubts. Who doesn%u2019t? Am 1 occasionally dejected about progress? Of course. . .Everybody has moments of depression.%u201dHe was reminded that the public never sees him depressed, and his laugh trilled down the scale. %u201c 1 have this upbeat feeling,%u201d he said. %u201c 1 am really an optimist by nature.1 always look at life with the thought that, sure, there are the problems, there are the mountains. But we can meet them, we can overcome them.%u201c And if we%u2019re not able to scale Mount Everest, then we%u2019ll go as high as we can, and the go on to the next challenge. I%u2019m not a perfectionist.%u201d%u201c Of course I%u2019ve lost battles,%u201d he went on. %u201c But has that caused meimagine? The teachers electing their own chancellor?%u201dThe Mayor shuddered in imagined indignation. \myself, %u2018no%u2014it can%u2019t happen.%u2019 And it did not happen.%u201c 1 went to work,%u201d he continued. And here one caught a glimpse of the Mayor with his grappling hooks, ice picks, pitons and climbing rope, making his way up a treacherous cliff. %u201c I was able to turn four members of the Board, out of seven, in support of Frank Macciarola. And he was designated.%u201dEVEN SWEETERThe Mayor leaned back in his black leather easy chair. %u201c That was a tremendous victory. But you know what was even sweeter? It was when, over a year later, A1 Shanker came in to see me and again sat on that couch,%u201d he said, pointing. %u201c And he said to me %u201c Ed, you were right and I was wrong. Macciarola IS a good chancellor.%u201d %u201c I thought that was terrific,%u201d he concluded with a grin, all but((I!I%u2019m not arrogant.. but I do have a sense of self-worth.%u201d%u201cI don%u2019t believe in having yes-people around m e...I like people who are willing to stand up for their positions and argue with m e... There is nothing monolithicabout this administration.%u201dto pick up my marbles and say I won%u2019t play? No,%u201d he said laughing. %u201c I go out and see how I can accomplish in a different way what I%u2019d hoped to accomplish before. Or if I can%u2019t, then I go on to the next problem. I don%u2019t sit there and weep about defeat. Because there are a lot of victories.%u201dSHANKER ON THE COUCHThe Mayor warmed as he described scaling one of the Mt. Everests of his first months in office. %u201c I remember having A1 Shanker, head of the United Federation of Teachers, sit on that couch you%u2019re sitting on,%u201d and the Mayor pointed to the black leather sofa under the portrait of Fiorello, %u201c and say to me that I would not be able to get Frank Macciarola elected by the Board of Education as the new chancellor because he, A1 Shanker, had five of the seven votes of the members of the Board of Ed. And I had not appointed any one of the seven%u2014they%u2019d all been appointed by the prior mayor and borough presidents.%u201c He also told me,\went on, %u201c that he was going to be able to elect his choice. Can yousticking a flag in his metaphorical mountain%u2019s peak.The Mayor's good humor clouded as he spoke of his attempt to %u201c find a balance between the municipal labor unions and City Hall. %u201c I%u2019m not anti municipal labor unions. Not at all,%u201d he said, with his New York inflection underlining the %u201c all.%u201c But I don%u2019t believe they shoutu own City Hall,%u201d he continued. %u201c I%u2019ve praised workers who want to do a good job. But I%u2019ve dumped on the ones who are lethargic and slothful. . .And the good municipal workers support me, because when you have civil servants, side by side, and one is working and the other isn%u2019t-then the good one is carrying a double load.%u201d CLINKERSMayor Koch mentioned the judges he has appointed to Criminal and Family courts. \that my appointments has been the best-overall-of any administration.%u201c That doesn%u2019t mean they%u2019re going to be good through the ten years of their appointments,%u201d he cautioned. And then he apparently referred to\are best turn out to be clinkers, and some of the clinkers turn out best... there are alclinkers in every endeavor. I always knew that.%u201dother appointments he has made%u2014 of commissioners and deputy mayors. %u201c Some of the people you think are the best turn out to be clinkers, and some of the clinkers turn out to be the best. I%u2019m not talking just about judgeships but about life in general%u2014there are always clinkers in every endeavor of life. But that%u2019s no surprise,%u201d he added with a shrug. %u201c I always knew that.%u201dIt has been said that the Mayor is impervious to criticism. %u201c He doesn%u2019t care if he makes enemies, and he doesn't hear their insults,%u201d an old friend of Ed Koch observed recently. The Mayor concceded mildly %u201c I happen to like the give and take of .public office and political life. Controversy is never something I've shied away from.%u201dOf criticism within his administration, he said %u201c I don%u2019t believe in having yes-people around me. . .1 like people who are willing to stand up for their positions and argue with me. 1 delight in the fact that commissioners and deputy mayors and staff people disagree with me%u2014even disagree in public. There is nothing monolithic about this administration.I MAKE POLICYLest this come as a surprise to those who have seen dissenters hacked from the body of the administration in recent weeks, the Mayor quickly inserted the all-important proviso.%u201cThat is,%u201d he said, %u201c up until the point where I make policy. Then the argument, at least in public, has to stop. The Mayor is the one elected to establish policy and make sure it%u2019s carried out. Privately, you can continue to try to change my mind. So long as you also continue to implement the policy 1 have established.%u201c If the policy is such as to be immoral,\%u201c then you should quit. . .Or if the policy is not immoral but is against your principals, then you should likewise quit if you arc uncomfortable with it. But there%u2019s nothing wrong with staying with an administration and implementing policy you don't agree with. You can%u2019t winamohi kottloLAMENT OF THE BOROUGHSA battle which every mayor must meet, and which Mayor Koch saidiraui ututiuyiubsu pnutu)he is winning, is the battle of the boroughs.Brooklyn has ever regarded Manhattan with suspicion; the other boroughs continually lament that they arc neglected. They say that Ed Koch is %u201c Manhattan-oriented,\and claim that his promises of more self-rule for the boroughs and neighborhoods were so much political rhetoric.The Mayor sighed. %u201c There isn%u2019t an area of the city that believes it%u2019s getting all it should, because that%u2019s the nature of the city,\%u201c Every area, every Community Board, every borough, believes somehow or other that everybody else is getting more.%u201c And in the past,%u201d he agreed, %u201c their suspicions were often correct: they often weren%u2019t getting their fair share. Allocations were being made on a political basis. I stopped that!%u201d The Mayor%u2019s voice crackled with the reformer%u2019s zeal that animated his early political life.\vices to the various areas of the city on the merits! You cannot get your way by saying you%u2019re going to vote for me or against me. That means nothing to me. Nothing to me.%u201dGOVERNMENTAL ASSISTANCEMayor Koch stoutly maintained he does not play favorites. %u201c I have made a conscious effort to make sure that governmental assistancecity, state and federal funding-will be handed out in the other boroughs to a greater degree than Manhattan. That is to compensate for the fact that the private sector invests so heavily in Manhattan. We take that assistance and put it into small business strips in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.%u201c You talk to pri/ate business people who want to build office buildings, and they%u2019re going to overwhelmingly construct them in Manhattan. They%u2019re going to go where they can make a profit, and they don%u2019t need the assistance of the city. So we take that assistance and put it in the other boroughs.%u201c But people should understand,%u201d he continued, %u201c that Manhattan is the commercial center%u2014the core of the city. If employment goes up in Manhattan, it%u2019s not to employ Manhattan residents, it%u2019s to emContinued page 10September 13.1979, The PHOENIX, Page 7