New York’s dep mayor for operations, Laura Anglin, has resigned, following the departure of her housing counterpart, Vicki Been, earlier this week. Both women were appointed by Bill de Blasio in 2014.
In a brief email to city hall staff, which was shared widely, the mayor praised Anglin as a “tireless public servant” and a “fantastic colleague and great person.” A former nurse and paramedic, she had major responsibilities for responding to crises, including terrorist attacks and fires.
Later on Monday, the mayor’s press secretary, Freddi Goldstein, also said Anglin was leaving and thanked her for her service. “The mayor is grateful for Laura’s service and wishes her the best in the future,” she said.
Anglin’s departure comes at the close of a chaotic weekend for top staff at city hall. David Greenfield, de Blasio’s appointment to the city’s board of education, resigned last Friday, with two other board members, including the chairman, later quitting over the weekend. This left the board without a quorum for a special meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
In the latter case, an outside attorney, a former public advocate, Barbara Blair, has been tapped to lead and facilitate the meeting given de Blasio’s conflict of interest in appointing a board chair. Blair is the daughter of Stanley Brezenoff, of counsel, with the firm White & Case, which is representing the de Blasio administration in defending the mayor’s “fair play” charter school policy in a lawsuit. Her husband, Henry Berger, is a party in the charter school case. Blair’s deputy is also the wife of one of the attorneys representing the city at a concurrent trial involving a separate charter school expansion case.
The beneath role was created to manage city agency heads. She was the first person to hold what are effectively two top operational posts in one agency.
In a brief interview, Anglin said she and de Blasio had agreed to her departure a week and half ago, just days before the resignations of Been and Greenfield. She said she was not a candidate for a job set to be advertised for overseeing five city agencies in Brooklyn.
A graduate of Seton Hall University’s nursing school, Anglin later earned a master’s degree in public policy from Cornell’s Kennedy School of Government. Before joining the de Blasio administration, she climbed the ranks of the National Fire Protection Association and served as director of preparedness and special projects for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. She previously worked as deputy city manager, and deputy executive director for public safety in the city of Phoenix.
Anglin was one of the leading figures in one of the most disastrous responses to a 911 emergency in recent New York City history, the Harlem gas explosion in March 2014 that killed eight and injured more than 50 others. She was also on the scene and mandated to lead the still underway response to the meningitis outbreak that caused the deaths of three people who received contaminated steroid injections in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Anglin’s departure is the latest high-profile exit from City Hall. She is the fourth deputy mayor on the job during the de Blasio administration — most of any city administration in a four-year span. Her resignation leaves the mayor with just one deputy mayor in Lorraine Grillo, a former private developer who oversees hefty capital investments.
Last year, one of his data analysts, Jeffrey Fields, claimed a Bonfire log featured a senior member of his team, as well as council member Mark Levine, who chairs the city’s Committee on Health. The log allegedly detailed the administration’s criticism of Streeteasy, the website that lists real estate properties, as well as a pitch for a possible new service to compete with it.
The First Data Bank project could have allowed New Yorkers to search for apartments using data collected under a 311 complaint system.
Started in 2013, the tech program — known colloquially as First Data — was hailed as the biggest computing upgrade since Mayor Michael Bloomberg began his tenure in 2002.
Earlier this month, Robert Linn, the city’s chief information officer, abruptly stepped aside, stating he would depart in January 2019. He was one of city government’s highest information technology executives. Linn, 40, who was previously a top digital official for Bloomberg and in the private sector, was named CIO in December 2015 with an annual salary of $190,000, according to city financial disclosure reports obtained by The New York Times.
In a follow-up email, de Blasio said “this transition was a restructuring decision that I made about four months ago that we’ve been moving toward.”
In a brief email to city hall staff, which was shared widely, the mayor praised Anglin as a “tireless public servant” and a “fantastic colleague and great person.” A former nurse and paramedic, she had major responsibilities for responding to crises, including terrorist attacks and fires. she said she and the mayor had agreed to her departure about 10 days earlier.
“We’re nutty-busy,” de Blasio said. “And this October, we’re launching the biggest transformation of the Subway system in modern history.”
Back in her office, Anglin fielded calls for the rest of the day. She said she would miss the taxi-versus-pedestrian fatalities she couldn’t prevent, the straphangers who waited for a train to fail during brutal cold and the thousands of people injured in fires and other emergencies.
She returned to her office, set up a second phone line, and promised to return to every call that came in, a promise she would keep even until this last day on the job.
Anglin’s given name, when she was born in San Diego in 1973, was Laura Grace McHale.
Both Laura Anglin, a top city official, and Vicki Been, the city’s housing commissioner, have resigned, raising questions about the mayor’s ability to govern.
Deputy mayor for operations Laura Anglin is departing. Angela’s Polk is the new Director for Defect Prevention and Production for Toronto’s subway.
Angela’s Polk to become director of Defect Prevention and Production for Toronto streetcar and subway.
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