These New Yorkers were on the anti-Cuomo train early!
Governor Andrew Cuomo received an avalanche of hate mail from New Yorkers in the days after his hand-picked subway boss Andy Byford left the MTA – with many of the criminals taking the governor’s infamous ego-driven leadership for the popular Brit’s exit, the Post , accused. learned.
The governor received about 225 angry emails and letters in the eight days following Byford’s resignation on January 23, 2020, blaming the transit chief for Cuomo becoming ‘unbearable’, according to correspondence obtained through a request for freedom of information.
“I blame him for being away from your short-sightedness, your ego, your need to control and honor the progress of our metro system,” Philipos Wander sent an email to Cuomo the day after Byford stopped.
Under Byford’s leadership, the metro achieved its highest timely performance in six years. He also launched the MTA modernization plan that is currently being pursued by his successors.
No performance lost New Yorkers.
‘The man has achieved a lot in his relatively short tenure with the NYC subway. Shame on you for interfering! Mary Jane Wilkie told the governor in a letter dated the day after Byford’s resignation with shock last year.
“It seems the political environment has become nothing more than a bunch of guys running around and unable to control their testosterone.”
“It’s a shame you can not share the spotlight,” Malvina Nathanson wrote. “You owe us all an apology.”
Byford blames Cuomo for his departure from the MTA, which took place less than two years after the governor brought him to steer the subways from the depths of the 2017 “Summer of Hell.”
Cuomo made the job ‘unbearable’, Byford said in an interview with WCBS-TV shortly before returning to Britain last March.
He accuses the gubernatorial team of going behind his back and reducing his role after Byford called for an “independent review” of Cuomo’s plan to prevent the L-train stoppage.
“I excluded myself from meetings that absolutely deal with the day-to-day running of New York City Transit,” Byford said at the time. ‘The governor is the boss, the governor runs the MTA. But at the end of the day, I had to stay put to make the system work. ”
Letters sent to the governor alternatively sued the third-term Democrat for leaving his talented transit chief, begging him to keep Byford – or both.
‘You clap like the bully in the MTA. You pushed out Byeford [sic] which is ideal for the job and has the staff members who can do it behind it … He who hires talent can shine with them. Undo it. Grovel [if] essential, ”wrote Barbara Charton.
“I’m a Democratic voter, but I’ll always be against you in any future elected position you seek unless you meet Byford and convince him to stay at the MTA,” Joyce Stickney emailed.
“As in the NY tradition of people like Trump and Giuliani, letting your obsession with credit and showing that ‘you are in control’ jeopardize the successes of your nominee,” Rick O’Connell warned.
Cuomo’s leadership style has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks, after he was accused of ‘threatening’ a state congressman for speaking out about the state’s decision to withhold data on thousands of deaths in the old age home. amid the pandemic.
Transit observers said the style was fully displayed during his treatment of Byford.
“The Cuomo government is unable to recognize the concept of reflected credit,” said David Bragdon of the Manhattan-based think tank TransitCenter. “If Andy C. had run the NYCT, Andy C. would have gotten a lot more credit than he gets because he pretended to run it himself.”
“Andy inspired an unparalleled level of trust among riders and workers and New Yorkers, and that was through his independent professionalism, expertise and dedication, and it honestly cannot be easily replaced,” said Danny Pearlstein, Riders Alliance representative, said.
“Because of his clashes with the governor, he was in fact demonstrated to run trains and buses daily, but not to modernize the metro as he had suggested.”
Byford spoke to WCBS-TV in March last week and suggested that Cuomo, who is known for wanting to be the hero in every situation, might have been jealous.
‘I did not look for the name’ Train Daddy ‘, but not the publicity. But the fact is that a good transport profession is moving around, ‘he said. ‘We’ve done more than 100 public events. This aroused a certain amount of publicity. If others did not like it, it was not my intention. ”
Cuomo claimed in his allegation that he never told Byford what to do. Asked if Byford was ‘undermined’, the governor said: ‘If anything, he was underused because I was dealing with his bosses.’
‘I did not work with Andy Byford. I worked with [MTA boss] “Pat Foye … I worked with his higher endowments,” the governor told reporters last year.
Neither the governor’s office nor Byford responded to requests for comment from The Post.