Avella Criticizes City Over Email Campaign for Cathie Black

State Sen. Tony Avella, D-Bayside, has blasted Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration following the release of emails last week that sought support from celebrities for former Department of Education Chancellor Cathie Black.   

The city released the emails Thursday after losing a court fight to keep them private. In the emails, administration officials called for support from high profile names, including Oprah Winfrey, for Black as a number of City Council members opposed her appointment.   

Black, a former chairwoman for Hearst Magazines, stepped down from the DOE in April 2011 following growing criticism of her management of the agency.   

Avella had previously called on the state commissioner of education to deny a waiver necessary for Black to run the DOE without having had any previous educational experience.   

“These emails show the great lengths that Mayor Bloomberg and his administration are willing to go in order to have his business friends and members of his social circle as part of his administration,” Avella said. “These officials, while having deep business ties, often have no government experience or even real world experience in the agency they are supposed to lead. The failure of the Cathie Black era was yet another example of the mayor failing our school system by attempting to run it as a business.”   

City lawyers had attempted to fight the release of the emails on the grounds that Black and the Bloomberg administration should have the same protections that prevent public disclosure of internal discussions among employees already in office.   

According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration contacted elected officials across the state as well as Winfrey and Caroline Kennedy for endorsements. The initiative to get the emails released began in November 2010 after a Village Voice intern filed a public records request for them.