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Mayor De Blasio's bid to Get Trump by shutting the skating rinks his organization manages blows up in his face
American Thinker ^ | 02/22/2021 | Monica Showalter

Posted on 02/22/2021 6:39:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind

For leftist failures like New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, nothing trumps Getting Trump.

So it must have seemed natural to him to shut down two big skating rinks in New York City on the grounds that they were managed by the Trump Organization with 250 employees.

According to Deadline:

“New York City doesn’t do business with insurrectionists,” de Blasio tweeted. “We’re taking steps to TERMINATE agreements with the Trump Organization to operate the Central Park Carousel, Wollman and Lasker skating rinks, and the Ferry Point Golf Course” in the Bronx.

While city officials have explored ways to exit the agreements since 2015, de Blasio said in an interview with MSNBC that last Wednesday’s deadly and destructive invasion of the U.S. Capitol left no other option. “The city of New York will no longer have anything to do with the Trump Organization,” he said. He added that he sees the city as standing on “strong legal ground,” should Trump decide to file suit.

Turns out he had another option, and after hearing from angry New Yorkers, he skedaddled as fast as he could to take it.

According to the New York Post:

City Hall on Sunday reversed Mayor de Blasio’s move to shutter Lasker and Wollman rinks in Central Park six weeks ahead of their typical April closing dates —  in an effort to freeze-out his political rival.

“New York City kids deserve all the time on the ice they can get this year. The Wollman and Lasker rinks will stay open under current management for the few weeks left in this season,” City Hall Press Secretary Bill Neidhardt told The Post.

It was also a very leftist thing to do. Leftist consider the needs of people last in their political calculations, and this idiocy is no exception.


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: billdeblasio; nyc; skatingrinks; trump
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Did de Blasio care about the kids, particularly minority kids who can't get out of that miserable city like the rich ones do, the kids who use that rink in the last godawful days of New York's miserable winters? I've lived in that city, I know what it's like around the tail end of February just in normal times with the filthy snow, the grim, ugly winter coats, the icy freezing rain, and the non-stop cold. For New Yorkers around this time, spring can't come fast enough.
1 posted on 02/22/2021 6:39:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Problem One....He was cleared of starting/causing/whatever the riot. It was NOT an insurrection.

Donald Trump knows contracts inside and out and likely laughed when Blasio said...we're gonna cancel the contract.

2 posted on 02/22/2021 6:44:20 AM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: SeekAndFind

I know the Lasker Rink a lot because I support a group that provides skating lessons for autistic kids, who all have fun doing it.

Here’s a brief history:

In 1986, then, real estate developer Donald Trump offered New York City mayor Ed Koch to rebuild the deteriorating Wollman Rink at his expense within six months in return for the leases to operate the rink and an adjacent restaurant to recoup his costs.

As part of the agreement to keep operating Wollman Rink, Trump agreed to also take a concession for Lasker Rink, and the Trump Organization won concessions for the rinks in 1987.

On January 13, 2021, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would be severing all contracts with the Trump Organization ( no good business reason provided), citing Trump’s involvement in the previous week’s storming of the United States Capitol.

The cancellation of the Trump Organization’s contracts to operate Wollman Rink, Lasker Rink, and the Central Park Carousel would go into effect in February 2021. There was of course a huge backlash because of this.


3 posted on 02/22/2021 6:44:55 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: Sacajaweau

I know the Lasker Rink a lot because I support a group that provides skating lessons for autistic kids, who all have fun doing it.

Here’s a brief history:

In 1986, then, real estate developer Donald Trump offered New York City mayor Ed Koch to rebuild the deteriorating Wollman Rink at his expense within six months in return for the leases to operate the rink and an adjacent restaurant to recoup his costs.

As part of the agreement to keep operating Wollman Rink, Trump agreed to also take a concession for Lasker Rink, and the Trump Organization won concessions for the rinks in 1987.

On January 13, 2021, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would be severing all contracts with the Trump Organization ( no good business reason provided), citing Trump’s involvement in the previous week’s storming of the United States Capitol.

The cancellation of the Trump Organization’s contracts to operate Wollman Rink, Lasker Rink, and the Central Park Carousel would go into effect in February 2021. There was of course, a huge backlash because of this.


4 posted on 02/22/2021 6:45:22 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Chances are some film crew had arrangements to do a scene at the skating rinks and made noise with City Hall. Hard to believe that a politician would be concerned about complaints from actual citizens/voters.


5 posted on 02/22/2021 6:45:23 AM PST by Bernard (“When once the guardian angel has taken flight, everything is lost”. – William H. Seward, 1/12/1861)
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To: Bernard

One of the teeny, tiny diversions in that city is the sweet availability of the inexpensive Central Park skating rinks, which can rent skates for a nominal cost to anyone, let them skate away, and give them happy diversion they don’t have to go to the Hamptons to get.

They are there, and they were made that way by the Trump Organization, which rescued the Wollman rink from socialist-hellhole dilapidation way back in 1986 and made them something authentic and reliable for New Yorkers to enjoy. For a lot of people, that kind of competence is what won Trump his 2016 election. Thomas Lifson tells me that the best chapter in Trump’s famous book, “The Art of the Deal” was on how Trump rescued the Wollman rink from being a dilapidated dysfunctional dump from the clowns then running New York City, and how made it into something nice for New Yorkers, raising their quality of life.

Eric Trump, Trump’s son who along with his brother runs the Trump Organization, pointed out that handicapped kids in skating programs to help them got shut out by this idiocy, for one.

Professional skaters who must use the rink to keep training got hit too, and complained mightily.

Worst hit of all were the minority kids, the kids suffering horribly based on teachers’ unions refusing to open schools for months and months, leaving them unable to see their friends, unable to make new friends, isolated from all human contact, and many now anxious, depressed and even committing suicide. The New York City skating rink, with its wide open-air spaces was one of the few places they could go with little fear of catching COVID, and just a cheap or free subway ride away, and for some, walking distance.

De Blasio’s contract cancellation was amazingly spiteful, given that it normally ran out in April, meaning, these last horrible weeks of the New York winter would have no skating at all for the kids.


6 posted on 02/22/2021 6:46:39 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Leftist consider the needs of people last in their political calculations...

Pretty good summation of the Left's policies. They wonder why energy prices are rising after killing the Keystone Pipeline, cancelling oil leases on and offshore, selective bans on fracking, and promises to breathe life into the moribund Green New Deal. How can you be that dumb and still get elected? I guess it speaks volumes about how dumb the voting public is.

7 posted on 02/22/2021 6:54:05 AM PST by econjack
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To: SeekAndFind

DeCommieo is a pathetic puny example of a man.


8 posted on 02/22/2021 6:56:04 AM PST by HighSierra5
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To: SeekAndFind

With all the stupid COVID restrictions in place in New York City, I’m genuinely shocked to see that the skating rinks were even open at all this winter.


9 posted on 02/22/2021 6:58:29 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("And once in a night I dreamed you were there; I canceled my flight from going nowhere.")
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To: SeekAndFind

Skating is a lifelong skill that children should learn early like swimming. Deblasio is after total destruction of NYC so he can sell it off to China.


10 posted on 02/22/2021 6:59:03 AM PST by cnsmom
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To: SeekAndFind

after hearing from angry New Yorkers

***************

The same people who put him in office.


11 posted on 02/22/2021 7:19:31 AM PST by Starboard
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To: cnsmom

Deblasio is after total destruction of NYC

*************

The people in NYC seem to be OK with this. They keep him in office after all.


12 posted on 02/22/2021 7:21:09 AM PST by Starboard
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To: Sacajaweau

Donald Trump knows contracts inside and out and likely laughed when Blasio said...we’re gonna cancel the contract.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Eric Trump is currently ‘in charge’ of the Trump Organization & warned De BlahBlah that if he cancelled early, he would be sued for breach of contract ..... he was serious about the lawsuit. Those who seemed to have some knowledge of the situation said it would cost NYC millions ... that they don’t have.


13 posted on 02/22/2021 7:21:23 AM PST by Qiviut (2020 Election steal result: We are beginning our "40 years of wandering in the Wilderness".)
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To: SeekAndFind

Peoples’ capacity for abuse and nonsense at the hands of politicians is truly amazing. Voters are like battered wives.


14 posted on 02/22/2021 7:24:45 AM PST by Starboard
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To: Qiviut

I’m sure Eric was told by his father EXACTLY what to say.


15 posted on 02/22/2021 7:26:39 AM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: Qiviut
Eric Trump is currently ‘in charge’ of the Trump Organization & warned De BlahBlah that if he cancelled early, he would be sued for breach of contract ..... he was serious about the lawsuit. Those who seemed to have some knowledge of the situation said it would cost NYC millions ... that they don’t have.

Exactly and there would also be recoupment for improvements or the Trump contractors could take a lot of their own equipment away with them and their replacements quickly realized they couldn't afford to replace the equipment. In this case all the piping and cooling equipment was likely provided by Donald Trump himself and if he goes, the equipment goes too. Remember, he bailed out the rink when the city couldn't afford it.

I also suspect, knowing how savvy the Trump organization staff are, the management contracts are held by minority, women, and small business enterprises and that Kaiser Wilhelm would have made himself and Governor Nursing Home Killer (NHK) Cuomo look very bad to terminate such contracts when Cuomo is trying to increase minority, women, and small business enterprises in government work.

16 posted on 02/22/2021 7:34:58 AM PST by T.B. Yoits
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To: Starboard

The revenge of his presidential embarrassment.


17 posted on 02/22/2021 8:07:39 AM PST by cnsmom
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To: SeekAndFind

This is from the same hysterical maniacal obsession that led to the painting of BLM on a city street, destroying traffic control markings, and proving a complete incompetence to govern anywhere in a civilized country.


18 posted on 02/22/2021 8:17:38 AM PST by I want the USA back (The nation is in the grips of hysterical insanity, as usual.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Evil


19 posted on 02/22/2021 8:46:15 AM PST by Gritty (Liberty lies in the hearts of men. When it dies there, no Court can do much to help it.-Sam Alito)
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To: Qiviut
"it would cost NYC millions ... that they don’t have."

When did that ever stop them? Plus, Washington will probably bail them out with the COVID money-laundering bill.

20 posted on 02/22/2021 8:55:11 AM PST by UnwashedPeasant (Trump is the last legally elected U.S. President.)
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