WASHINGTON —Mayor de Blasio accepted an award Tuesday from a liberal group that lauded him for taking on advocates of charter schools and “centrist” Democratic policies tied to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
The Campaign for America’s Future gave the mayor a “Progressive Champion of Change” award and praised his attempt to end former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “gift of scarce New York City school resources” to charters.
The post cited Bill Clinton eight times as a leader of Democratic centrism the mayor is defying in the post, faulting him for “boosterism” on the charter issue.
Robert Borosage, co-director of the group, praised the mayor for working to halt “the corporate assault on public schools” in remarks at the awards gala.
“He was ultimately forced to back down, at least in the short term,” Borosage said, when Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz and “her big-dollar backers won a victory in Albany.”
But he said the fight is not over.
De Blasio steered clear of the charter issue in his remarks, focusing on New York’s progressive tilt. “Economic populism is alive and well if we are only bold enough to tap into it,” he said.
The mayor, accompanied by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and John Miller, the NYPD counterterrorism chief, also met Tuesday with top Obama administration security officials, including the heads of the FBI and Homeland Security Department.
De Blasio met President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, in the White House situation room, an experience he called “sobering and humbling.”
The mayor is still waiting to get a top-secret clearance from feds. Without one, he can receive generalized briefings but no classified or secret information.
De Blasio and Miller said Wednesday that lack of a clearance made no difference in the information the mayor received.
“The conversations were specific enough for me to get the information that I need, the mayor said.
Miller told reporters that in the event of a serious terror threat, the city could obtain a waiver from federal authorities that would allow de Blasio to hear top secret information he is currently denied.
It would “take about 20 minutes” Miller said.
