MTA chief Lieber slams Levine over city’s mental health spending
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
MTA chief Janno Lieber
lambasted Manhattan
politicians who urged
him to prioritize subway platform
doors in their borough,
telling them to take a good
look in the mirror over failed
city mental health efforts.
During a radio interview
Thursday, the transit big criticized
Manhattan Borough
President and former Council
Member Mark Levine for his
push for the station barriers in
the wake of the shocking shoving
of Michelle Alyssa Go into
a train at Times Square almost
two weeks ago.
Lieber took aim at Levine,
who was the head of the
Council’s health committee,
but the transit chief also misstated
that the pol chaired the
separate mental health committee
during his time on the
legislative body.
“I am disappointed that the
Manhattan Borough President,
who was the health committee
chair of the City Council
POLITICS
Manhattan Borough President and MTA chairperson and
CEO Janno Lieber.
for years,” said Lieber on the
Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC
on Jan. 27. “He was the chair
of the mental health committee
and what was going on when
they spent billions of dollars on
mental health that left us with
the conditions we’re seeing in
the system.”
FILE PHOTOS
The Mayor Bill de Blasio
administration famously spent
more than $1 billion over six
years on its mental health initiative
dubbed ThriveNYC,
later rebranded as the Mayor’s
Offi ce of Community Mental
Health, and watchdogs
have said the costly effort has
More political coverage online at
amounted to few measurable
improvements in the city.
Go was pushed in front of
an oncoming train by a homeless
man suffering from mental
illness and leaders at the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority
have since been beating
the drum to swell police
patrols on trains and platforms
while the state also rolls out a
smaller number of additional
social workers to get indigent
New Yorkers out of the
transit system.
Levine and all 10 council
members representing Manhattan
penned a letter to Lieber earlier
this week asking him to fasttrack
platform doors in stations
across that borough, arguing
that they tend to be more crowded
than other parts of the city,
reported the New York Post.
The Manhattan beep said
Lieber should work on the
gates rather than attack local
pols personally.
“Instead of engaging in ad
hominem attacks how about you
commit to actually to actually
solving this problem,” Levine
wrote on Twitter. “Also if you are
going to attack the City Council
it might help if you understood
the committees. I chaired the
health committee not the mental
health committee.”
The previous council’s committee
on mental health, disabilities
and addiction was led
by Brooklyn Council Member
Farah Louis, who declined
to comment through
a spokesperson.
MTA spokesman Tim Minton
later claimed the transit boss
was referring to the fact that
both committees deal with the
city’s Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene.
“Janno Lieber was refl ecting
the fact that both the health
committee and the mental
health committee of the New
York City Council oversee the
same agency, which is the Department
of Health and Mental
Hygiene,” Minton said.
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