City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s active Twitter account is an important part of her persona.
Whether she’s touring La Marqueta across the street from her district office, sharing pictures of her isla del encanto Puerto Rico or reiterating her disgust for Donald Trump and his supporters, the speaker uses her Twitter feed as a means of softening her — shall we say — prickly personality.
“Mark-Viverito miscalculated, because the DOT’s social-media person out-trolled her by advising everyone that, yes, the DOT will take note of the complaint, but 311 remains the best place to take these matters”
Tuesday, Mark-Viverito was out on a walking tour of her district when she encountered a broken WALK/DON’T WALK signal hanging off a lamppost. The speaker tweeted the Department of Transportation, asking with only the faintest hint of noblesse oblige, “Can you take care of it please? Gracias.”
Someone at DOT must have found Mark-Viverito’s tone annoying, because he or she tweeted back a reminder that calling 311 — the city’s complaint line — is the best way to get fast action on pedestrian-signal issues.
Mark-Viverito responded with a classic example of “do you know who I am” outrage: “I’m sorry . . . whaaaat??? This a joke? Or an auto response? Or maybe even an intern? Not a response for an elected.”
Normally, an “elected” faced with this type of problem would call the operational person at the agency in question. Surely the speaker and her staff know Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg and her own staff...
Read the entire piece here at the New York Post, adapted from City Journal Online
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Seth Barron is project director of the Manhattan Institute’s NYC Initiative. He blogs about New York City politics at City Council Watch.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post