These New Yorkers boarded the anti-Cuomo train early!
Governor Andrew Cuomo received a torrent of hate letters from New Yorkers in the days after his handpicked subway boss Andy Byford left the MTA – with many of the letters blaming the governor’s notoriously selfish leadership for leaving the popular British, the Post learned.
The governor received about 225 furious e-mails and letters in the eight days after Byford’s resignation on January 23, 2020, which the transit chief blamed Cuomo for becoming “intolerable”, according to correspondence obtained through a request Freedom of Information.
“I blame your departure for your myopia, your ego, your need to control and take credit for the progress made with our metro system,” Philipos Wander sent an email to Cuomo the day after Byford left.
Under Byford’s leadership, the subways achieved their highest one-off performance in six years. He also put into action the modernization plan for the MTA that is being pursued by his successors.
No achievements were lost for New Yorkers.
“The man accomplished a lot in his relatively short run on the New York subway. Shame on you for interfering! “Mary Jane Wilkie told the governor in a letter dated the day after Byford’s shocking resignation last year.
“It looks like the political environment has become nothing more than a bunch of guys trotting around without being able to control their testosterone.”
“It is a pity that you cannot share the spotlight,” wrote Malvina Nathanson. “You owe us an apology.”
Byford blamed Cuomo for his departure from the MTA, which occurred less than two years after the governor brought him in to ride the subway from the depths of 2017’s “Summer of Hell”.
Cuomo made the job “unbearable,” said Byford in an interview with WCBS-TV shortly before returning to the UK last March.
He accused the governor’s team of acting behind his back and reducing his role after Byford called for an “independent review” of Cuomo’s plan to prevent the L train stoppage.
“I found myself excluded from meetings that were absolutely about the day-to-day running of the New York City Transit,” said Byford at the time. “The governor is the boss, the governor runs the MTA. But at the end of the day, I needed to be left to run the system. “
Letters sent to the governor alternatively punished the Democrat in his third term for letting his talented transit chief go, begging Byford to stay – or both.
“You are struggling like the MTA bully. You kicked Byeford [sic] who is ideal for the job and has the workforce that can do it … Anyone who hires talent shines with them. Undo it. Crawl [if] necessary, ”wrote Barbara Charton.
“I am an ever-voting Democrat, but I will always be against you in any future elected office that you try, unless you meet with Byford and convince him to stay in the MTA,” sent an email Joyce Stickney.
“As in the New York tradition of people like Trump and Giuliani, you are allowing your obsession with getting credit and showing that ‘you are in charge’ to jeopardize the successes achieved by your nominee,” warned Rick O’Connell.
Cuomo’s leadership style has returned to the spotlight in recent weeks after he was accused of threatening to “destroy” a state deputy for speaking openly about the state’s decision to withhold data on thousands of deaths in nursing homes in the midst of the pandemic.
Traffic watchers said the style was on full display with his treatment of Byford.
“Governor Cuomo is unable to recognize the concept of reflected credit,” said David Bragdon of the TransitCenter study center in Manhattan. “If Andy C. had let Andy B. run the NYCT, Andy C. would have received a lot more credit than for pretending to run it himself.”
“Andy inspired an unparalleled level of trust between pilots and workers and New Yorkers, and that was due to his independent professionalism, experience and commitment, and that is not easily replaced, frankly,” said Riders Alliance representative Danny Pearlstein.
“Because of his confrontations with the governor, he was essentially downgraded to operate trains and buses on a daily basis, but he did not modernize the subway as he had proposed.”
Speaking to WCBS-TV last March, Byford suggested that Cuomo, known for wanting to be the hero in every situation, may have been jealous.
“I didn’t look for the nickname ‘Train Daddy’, I didn’t look for advertising. But the fact is that a good traffic professional leaves home, ”he said. “We held more than 100 public events. This generated some publicity. If others didn’t like that, well, that was not my intention. “
Cuomo, meanwhile, said he had never told Byford what to do. When asked if Byford was “harmed”, the governor said, “In fact, he was overwhelmed because I dealt with his bosses.”
“I didn’t work with Andy Byford. I worked with [MTA boss] Pat Foye… I worked with his superiors, ”the governor told reporters last March.
Neither the governor’s office nor Byford responded to The Post’s requests for comment.