De Blasio Prefers To Run NYC From Home: Report

NEW YORK — He's a stay-at-home mayor. Bill de Blasio spends only a third of each month at City Hall and instead prefers to run America's largest city from his Upper East Side mansion, according to a new report.

De Blasio's public schedules show him spending progressively less time at the seat of city government over the years, The New York Times reported Wednesday. He reportedly showed up to City Hall an average of 10 days a month this year through September, compared with 17 days in 2015.

But the Democratic mayor takes many meetings uptown at Gracie Mansion, where he can talk with top officials out of view of the public and the press, the Times story says.

"I have found it’s a very productive place to get work done," de Blasio told the Times. "There are fewer interruptions. There’s more ability to focus on strategy and get the solutions."

The mansion is where de Blasio finalized the ouster of Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Esposito on Monday, three days after a deputy mayor told the commissioner he would be asked to leave.

Rather than make relatively short trips to City Hall in Lower Manhattan, Esposito said he had to go twice to the East End Avenue residence, which is a roughly nine-mile drive from his Downtown Brooklyn office.

Meetings between the mayor and his commissioners are scarce, according to the Times, and Esposito had not had a one-on-one sit-down with de Blasio in two and a half years. But the mayor reportedly does regularly make time for Police Commissioner James O'Neill and schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.

Despite his absence from City Hall, de Blasio has not shied away from 0ut-of-town travel. He was at a political conference in Vermont last weekend and has spent Wednesday and Thursday meeting with federal officials in Washington.

Read the full New York Times story here.

(Lead image: Mayor Bill de Blasio is seen at a news conference on Tuesday. Photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)