Editorial: Where's the Mayor?

Every morning when we get into the office, an e-mail message from the mayor's press office is waiting in our inbox. "Public Schedule for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for…" followed by the date. Basic details of the mayor's public schedule appear in the text of the message, with the location of each event written in capital letters.

MANHATTAN

QUEENS

BROOKLYN

STATEN ISLAND

BRONX

LONG ISLAND

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Having rarely seen "BRONX" in those e-mails, on February 15 we decided to start saving them. As of last Tuesday, May 7, we have accumulated 82 messages. Only seven contained the word "BRONX." None of those seven contained more than one Bronx event.

Here are the seven events that brought our mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to our borough.

· February 28 - Swears in members of the Bronx Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at a ceremony at Hostos Community College in Melrose.

· March 10 - Marches in a St. Patrick's Day parade in Throgs Neck, on the Bronx' southeastern tip.

· March 26 - At Van Cortlandt Park, declares a declare drought emergency.

· April 4 - Attends the funeral of Police Detective Jamie Betancourt in Unionport, on the eastern half of the Bronx.

· April 13 - Speaks at a luncheon of the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization in Baychester.

· May 3 - Attends the funeral of firefighter Michael Lynch in Schuylerville, on the Bronx' eastern shore.

Here's the one we like most:
· April 5 - The mayor is in the Bronx for the second day in a row, this time to throw out the first pitch before the Yankees' first home game of the season.

Three of those visits came while the mayor was on his to an event or back from an event outside New York City.

Staten Island has it worse, only being graced with the mayor's presence six times since Feb. 15. Mr. Bloomberg has visited Brooklyn nine times and Queens 15 times.

Add them up and subtract the six days when he visited more than one borough in a day, and here's the bottom-line: in 82 days, the mayor scheduled events outside of Manhattan on only 31 days.

It's like the mayor is afraid to leave Manhattan!

Half the job of being mayor is simply showing up. We need to see our officials in order to know they are working for us.

Where is the mayor? In the first months of his administration a big deal was made over his weekend excursions out of the city. We suppose Mr. Bloomberg cannot be blamed for preferring to spend his weekends in Bali or the Bahamas instead of the Bronx. Wouldn't we all like to be there for a little R & R?

Of course we would, but we're not the mayor. His job is to manage the city - all five boroughs, all 8 million people.

If he continues to neglect us now, let's not forget to neglect him when he runs for reelection.