There was something very telling about New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s public schedule the week he and Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a new Amazon headquarters in Long Island City, Queens. Some days, the mayor had no public events. He made a few media appearances and answered questions about the city’s botched response to a November snowstorm, but for the most part, de Blasio was missing in action around the city.

It was almost as if he was hiding from New Yorkers who are outraged about this new corporate boondoggle giving away billions to one of the world’s largest corporations to locate its “HQ2” offices in Queens.

In a highly controlled press conference with the governor and direct interviews with reporters, de Blasio justified the deal with vague assurances of economic growth and arguments that New York City was still better than all the other second-rate cities making concessions to lure the online retail giant. He did this all as his administration fumbled the easiest of problems, facing a mild snowstorm that resulted in unnecessary transport delays around the city. This on the heels of a scandal around the city’s inability to provide proper school busing for Queens public school children — incidentally, it was also reported that the Amazon headquarters would force the eviction of the city’s Office of Pupil Transportation, one of the many insults associated with this nearly $2 billion subsidized corporate deal that will bypass normal public oversight procedure.