Goldsmith stepping down as New York deputy mayor

New York City Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, the former Indianapolis mayor who joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration last year, has resigned to pursue a job financing infrastructure development.

Caswell Holloway, 37, the city’s environmental protection commissioner since January 2010, will replace Goldsmith as deputy mayor for operations, Bloomberg’s office said Thursday in a news release. Goldsmith, 64, said his departure date is uncertain.

Goldsmith became a Bloomberg deputy in June 2010. During his tenure he established programs to share vehicles and information technology and other services among city agencies, initiatives that Bloomberg said would save the city $500 million by 2013. Goldsmith came under criticism from City Council members who blamed him after a post-Christmas blizzard left some streets unplowed for a week.

“It was a great job, a great opportunity,” Goldsmith said as he left City Hall for the day. Any suggestion that the mayor asked him to leave because of the administration’s admitted failures in responding to the snowstorm “would be untrue,” he said.

Several private firms have approached him with potentially lucrative job possibilities setting up financing deals for infrastructure, he said.

“I can’t negotiate while I’m here as a city official,” he said.

Holloway, as commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, has focused on holding down planned water-rate increases, and programs to capture rainwater and reduce sewer overflows. He also ended 15-year-old labor disputes that had hampered city operations, the mayor’s office said.

A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School, Holloway previously served as chief of staff to Deputy Mayor for Operations Edward Skyler and as a special adviser to Bloomberg.

Holloway’s salary as deputy mayor will be $213,000, up from $205,000 as environmental commissioner, said Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for the mayor.

Goldsmith was mayor of Indianapolis from 1992 to 1999. It was then the 12th-largest U.S. city, with a population of about 780,000. He developed a reputation for cutting costs by privatizing some city services. New York, the largest U.S. city by population, has 8.2 million residents, according to the U.S. Census.

Goldsmith was director of Harvard University’s Innovations in American Government program last year when Bloomberg appointed him, describing him as “a superstar in every respect.”

Bloomberg is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.