If we haven’t heard much from Joe Lhota recently, it was by design: The unsuccessful Republican mayoral candidate said last month that he’d promised his wife he would stay out of the news until the inauguration, and he’s done so. During that time, though, wheels turned behind the scenes, and the forming of the Bill de Blasio administration cleared the way for Lhota’s post-mayoral path, as the chief of staff at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. Lhota, who will also be a vice-president and senior dean, fills a role left open by Anthony Shorris, whom De Blasio hired as a deputy mayor. And so, even though Lhota won’t actually be helping to run De Blasio’s New York, his job of maintaining relationships with government officials and overseeing the hospital’s emergency plans means he’ll get plenty of chances to participate in it.
