Mayor Bloomberg has been bearing the brunt of the blame for the lackluster post-blizzard clean-up, but one state lawmaker thinks there’s more than enough of that to go around with a share belonging to outgoing Gov. David Paterson.

Assemblyman Bill Colton, a Brooklyn Democrat, said Paterson should have declared a state of emergency after the storm, following New Jersey’s lead, arguing that would have allowed for the mobilization of resources – from the National Guard, for example – to help the city with its sub-par snow removal effort.

“I think the governor clearly had a responsibility to, at the very minimum, call the mayor and say: Do you need help? Should we call a state of emergency? At the very minimum, the governor should have done that,” Colton told me during a brief telephone interview this afternoon.

“There should at least have been a discussion of whether it was needed.”

When I noted Paterson has one foot out the door (although he has managed to find the time to issue more than a few pardons and a commutation), Colton replied:

“The reality is the snow occurred a week ago and it would seem to be that he’s got to keep his hand on the helm of the ship.”

Colton, who was in a car during our interview, the situation “has improved considerably” in the city, although there are still streets in his district that haven’t yet been cleared. He said the mayor’s office – “once they started communicating with us” – has been responsive to constituent calls.

“But why did it take four or five days, that’s where the governor could have come in,” Colton reasoned. “There was a shortage of private vehicles for plowing. They didn’t have enough plows. If there had been a state of emergency declared, maybe we might have had more resources.”

During his weekly radio show with WOR’s John Gambling this morning, Bloomberg defended his decision not to call a snow emergency in NYC, arguing it could have actually worsened an already bad situation by forcing cars off the main streets and onto the already-clogged side streets.

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