NEW YORK — A decision by Mayor Bill de Blasio that some believe is him once again putting politics ahead of the city has many questioning his sudden trip to Germany.

"This goes to the core of who the mayor is. We are looking for a leader who has the right type of judgement at all times especially in these types of situations," says Mike Paul, a crisis communications specialist.

This week, the city has had to endure an uptick in challenges with the city's transit system, the swearing in of a new NYPD class of recruits and of course the cold-blooded assassination of an NYPD officer, Miosotis Familia, mother of three.

This said, the mayor opted to bolt from the city on Thursday for Hamburg and the G20 conference of world leaders.

"We're talking about political judgement here," says Paul who has handled crisis communications in political as well as corporate circles.

Paul went on to highlight that all of this playing out in an election year, "It's a reelection contest going on right now for this sitting mayor and he knows that people have a problem not only with his optics but with his judgement on other things."

However, in the mayor's own backyard along 11th Street in Park Slope, the opinion of his German junket was mixed. His former neighbor Ed Levy offered the following assessment.

"I think that it is very important that someone unlike Donald Trump represents the United States over in Germany."

While another neighborhood resident Sal Mano offered a different perspective, "I think he should walk up and down 7th Avenue and take a look at what is going on up here in Park Slope where he is from and take care of the business at hand here."

Sal Lifrieri, a former Director of Security and Intelligence Operations under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, shared with PIX11 News in front of City Hall, his shock at the mayor making it known to the world that his son, Dante, was spending his summer in Germany for an internship.

The reason for the dismay? Usually children are view as high risk potential targets and it is for this reason they routinely kept out of the limelight.

Lifrieri's take? "This definitely poses a greater risk and I'm sure that the advice that the NYPD intelligence division would have been to not make that announcement to the public."