Selfish bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.
Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.
"They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.
Halloran said he met with three plow workers from the Sanitation Department -- and two Department of Transportation supervisors who were on loan -- at his office after he was flooded with irate calls from constituents.
The indignation is thick enough to weld to the front of a truck to use to plow the boroughs. The garbage slowdown killed people! String up the sanitation workers!
Of course a slightly less breathless look at the situation in the Big Apple this weekend reveals a lot more.
But the Bloomberg administration decided not to call a snow emergency. One city official briefed on the response to the storm said it was explicitly considered. But ultimately Mr. Doherty and Ms. Sadik-Khan decided against it, said Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for Ms. Sadik-Khan.
Mr. Solomonow said the forecast was not severe enough.
“As of about 5 p.m. on Christmas Day,” he said, “the forecast called for about a foot of accumulation, which is not uncommon and which is not a basis for a snow emergency declaration.”
Mr. Bloomberg, asked Tuesday why an emergency had not been declared, confused the issue by asserting that doing so would have put more cars on the roads, potentially creating more problems. But clearly, had he declared an emergency shortly after the Weather Service’s blizzard warning, there would have been ample time to move cars before the heavy snow began.
Mr. Hauer called the decision bewildering, and Mr. Bloomberg’s claims misleading.
“We’ve done snow emergencies in the city for decades, many decades, and people have always found a place to put their cars,” said Mr. Hauer, who has had many angry disagreements with Mr. Bloomberg over the years. “You’ve just got to give them enough time.”
A snow emergency would have cleared the roads for emergency vehicles, but it was never declared by the Mayor's office. Oh...and the city often hires private, non-unionized contractors to deal with snow emergencies too.
“If we had the private industry and the front-end loaders early, come in, it would have been a big help, no question about it,” Mr. Doherty said in an interview on Wednesday. “It is a problem.”
The problem, he said, rested largely with him. He said he might have taken too long to make the first calls for private help. He said he had become too consumed with deploying thousands of his own workers.
“Why did we wait so long?” he asked. “Well, maybe that is something we have to look at, no questions about it.”
There are, though, an array of questions about the system for soliciting private assistance. The city’s list of reliable, proven, untainted businesses has shrunk. Any new volunteers have to be vetted; it can take 12 hours to get them rolling.
Unlike years ago, Mr. Doherty said, the private workers just do not seem “interested in the work anymore.”
“Are we paying enough?” he said. “It may be the reason.”
Seems to me the blame for this lies with a city administration that didn't take the threat of a blizzard seriously enough because it would have meant somewhere in America that a local government was spending money on something, clearly an illegal, unconstitutional act in the eyes of wingers. Decisions were made pretty high up to cut corners and this was the result.
But blaming the city sanitation workers for the clogged streets is just idiotic. Wingers expect all this stuff to magically be cleaned up, but don't think anyone should have to foot the bill...especially taxpayers. Governance itself is the enemy, it seems.
7 comments:
Complete horseshit.
You want to solve city and state budget problems? Cut everyone's wages to the state minimum wage. Yes, this includes cops, firefighters and teachers. Who wants to be a cop for $7.25 an hour? We've got millions of people out of work.
Problem solved.
You can't get much more "Galtian utopia" than minimum wage cops.
If you're a taxpayer and there's 10% unemployment which makes more sense, 4 cops making $7.25/hr or one cop making $29/hr and 3 people on unemployment or welfare?
Which one is better for the community's safety? Which one is better for the taxpayer?
Don't like it? Get off your ass and get a private sector job. Don't qualify? Serve your community instead.
Awesome - "Serve your community', with the asterisk 'but not on my dime' clearly underlined and highlighted.
Would you stay at your job if they cut your wages? Again and again? And that this cut in pay was telegraphed to you in the news by jerk faces who knew nothing about what you did for a living and said you should be glad to do it because there were lots of people who needed jobs and they could do yours just as well?
I would be talking to your light echo, you'd be out of there so fast. You would be a speck on the horizon, and if they did, I'll bet you'd do everything you could, including getting a lawyer to scrutinize your contract and suing to keep every penny of salary and benefits. And that would be just and right for you... but not for them.
Christ help us all if Ayn Rand's cult ever takes over. Fucking sociopaths, every one of them.
It's the "Those who can do, those who can't teach" arguement. If you can't make a profit, be a pussy and "give back to the community" like the hippie you are, hippie.
Seriously, as much as one can say about the abuses of law enforcement, there is a reason why we pay officers, firefighters, and teachers well, or should anyways.
Teachers are the ones who help people gain the skills to be productive in other areas.
Firefighters and police? Seriously. You want to pay mininum wage to those who risk themselves for the safety of others? One can get minimum wage at McDonalds and not risk their life for idiots, thank you. Never mind the skills it requires to keep a situation stable.
Combat pay exists for a reason.
But hey, the private sector saves all, amirite?
they should all be put in the electric chair!!!!! How many people have died due to the inability for emergency personell to operate!!!!
What are you talking about?
Or specifically, who?
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