New York, NY – Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration is rejecting a package of City Council proposals aimed at improving the New York City’s response to weather-related emergencies like the December blizzard that sparked several investigations.
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Liz Weinstein, the director of the mayor’s Office of Operations, said at hearing Wednesday that the proposed legislation would duplicate city efforts and limit the flexibility of emergency management officials. The city has issued a 15-point plan.
But council members said they would continue to pursue the bills. They said it was the only way to ensure that current officials and future administrations don’t repeat the mistakes of the day-after-Christmas storm.
Bloomberg has said the storm was handled poorly.
The proposals include bills that would require emergency officials to create rules for weather emergencies and notify the public of government service disruptions.
The mayor has already acknowledged that he screwed up the snow removal effort and has implented needed changes. He doesn’t need interference from a bunch of political hacks on the city council that wouldn’t know a snowplow from a lawnmower.
Bloomberg didn’t screw up by himself…NYC was screwed by the job actions of disgruntled DSNY workers who were angry over layoffs and demotions. Bloombergs top people at OEM screwed up also, as well as the Governor who didn’t call in the National Guard. Bottom line is that Bloomberg lost control and won’t accept new rules because he can’t control the unions…throw in his usual arrogance and we will have these issues again if the layoffs continue.
to #1 :
for that matter neither would the mayor
To #2 -What would the National Guard have done? They are not trained to operate snow plows, or collect garbage. In 1966, during a 12 day subway strike, there were also calls for the National Guard to be activated. However, the Guard stated that it could not operate subway trains. The Guard is primarily activated to assist local communities following natural disasters such as tornados, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes; also, it is supposed to assist local law enforcement in the event of a civil disorder or riot. However, it is not the Guard’s function to come into a community, when a community has the resources to perform a particular task, but for whatever reason, its labor force is incompetent or doesn’t wish to perform that task.
To Allan (#6)- While your intentions were noble, pertaining to getting NYC all the help that it needed, I really don’t think that the New York National Guard could have lent any more assistance, even with their large military trucks. Their trucks would have gotten stuck in the snow, in the same manner that fire engines and ambulances were getting stuck. There were many side streets in Borough Park and other communities, which would not have been practical for large military vehicles to pass through. However, there were private contractors with snow plows, which should have been utilized, as they could have cleared the city streets. Unfortunately, the private snow plow drivers were not given the green light to clear the streets. In my community, following a blizzard, our street was finally cleared by private contractors; they were authorized by the local municipality, since it did not have the equipment to get the job done.
#7 Using private contractors would have ben a great idea except that the grass was greener (so to speak) elsewhere for them. NYC does not have a great track record for paying these folks within a fair amount of time. They went where the money was and they would be paid quickly. Not to beat a dead horse but the military vehicles at the disposal of the NG are many times four wheel drive and have wheels with a large circumference that could have made it thru the high snow and not any wider than any DSNY truck. My final analysis of this snow disaster is that it was both bungled from the top on down and complicated by a wild cat job action by DSNY personnel. The head of the OEM, Joe Bruno, never even declared a snow emergency. How much more incompetence could there be? What a shame people had to die because of the inability of FDNY ambulances to get to them within a reasonable amount of time, stabilize them and then transport to the closest hospital.