Councilman: NYC Snow Slow-Down Was Intentional

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snow14When Good Day NY co-host Greg Kelly questioned city leaders on Tuesday on an early rumor circulating that sanitation workers intentionally worked slower to clear the snow as a protest to budget cuts, it was pure speculation.

But this morning, Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens) said five, guilt-ridden workers came forward admitting to the slow-down.

Speaking with Good Day New York, Halloran said supervisors were fingered as the culprits in retaliation to demotions and staff cuts at the Sanitation Department.

“We had two groups come in. One was a group of three rank-and-file sanitation workers and the other was two DOT supervisors. The came in separately and more or less said supervisors in the Sanitation Department basically gave workers the thumbs up to not tackle the snow is a way which was productive,” said Halloran.

The city councilman described what went into the slow-down as was told to him by the workers and DOT supervisors who came forward.

Early on the focus on clearing the streets was aimed at Manhattan over the outer-boroughs. Secondly, supervisors were not plotting courses of action to tackle secondary and tertiary roads in the outer-boroughs. Thirdly, many drivers would make their rounds without having the plow directly making contact with the street, essentially ‘working’ their shifts, but not clearing the snow.

“This appears to have come from supervisors… it was a statio-by-station operation. Clearly this was not a decision across the board as some areas were cleared,” added Halloran.

The New York Post , which first reported evidence of the slow-down, cited sources who said that one mechanic purposely smashed plows and salt spreaders during the blizzard clean-up.

“One-hundred sanitation workers were slated for reduction in rank- through no fault of their own- and that was going into effect this week,” said Halloran.

On Wednesday, the union boss representing sanitation workers denied any intentional slow down by his members.

“There is nothing to that (rumor.) I’m working very closely with the city. They worked 14 hour shifts. They’re getting annoyed over the fact that people are thinking there is a job action,” said Harry Nespoli, chairman of the Municipal Labor Committee, Local 831

The labor leader pointed fingers at Mother Nature.

“We had a blizzard. There were also an unusual amount of people on the streets on Sunday night and those cars never made it back to the curbs,” added Nespoli about the stranded vehicles and the difficulty they posed in getting plows through certain areas.

The City Council has scheduled a hearing in January on the City’s response to the blizzard of 2010.

Nearly two feet of snow fell in Central Park starting on Sunday.

On Thursday- the day the Commissioner of the Department of Sanitation had said all streets would be plowed by 7 a.m.- SkyFoxHD spotted several streets unplowed in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

The Bloomberg administration has been heavily criticized by local leaders and residents who say the response to the storm was inadequate.

State Assemblyman Dov Hikind has called for the firing of Sanitation Department Commissioner John Doherty.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg said he would not fire Doherty and referred to him during a news conference as the “best Sanitation Commissioner the City has ever had.”

{My FOX NY/Matzav.com}


5 COMMENTS

  1. It has nothing to do with Bloomberg or the Sanitation commissioner. Its simply union thugs and supervisors that basically said I am not going back to picking up garbage cans after years being in a supervisors car. Human Nature at work. They wanted to dis everyone.

  2. I’m sorry, another one for the unions. Loook at how many lives were lost due to their selfish considerations…

    I think its time to really show the unions up all over

  3. Its time to allow a “right to work” state where UNIONS are not necessary. they get their rights nowadays. Its not like it was in 1900s or in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. All unions are unnecessary- their goal is to stay necessary and they are the ones to cause so many jobs to be lost. When you keep upping their wages, their benefits, and lowering their requirements- We can afford less of them!
    With some of the car factories that shut down in the USA- the companies said to the unions- we fire all and shut down the factory Or you don’t get a raise this year. (or Fire some vs. Firing all). Unions forced the companies to close down- now there are less jobs available!

  4. I witnessed at least 5 trucks driving by with raised plows. I regret I didn’t take pictures. Of course this was intentional. They got paid triple what they should have and guess whose footing the bill.

  5. At 5:30 this morning there were 2 sanitation trucks in single file going down my block in Brooklyn. The first had minimal contact with the surface and the 2nd truck has the plow raised. Similarly, I saw a truck on the avenue which was plowing non-existent snow while the side streets were full of snow. It is not the mayors fault at all. It is time to bust the unions and get better sanitation service and better transit service. These people are a bunch of goons who have no accountability.

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