What’s a Sanbot?
a. a miniature PB&J sandwich robot
b. a 6” heel woman’s shoe style
c. the URL for the Jarrett Meeker Foundation
d. a garbage truck driver in Flatbush
e. all of the above
Letter e. became the right answer when NYC Deputy Mayor for Operations Stephen Goldsmith — the famous “Missing Man” of the 2010 Blizzard — designated BK14 (Flatbush-Midwood) as the pilot district for garbage truck-tracking by GPS. Continue reading
Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith
Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith said today that “we’re 30 days away” from giving community boards “real-time 311 data,” but that he would have to confirm this.
He made his comment in response to a question by Councilmember Gale Brewer at today’s City Council hearings on the Blizzard of 2010.
But a Brooklyn community board district manager who has seen a prototype of the system cautions that the 311 data will not be what the boards had requested.
Despite some incisive questioning, especially by Councilmember Jumaane Williams (45CD), the mayor’s representatives toughed it out and protected Bloomberg by saying that they, not he, had made the crucial decisions.
Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty
But when it came time to specify which managers had made which decisions, no one took responsibility. Goldsmith called himself a “coordinator” who had left it to commissioners John Doherty (DSNY) and Joe Bruno (OEM) to make the critical operational calls. They said the decision-making scenario was a group process.
No one admitted City Hall had erred in delaying declaration of a snow emergency.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s political operatives are working in Albany on their real agenda: gutting the civil service merit system.
The News and the Post report that Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested to parishioners at Brooklyn’s Christian Cultural Center that they should use 311 to help them lobby to raise the state’s charter school cap. “Just pick up the phone, call 311, ask for the name and the phone number of your state senator or state assemblyman, call them up and say, ‘This is an outrage!'”
Strictly speaking, anyone can call 311 to learn an elected official’s phone number. But the mayor’s suggestion that 311 should be used in support of a specific political initiative — one that he favors — skirts the edge of propriety — and, maybe, the law. Continue reading
It’s not the first time that 311 has been used to harass neighbors, but it may be the most egregious. Jim Dwyer, writing in the Metropolitan Section of Sunday’s NY Times, tells of a rash of phony 311 complaints that, Dwyer says, “has put thousands of homeowners in Queens under a state of bureaucratic siege.”
“From September to December, more than 3,000 complaints of illegal [residential] conversions were filed in three Queens neighborhoods — Whitestone, Flushing, and Malba.” The result: Buildings department inspectors repeatedly seeking entry into homes maliciously identified by anonymous complainants. Continue reading
Posted in 2010 NYC Charter Revision, Government 101
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, 311, bloomberg charter, Community Boards, coterminality, jim dwyer 311 article, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, ny times 311, NYC charter, NYC City Council, NYC Government, Times 311 article
CityPragmatist 