Thursday, June 16, 2005

Council Trash Plan

The Council announced its new trash plan alternative yesterday in an attempt to resolve the impasse caused by the mayor’s veto of the legislature’s thumbs down on this transfer station siting plan. If first reports are accurate, however, it doesn’t appear that the mayor feels the Council plan is a viable one. As Bloomberg remarks in Nicholas Confessore’s New York Times story today:

We will go ahead with a well-thought-out plan…A plan made by professional environmentalists [an oxymoron?] and experts in waste disposal [another one?] and in traffic.
Clearly, the Council’s objective here is to get enough additional votes in the body (five are needed), to override the mayor’s veto. Once this is done, than real negotiations can begin over redrafting what is unquestionably a limited-vision plan for the city’s waste disposal.

Who are the G8?

On the same front, Jill Gardiner is reporting in the Sun that a mysterious group of eight council members has formed to act as a negotiating buffer between the Speaker and the mayor. No one in the group is identified except for Councilmember Yassky who is reported to be its leader.

What this means is that there will be a wide range of interests as well as pressure points in the upcoming SWMP battle. If the override is achieved it will be interesting to see if the Speaker, post-budget, will be able to negotiate a plan without the whole process degenerating into a free-for-all.

Update: Over at The Politicker: Ben Smith gives his take on the G8 issue and mentions that Yassky called him to deny that he's the lead negotiator. Check out the post's comments as well. As we know, certain Politicker readers are liberal with the "anonymosity."