Garbage Redux

The City Council’s 29-19 vote to trash the mayor’s garbage plan leaves the question of an override (34 votes needed) up in the air. We believe that the Speaker will be able to do it because there are some council members (see Yassky’s comments in today’s Times) who, while they voted for the plan, clearly see its crippling deficiencies.

Gifford Miller hit just the right note in his arguments against the mayor’s proposal by pointing out that it fails to deal with commercial waste and has nothing substantive to propose on recycling. So when the mayor’s spokesman Jordan Barowitz says that the Council is voting for keeping more trucks on the road he is only partially correct. It would be better phrased to say that the mayor’s plan also leaves more trucks on the street than is necessary while, at the same time, keeping the transfer station neighborhoods hostage to the odor of putrescible garbage.