Thursday, June 23, 2005

Trashed

Without the necessary votes for an override Speaker Miller canceled the scheduled vote at today’s stated meeting. All of which leaves the fate of the mayor’s SWMP up in the air. With the siting issue resolved one wonders how the Speaker will be able to marshal support for a consensus position vis-à-vis the mayor.

Clearly, the council members who voted with the mayor have not thought through the implications – post Miller – of the weakening of the body’s institutional authority. In addition, we are still left with all of the inadequacies of the SWMP that we have outlined for the past year, beginning with a Newsday Op-ed in October.

Now that they are faced with the reality of a waste disposal policy that has no reduction component it will be interesting to see just what this council will do. We are, of course, hopeful that the pilot program for commercial waste disposers will be included in any eventual amending of the currently crafted SWMP.