Secret note to Senate Democrats: we were talking about congestion pricing this week — apparently they didn’t get the memo. That was the excuse we heard from a bunch of flunkies who haven’t had to do anything beside say ‘Joe Bruno’ in response to every question asked them since Tammany Hall days: the reason congestion pricing ground to a halt was the Bloomberg didn’t answer their queries in a way that pleased them. Apparently when they asked him questions the average third grader could answer about the plan that everyone has be debating, praising or ignoring for months, hizzoner got testy and said something like, did you read the report? They were all like ‘No he din’t’ or some other bad SNL sketch involving to ethnic women arguing. Because, that’s right, the Senate Democrats apparently hadn’t heard about this congestion pricing thingamabob.
It is quaint that they act like him kissing Politburo ass would have made a difference. Word coming out of Albany — yeah, I got a line out of Albany now: ain’t that some shit? — was that it was deader than something really dead well in advance of the theatrics this Monday. But that’s not much of an inside line. Things are either dead or not, and for all intents and purposes you might as well flip a coin on whether other not Silver likes any particular bill. But I do admire the pluck of any politician who seems bent on proving you can govern worse the President Bush.
A diagram of New York State politics is like that tired, but always effective film image: three men in a triangle, pointing guns at the one to their right. The only thing different this week is they were just pointing at the sap in the middle. You would think that was Bloomberg, but instead it was the residents of the city, dolled up like some old whore upstate pols keep pumping for cash. Or, if this was a family blog, like the stump at the end of ‘The Giving Tree‘. Here, Shelly, let me shape up my stump to prop up your self-involved, useless old ass for another two years. Prick.
Other notable failures — well, non failures, since of course nothing actually happened — were retooling a financing mechanism juggernaut that apparently mandates debt raising procedures for everyone from SUNY to the Naked Cowboy, a boondoggle revamp of 421-a regulations, a bunch of other traffic reforms and the disposition of our solid waste plan, which, if you recall, was announced, oh, two years ago.
I don’t know about you, but I shit marshmallows and cotton candy, so I don’t contribute to solid waste issues in New York. Apparently this is true of you too, if live near the Gansevoort Peninsula, 59th Street or the Upper East Side, so sayeth just about any politician capable of lying. Which is all of them. Silver had the most galling response. It wasn’t some pathetic NIMBY move, it was a ‘WIMBY’ — a not so clever version of his ‘I’m working, but I’m not working for you‘ defense on congestion pricing. So we will have a waste transfer stations, someday, and somewhere, just not in any of the places the Sanitation department think will work well (which included Bloomberg putting his own neighborhood on the block first).
His alternate? A transfer station that replaces the impound lot, or trash on rails at 30th Street. The first makes some sense, since it’s behind Javits Center. It also doesn’t make so much sense because that area isn’t exactly desolate. I heard there was some RFP thingy going on that was about to turn that neighborhood into a bunch of cantilevered Chase behemoths. And it would cost an extra $300 million. Since Silver just turn up his nose at $500 million from the Feds, apparently he’s got a loose billion sloshing around in his pocket, just itching to make Manhattan a better place. And he sure does. Just check your wallet. A couple hundred million times.
There is no doubt that a waste transfer station is not a pretty thing. But since we are trying to wrap Manhattan in a ribbon a green, a lovely and laudable goal, there will be inevitable battles about any dissenting uses. And this is not a town that has ever had anything even remotely like a realistic waste disposal plan. The peninsula has a couple things going for it: it will be vacated soon (though, of course, no one wants to accept a new truck garage), it already has some of the facilities needed, and the Meatpacking District already transfers all that trash in town on weekends.
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Kiss the ring, bitch.
Secret note to Senate Democrats: we were talking about congestion pricing this week — apparently they didn’t get the memo. That was the excuse we heard from a bunch of flunkies who haven’t had to do anything beside say ‘Joe Bruno’ in response to every question asked them since Tammany Hall days: the reason congestion pricing ground to a halt was the Bloomberg didn’t answer their queries in a way that pleased them. Apparently when they asked him questions the average third grader could answer about the plan that everyone has be debating, praising or ignoring for months, hizzoner got testy and said something like, did you read the report? They were all like ‘No he din’t’ or some other bad SNL sketch involving to ethnic women arguing. Because, that’s right, the Senate Democrats apparently hadn’t heard about this congestion pricing thingamabob.
It is quaint that they act like him kissing Politburo ass would have made a difference. Word coming out of Albany — yeah, I got a line out of Albany now: ain’t that some shit? — was that it was deader than something really dead well in advance of the theatrics this Monday. But that’s not much of an inside line. Things are either dead or not, and for all intents and purposes you might as well flip a coin on whether other not Silver likes any particular bill. But I do admire the pluck of any politician who seems bent on proving you can govern worse the President Bush.
A diagram of New York State politics is like that tired, but always effective film image: three men in a triangle, pointing guns at the one to their right. The only thing different this week is they were just pointing at the sap in the middle. You would think that was Bloomberg, but instead it was the residents of the city, dolled up like some old whore upstate pols keep pumping for cash. Or, if this was a family blog, like the stump at the end of ‘The Giving Tree‘. Here, Shelly, let me shape up my stump to prop up your self-involved, useless old ass for another two years. Prick.
Other notable failures — well, non failures, since of course nothing actually happened — were retooling a financing mechanism juggernaut that apparently mandates debt raising procedures for everyone from SUNY to the Naked Cowboy, a boondoggle revamp of 421-a regulations, a bunch of other traffic reforms and the disposition of our solid waste plan, which, if you recall, was announced, oh, two years ago.
I don’t know about you, but I shit marshmallows and cotton candy, so I don’t contribute to solid waste issues in New York. Apparently this is true of you too, if live near the Gansevoort Peninsula, 59th Street or the Upper East Side, so sayeth just about any politician capable of lying. Which is all of them. Silver had the most galling response. It wasn’t some pathetic NIMBY move, it was a ‘WIMBY’ — a not so clever version of his ‘I’m working, but I’m not working for you‘ defense on congestion pricing. So we will have a waste transfer stations, someday, and somewhere, just not in any of the places the Sanitation department think will work well (which included Bloomberg putting his own neighborhood on the block first).
His alternate? A transfer station that replaces the impound lot, or trash on rails at 30th Street. The first makes some sense, since it’s behind Javits Center. It also doesn’t make so much sense because that area isn’t exactly desolate. I heard there was some RFP thingy going on that was about to turn that neighborhood into a bunch of cantilevered Chase behemoths. And it would cost an extra $300 million. Since Silver just turn up his nose at $500 million from the Feds, apparently he’s got a loose billion sloshing around in his pocket, just itching to make Manhattan a better place. And he sure does. Just check your wallet. A couple hundred million times.
There is no doubt that a waste transfer station is not a pretty thing. But since we are trying to wrap Manhattan in a ribbon a green, a lovely and laudable goal, there will be inevitable battles about any dissenting uses. And this is not a town that has ever had anything even remotely like a realistic waste disposal plan. The peninsula has a couple things going for it: it will be vacated soon (though, of course, no one wants to accept a new truck garage), it already has some of the facilities needed, and the Meatpacking District already transfers all that trash in town on weekends.