Friday, October 9, 2009

Blight removed before Bloomberg events

From NY1:

If you want to make sure your street is free from litter, your best bet may be to invite Mayor Michael Bloomberg to your neighborhood. A NY1 investigation conducted over the last four months found that hours before Bloomberg and the reporters who cover him arrive at one of his regular events, clean-up crews are working on the scene.

Garbage trucks descend on the neighborhood, litter is swept up from the sidewalks and gutters and trash bins are emptied. On one occasion, NY1 found two anti-graffiti trucks parked across the street from one of the mayor's events, removing unsightly scrawls in advance of his arrival.

Employees on the city payroll seem to be acting as the mayor's personal clean-up crew, putting a shine on neighborhoods that goes far beyond what's normally done. Sometimes the streets are cleaned by sanitation workers and other times, New Yorkers performing court-ordered community service sweep up.

The practice is coming under fire from Common Cause, a government watchdog group, which says it raises questions about the way the city is allocating its resources. They also say it raises questions about the extent to which Bloomberg operates in a bubble, insulated from the way the city really looks.

“It reminds me of what I read about the Beijing Olympics, that the Chinese wanted to look good to the world. They just built blank walls where there were slums, so that people didn't see the slums,” says Susan Lerner of Common Cause.

20 comments:

Taxpayer said...

Want to remove the blight?

Dump the Commissar!

Use Nov. 3 as freedom day.

Free yourself from the control of this madman. Take control of your own life and your own future.

Dump this power crazed madman!

Anonymous said...

Gee, I'm confused....
So the Mayor has to show up somewhere in order to show people how to take pride in their own neighborhood? Folks won't clean up the graffitti on their own, but prefer to live in hood-like conditions?

Anonymous said...

"Common Cause" might want to look into which neighborhoods are allocated the best services from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission under Commissar Bloomberg.

LPC is practically invisible in Queens for sure...save the designation of a few individual token sites like firehouses and public pools!

DUMP THE LANDMARKS LAW!

Either it serves all boroughs equally...or it shall serve NONE!

DUMP BLOOMBERG on November 3rd!

Gary the Agnostic said...

Another example of the Mayor cooking the books.

Queens Crapper said...

No, you're not confused. You're a Bloomberg troll.

People throughout the city take pride in their neighborhoods by reporting graffiti through 311, their community board or the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. They generally take weeks to respond and only do the cleaning in the warmer months.

You cannot just take it upon yourself to clean graffiti from someone else's property. It's not legal. The city has to do it.

Bloomberg wants his photo ops to show that the city is clean. It's not. While the areas where Bloomberg campaigns get cleaned up, the rest of the city gets neglected. That's simply unfair.

Anonymous said...

It would be nice if it was done everyday, instead of photo ops.

Unknown said...

I agree but the Mayor is not the only one. The Pope came to visit queens and the Greater Ridgewood Restoration group removed graffiti along the Popes driving route.

If you have graffiti in your area, call 311. If it doesn't get cleaned up contact http://www.ridgewoodrestoration.org/ and give them the address and complaint #. They will contact the owner. If the owner doesn't respond after a certain amount of time the city is allowed to come at remove it. The GRRG has been called in many times around queens to take care of this but other companies have been used as well.

Adolf Bloomhitler said...

Ha! Ha! Ha! I am ze blight!

Anonymous said...

When the Emperor comes to town, you have to clean the town. It's bad enough he has to come to Queens or any of the outer boroughs, at least his minions can clean it up so he can imagine he is in his Manhattan paradise. He figures that it's only temporary and as soon as he wins, he won't have to be bothered travelling outside of his kindom until he runs for his fourth term.

Anonymous said...

"I agree but the Mayor is not the only one. The Pope came to visit queens and the Greater Ridgewood Restoration group removed graffiti along the Popes driving route. "

Dude - if the Pope or even His Holiness Obama comes to town, the Mayor is supoosssed to make the city look nice for them - Bloomturd is making parts of the city look nice so he looks good! that's the problem!

Rondell said...

Why they always gotta leave it to the black man to clean up?!

Taxpayer said...

Anonymous said:
Gee, I'm confused....
So the Mayor has to show up somewhere in order to show people how to take pride in their own neighborhood?

- - -

Gee, no need for confusion (unless you are a lackey for the Commissar).

We don't need no stinkin' Commissar to show us how to take pride in our own neighborhood.

Especially a stinkin' Commissar who contributes to these problems by cutting thousands of officer from the NYPD. And, a stinkin' Commissar who demonstrates his own loathing for the law by using taxpayer money to run for an illegal third term that was twice rejected by those taxpaying voters. (Who is paying all those city employees doing graffiti removal?)

Want to eliminate the stink of this miserable moron?

Dump him on Nov. 3. Drop him into the shitter. He already knows all the shit found down there.

Dump the turd on the third!

Anonymous said...

I thought the laws were changing so that the city CAN remove graffiti whether a building owner wants to or not and the owner would have to opt out.

Also in some neighborhoods such as Sunnyside there are residents who volunteer to clean up their neighborhood.

Queens Crapper said...

First of all that law was just passed and is not in effect yet.

Second of all you are totally missing the fucking point. If the city is going to provide this service with our tax dollars, they should not being kicking it up 5 or 6 notches when and where the mayor decides to campaign. He is using city resources to benefit himself.

Anonymous said...

Hey, he needed his photo-op. He doesn't want the background to be graffiti. End of story!

Anonymous said...

Hey, BO has just endorsed Thompson.
Makes me want to vote twice for Bloomberg.

nehoccramcire said...

I want that Bloombux campaign office out of my neighborhood, like NOW, graffiti or no graffiti. I take pride in my Sunnyside enough to know when a powermad gazillionaire is squatting where he oughtn't. Anybody but him the 3rd (maybe Reverend Billy!).

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg is the bad guy from the Kinks "preservatio Act 1 and 2.It would be funny if it wasnt so eery! A sucker is born everyday.

Anonymous said...

Maspeth mom says...

Oh great maybe Bllomberg will get his bony little bum to Mapseth and we can hav all our graffitti cleaned up.

And to Rondell - about that black man cleaning...Give it a rest!! A black man is President and he just one the Nobel Peace Prize. Its tiring listening to complaints about this nonsense anymore. THERE ARE NO MORE EXCUSES.

Anony2 said...

I'm jealous. I wished a team of servants would clean up litter and graffiti 5 minutes before I arrived anywhere.