From the Daily News:Bloomberg named Goldsmith his top deputy in April and has handed him enormous power to do the same thing here.
The blizzard was the new deputy's first big test - and he flunked.
To begin with, Goldsmith and Bloomberg refused to declare a snow emergency, even after they learned a blizzard was on the way.
"I started getting text messages from ambulance drivers at 3 a.m. Monday that they were stuck in the snow," said Pat Bahnken, president of the EMS workers' union. "I urged the Fire Department to declare a snow emergency, but they were told City Hall said 'no.'"
Back in 1996, a similar monster storm struck our city. It dumped 20 inches, closed airports, and left drifts 20-feet high.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani not only declared a snow emergency and ordered all nonessential vehicles off the road, he took 3,300 city buses out of service so they wouldn't block sanitation trucks and rescue vehicles.
Giuliani also asked then-Gov. George Pataki for help. Pataki dispatched 400 national guardsmen with 100 Humvees that were used as ambulances to transport medical supplies and health workers.
If Bloomberg and Goldsmith had done the same, we wouldn't have had hundreds of stuck buses and ambulances blocking main arteries.
"Under Rudy, every snowstorm was considered a big deal," one former Giuliani official said. "All commissioners and top staffers were expected to be at the command center and we all worked hard together."
This time, Goldsmith was out of town and didn't even show up at the command center until Monday. A City Hall spokesman wouldn't say where he was.
6 comments:
Giuliani - Commanded the city during the very worst of snowstorms - those that dumped 26" for days on end with cold and winds to match and accomplished so much more with less.
We need leadership not lawyers and MBA to govern our city. Stop finding the Dept of Sanitation workers to blame. The root cause is the Mayor's leadership failed to pull the trigger when the storm appeared apparent to hit and lost the prep window needed (especially during the Christian holiday) that would allow enough workers to get to work and prep & coordinate services to allow the city to have a fighting chance against nature.
These City idiots are failures of a grand magnitude - a failure of common sense - no sense of what worked in the past to draw from and politically - a lame duck mayor who cheated us of fairly electing new candidates to run our city. I hope the deaths that were caused by the incompetence of Mayor Bloomberg and his executive team are fully investigated and criminal charges be brought against the managing Nyc gOV. executives.
#2 Goldsmith
Who is Goldsmith - I did not elect him and I suggest to Mayor Bloomberg to hire competent Government administrators and not out of work failures from wall Street as trainees. A full clean sweep of his administration should be at minimum a result of the grand failure of his administration. Incoming Gov Coumo should charge his new Attorney General to investigate neglect and to investigate statements by the administration as to the factualness to the public.
Maspeth Mom says...
If Mitch Albom was writing "The Five People Bloomberg Will Meet in Heaven", that dead baby born in a Brooklyn vestibule, and the 8 year old boy who died in the fire, will be two of the five people he will meet. Shame on Bloomberg - and shame on the Sanitation Dept. for not doing the right thing. I believe they have those deaths on their heads.
Rest in Peace little children.
Wait...
Bloomshit is going to heaven?
Bloomshit is going to heaven?
He bought it!!!
Let's all meet in front of Bloomfart's mansion. That's 79th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhttan. I've already got the tar and the rail. Who'll bring the feathers?
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