Thursday, August 27, 2020

Trash still accumulates on Addabbo Bridge


Despite promises, the trash remains 1

Queens Chronicle

 Despite recent efforts of Howard Beach residents to draw the city’s attention to trash-strewn Joseph P. Addabbo Memorial Bridge, government officials have not followed up.

After a group of local women cleaned the bridge on July 16, they left around 60 garbage bags out for the Department of Sanitation to pick up, which had not come to pass as of Tuesday afternoon.

One of the organizers, Gina Barillaro, said that she had coordinated with state Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) before the event, who assured her that he would get sanitation workers to clean up the bags. Addabbo instructed her to leave the bags along each opening in the chain link fence running along the walkway, she said.

“It was so bad. There was like a bag or two by each opening,” Barillaro said.

She was dismayed to find them there — many ripped open and scattered by vermin — several days later, and did not hear back from Addabbo’s office when she followed up. Another organizer, Vincenza Connors, went back Tuesday only to find the trash bags still there nearly a month later.

Addabbo said that the lack of response is a result of the city’s recent budget cuts to the Sanitation Department. He said that he called Garage 10, the sanitation unit in charge of the bridge, but that it could not follow through on his request due to a loss of manpower.

“What we’re finding out is that due to budget cuts, these local garages, Garage 10 being one of them, got deep cuts into their operation,” Addabbo said.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The new New York.

Anonymous said...

Two ways to cure the condition.
1. Ban fishing on that bridge just like it was banned on the bridge from Broad Channel to Rockaway which will get rid of the source of most of the garbage.
2. DOT and Sanitation then clean the walkways everyday.

Anonymous said...

With all due respect to buddy addabbo I would like to know what politicians mean by deep cut does that mean that agency employee such as Department of Sanitation were fired laid off and how much money has been lost because aren't they still working on the 2020 budget before the virus set in at all these deep Cuts have to be implemented I would think that the 2021 budget would reflect deep Cuts what are these deep Cuts can I have an explanation please set of just throwing around a catch phrase such convenient to blame on inadequate performance

Anonymous said...

I rode my bike there last fall it was like a Shit Hole Country !

Anonymous said...

Another cost saving measure by your Mayor and City Council, New Yorker's. And good for the environmentalists out there. No more landfills cluttering up the landscape.

warp10 said...

Why do these politicians pretend to be problem solvers when all they do is call 311 or city departments that the citizens could have done themselves. Why are they afraid to tell their constituents the truth? Like, I'm your state senator, I'm responsible for x,y,and z. They should have a poster explaining this on their website and in their office. Tell constituents "I'm not responsible for helping you get the city to do their job cleaning up."

And then to lie, or pass on a lie, about lack of manpower. They really can't spare 10 minutes to pick up a bunch of bags? A real problem solver would have just picked up the bags himself and disposed of it with his office trash.

Anonymous said...

How about the pollution under the bridge? People fishing park there and loud radios blast Salsa music,the sound travels across the water.Vehicles should be restricted to the parking area and prohibited from areas under the bridge.The only salsa I like is on a burrito.

Anonymous said...

This is the New Normal get use to it peeps !