"...a proposal floated by Mayor Steve Fulop last week that would allow the city to collect a $10 million payment and $250,000 annually from waste disposal firm IESI in exchange for halting Jersey City's opposition to a garbage transfer station in Greenville Yards, where New York City municipal waste would be loaded from barges onto railroad cars and then moved out of the city."
Remind you of anything? Dumping garbage on people expecting something else entirely? Mayor Fulop reminds us here a whole lot of Montgomery Burns and his "Merry Fishmas" betrayal of the people of Springfield by tossing fish guts and garbage on them when they least expected it.
How do residents feel? We think unhappy is a starting point:
"We give you $10 million and you're gonna live in stink," is how Ocean Avenue resident Kathy Quirk describes the deal.
City council did their part to push the surprise announcement through by voting on it two whole days after Fulop brought the deal to light and once again Council President Rolando Lavarro Jr. decided he knew best for somebody else's neighborhood. Again he proves if it can make money or can impress the mayor he does not give a shit about you or your neighborhood. The vote was 5-2-1 for garbage trains. Boggiano and Yun were no votes, everyone else was yes except oddly enough Frank Gajewski who represents Greenville was on vacation and did not vote. He previously said he was against the plan. Joyce Watterman abstained. As many of you know we here are very impressed by Candice Osborne. That being said we noticed a couple weeks back she was very much against a zoning change to allow an extra seven floors on a building in her neighborhood but yet voted for garbage trains in someone else's. *John Belushi raised eyebrow*
Wait a minute, what's that? Quoteth ESPN Gameday's Lee Corso "Not so fast my friend!"
The Port Authority whom Fulop earlier this year sued he said on Jersey City's behalf for $400 million in unpaid taxes were probably drawing straws to see who got to tell Fulop his plan was DOA. They stopped it faster than a bug on a windshield. Gotta be shocking to live in Greenville and Port Liberte and realize the Port Authority is looking out for you more than your elected city government, yes? They even took a dig at Fulop by saying in a statement "We will require assurances that adequate consultations with local public officials and concerned citizens have occurred..." OUCH!
So getting shut down by the Port Authority like that so publicly after thinking you'd succeeded in ramming a deal down Greenville and Port Liberte's throats is pretty bad. What could make this week worse?
Fulop's Chief of Staff, Muhammed Akil, resigned today saying his comments made some twenty years ago, that were hateful and pretty stupid, let's face it, were a distraction to Mayor Fulop. Look, don't we all just make mistakes? Haven't we all said stupid shit we wish we could take back? Everyone has. Those who say otherwise are lying. Life is about mistakes and learning from them in becoming better people. Muhammed Akil had quite clearly met that bar. Not everyone learns from mistakes and we read about them usually in the crime blotters. Akil had become a success and we figured this too would blow over just like potty mouth trash hater Brooke Hansson's now-classic YouTube performance. Johnny talks with people in and out of city hall. Lives near one. Nobody was screaming for Akil to go. Unless of course this might look bad for someone say running for governor to have a chief of staff having said such things back when, but Jersey City nary batted an eye over it. This raises the question about whom the resignation is more aimed at, Jersey City or Trenton.
A lot of goodwill burned up for nothing, every neighborhood now on alert for secret deals they know nothing of but will be armed to the teeth with lawyers for when they poke their heads up, and a city asset chased off by the ghosts of what might be.
"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day."
