New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is angry about the growing crime wave and uncollected garbage littering the streets in New York City. He’s threatening to withhold pandemic recovery funds and send in the National Guard unless Mayor Bill de Blasio does something about it.
Daytime shootings in New York City have doubled over last year and some sidewalks are impassable because of the uncollected garbage. Cuomo said — without mentioning de Blasio’s name — that if de Blasio couldn’t deal with the problems, he’d send in the Guard to pick up the garbage and help get control of the streets.
“The crime problem in New York City is real. Denial is not an option,” Cuomo said, adding that “if jurisdictions don’t resolve police/community issues and redesign public safety,” he would take away the city’s funding allotted to help with recovery efforts due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The warnings are part of a larger initiative unveiled Tuesday called “New York City Stabilization and Recovery Program.”
De Blasio cut $1 billion from the NYPD budget and the effects on the street have been obvious. Shootings in July rose 177 percent and the city is on track to have the most violent year in a generation.
But Cuomo questions why police have to be called when the emergency is a drug or mental health problem.
He is hoping the plan will address surging crime rates while also alleviating tensions between communities, particularly with large African-American and Hispanic populations, and law enforcement.
“Why is the answer to every 911 call a person with a gun? Why? Why is the only answer to a 911 call an arrest? What happens if it’s a substance abuse issue? What if it’s a mental health issue?” Cuomo said.
Why? Well, maybe the police don’t have the ability to see the future and just don’t know if a 911 call will turn out to be a confrontation with a violent person or not. And an unarmed social worker might have a problem disarming a mentally ill subject.
But the biggest quality-of-life issue in the city is the stinking, rotting garbage the fills the neighborhoods.
“Garbage piling up, literally, people saying there is an odiferous environment because of the garbage piling up,” said Cuomo. “I don’t know what’s going on in New York City. If they can’t do it, I have offered to send in the National Guard to help pick up the garbage.”
He went on to say, “The state can bring in trucks, personnel and clean up the city. I think that would be important. This is a public health pandemic. Cleanliness matters. We made millions of gallons of hand sanitizer, right? Cleanliness matters.”
The city’s sanitation department budget was radically cut because of revenue shortfalls. Understandable. Except Chicago has also had revenue problems and they are managing to muddle through without turning the entire South Side into a trash dump.
Last month, former NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who resigned to launch a mayoral bid, said the Sanitation Department had to cut back services amid the budget crunch.
“This is a point in time where the Sanitation Department doesn’t have the resources that it once did,” said Garcia. “So we are trying to leverage whatever we can to make sure we are keeping the city as clean as we can.”
Bill de Blasio is an incompetent fool. The damage he is doing to New York City, first by mismanaging the pandemic, and then in coddling rioters, won’t be fixed by Guardsmen picking up some garbage. The city’s spirit has been broken.
The only way to begin to fix that is to get new leaders.
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