EDM : Mayor Defends Electric Zoo Founder After Deaths at Music Fest

 

RANDALL'S ISLAND — Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the Electric Zoo founder who formerly managed a Chelsea megaclub shuttered in the wake of deadly drug overdoses — saying the promoter has a "stellar record."

"There's something that he was involved with about a dozen years ago, but we've been working with this promoter, organizer, for the past five years and they have a stellar record," Bloomberg said of Mike Bindra, who founded the dance music fest where two attendees died of drug-related causes over the weekend. 

As DNAinfo New York first reported, Bindra formerly ran West 27th Street nightclub Twilo, which was closed by the city in 2001 amid accusations it played a role in two fatal overdoses and hid unconscious patrons in a secret room without medical care.  

Bloomberg told reporters Tuesday that Bindra followed best practices in organizing the Electric Zoo festival, which was held on city-owned parkland on Randall's Island.

"I can tell you that when we brought it to their attention, we didn't need to — they knew they had to put in as good procedures as we could think of and have been nothing but cooperative, and I have nothing but good things to say about them," the mayor said.

Twilo became a target of law enforcement officials during Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration after two clubgoers died from apparent Ecstasy overdoses over a two-year period.

The club, which shuttered in 2001 after long battling the city in court, was also accused of keeping sick patrons in a back room and taking them by private ambulance to hospitals — including one of the reported fatal overdose victims.

Bloomberg blamed the weekend's Electric Zoo overdoses on the festival-goers who used drugs. 

"The bottom line here is that you see people here who are doing drugs that shouldn't be doing drugs and you see the fatal consequences," Bloomberg said.

He added that the city would analyze security procedures to see whether more can be done to prevent drug-related deaths.

"The city will have to take a look at every concert to see if the concert can be run safely," he said.

Credit : DNA Info

NYC : Taxi Operators Sue TLC and Mayor Bloomberg Over Nissan NV200 Taxi of Tomorrow

Taxi operators in New York City are suing Mayor Michael Bloomberg and TLC over the rule to make the Nissan NV200 the city’s official taxi for a decade starting next year.

“Taxicab medallion and vehicle owners, who have long been permitted to choose from among dozens of different vehicles by numerous manufacturers, will have all choices eliminated and will instead be required to purchase and drive the NV200 and NV200 only,” the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.

Taxi operators complain that they have never been forced to drive a specific car model, not even in the heyday of the iconic Checker cab, when many of them chose to drive the Ford Galaxie and Plymouth Fury. The plaintiffs say that selecting the NV200 as New York’s official taxi was an illegal decision.
Taxi operators complain that the car hasn’t even been tested in its “normal operating conditions,” such as driving the van in stop-and-go traffic all day long and also that the vehicle’s 2.0-liter 135-hp I-4 mated to a CVT that “does not appear to have the durability to be able to withstand the wear and tear for the years of service and mileage required by NYC yellow cabs.”

NYC's Bloomberg wants traffic cameras 'on every corner'

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made it clear that he wants to see more traffic light cameras in the Big Apple, saying that he'd have the devices on every street corner if possible. According to The New York Daily News, the city brought in $52 million in fines generated by red light cameras last year alone. The mayor has been pushing for an increase in the number of cameras in the city from 150 to 225. A bill to do just that has passed the state senate in June, but has lost momentum in the Senate.

Bloomberg doesn't just want a jump in the number of cameras, however. He also wants to publish the names of those who blow through the stop lights in local papers to help shame wrongdoers into changing their ways. What's more, the mayor wants to look into the possibility of adding speed cameras to the mix. Big brother is coming to NYC.

NYC Smoking Ban Signed Into Law By Mayor Bloomberg

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has signed into law a ban on smoking in city parks, beaches, public plazas and boardwalks.
The ban goes into effect 90 days after Tuesday's signing. That means that by this summer, those who break the law could face fines of $50 per violation, although the city has said it plans to rely on signs and social pressure instead of active enforcement.
Health Commissioner Thomas Farley says the law will protect people from dangerous secondhand smoke. But some health experts question whether the smoke poses a serious danger in open, outdoor spaces. Critics of the law say the city is trampling on civil liberties.
Bloomberg's administration banned smoking in restaurants, bars and other public indoor spaces in 2002.

Breaking News - Weather : Mayor Bloomberg Declares Weather Emergency

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NEW YORK (NewYork) — Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared a weather emergency Wednesday since significant snowfall has been forecast for the evening rush hour, through tomorrow’s morning rush hour.

1. The public is urged to avoid all unnecessary driving for the duration of the storm and until further directed, and to use public transportation wherever possible. If you must drive, use extreme caution. Information about any service changes to public transportation is available on the MTA website at http://www.mta.info/.

2. Any vehicle found to be blocking roadways or impeding the ability to plow streets shall be subject to towing at the owner’s expense.

3. Effective immediately, alternate side parking, payment at parking meters and garbage collections are suspended citywide until further notice.

4. The Emergency Management, Fire, Police, Sanitation, and Transportation Commissioners will be taking all appropriate and necessary steps to preserve public safety and to render all required and available assistance to protect the security, well-being and health of the residents of the City.

Trash Mounts as Snow Melts - City Begins Spotty Pickup; Rat Warning

The snow is sooo yesterday.

The city resumed limited garbage collection on Monday for the first time following the post-Christmas blizzard, but some elected officials and residents have already begun complaining that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has allowed too much refuse to pile up.

On streets throughout the city, the mounds of snow have been replaced with mounds of garbage, creating a new highly visible eyesore for the mayor.

"Today we started an aggressive approach to try to clean up the waste that has built up over the last week due to the snow storm," said John Doherty, commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, at a news conference in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan.

"During the course of the week, as we make our rounds, some people will get two pick-ups where they normally receive three, and some other people may get either one or two pick-ups where they receive twice-a-week collection," he said.

Mr. Doherty said he hopes the city will be "pretty well normal" on garbage collection by week's end, and he noted that a week is the longest the city has ever gone without collecting garbage. The city won't resume recycling collection until the weekend, at the earliest, he said.

"We ask the public to please get their garbage out in an area where the sanitation workers can get it easily so that we can move along," he said. "We've got a lot of work out there."

The commissioner estimated there was probably a little less than 50,000 tons of garbage waiting to be collected. But the cold temperatures mean the mounds of garbage, though unsightly, shouldn't pose a major health risk, Mr. Doherty said.

Although the mayor has taken responsibility for the slow snow cleanup, calling it inadequate and unacceptable, Mr. Doherty continued to defend his employees. "From my point of view they did an A-plus. From the public's point of view, we did probably a C-minus," he said.

City Council Member Letitia James, chairwoman of the council's Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, criticized Mr. Doherty for moving forward with limited garbage pick-up.

A pile of trash sits on the curb outside an apartment complex in Queens on Sunday.

"Because the snow has melted thanks to Mother Nature," Ms. James said, "we should actually be doing full sanitation pick-up because the garbage here in central Brooklyn is mounting and we have rodent problems and raccoon problems."

In October, City Hall unveiled plans to demote 100 supervisors at the Department of Sanitation in hopes of saving money and boosting the number of sanitation workers available to pick up trash and plow snow. On Monday, Jason Post, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, confirmed that 55 of those possible demotions have been suspended.

"We are hopeful we can negotiate savings with the union," Mr. Post said. The other 45 have already been demoted.

These demotions fueled intense anger at the department. Both Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Doherty said they do not believe there was any deliberate effort by sanitation workers to botch the city's response to the blizzard, but the mayor has nevertheless ordered an investigation

Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city's Department of Investigation, which is probing the possibility of a deliberate slowdown during the blizzard, said her agency has been working "24/7" on the probe.

The Sanitation Department has 400 fewer employees than it had two years ago. While the head of the sanitation union has suggested that the work force reduction contributed to the city's sluggish response to the storm, the mayor and Mr. Doherty have insisted that's not the case.

Credit : WSJ

Criticism of Mayor Mounts

In Chinatown on Thursday, pedestrians snake through a narrow path cut through the snowbank and the garbage piles up days after the blizzard

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday his administration fulfilled a promise to plow every city street, but elected officials and others insisted some streets never saw a plow before the 7 a.m. deadline, marking another setback for the beleaguered mayor.

Mr. Bloomberg, who on Friday completes the first year of his third four-year term as the chief executive of the nation's largest city, has been besieged by a number of embarrassing episodes in recent weeks, with some saying he's endangering his image as an expert manager.

Mayor Bloomberg speaks with Assistant Borough Police Chief to South Brooklyn Joseph Fox on Fillmore Avenue in Marine Park, Brooklyn, during the Mayor's post-snowstorm tour of the outer boroughs

Council Member Debi Rose of Staten Island, who met with the mayor during his tour Thursday of every borough outside Manhattan, said she believes the city's sluggish response to the post-Christmas blizzard has dealt a serious blow to the mayor's reputation.

"This could be the straw that breaks New York City's back in terms of how well they think, a good job, the mayor has done," said Ms. Rose.

"I was stranded for three days myself. I could not get out," Ms. Rose said. "Something went drastically wrong with this snow removal."

The mayor said the administration plans to conduct a full investigation into the city's response to the storm. That probe will include examining allegations that disgruntled members of the Department of Sanitation deliberately slowed the snow removal as a protest.

Armed with a movie camera and tripod, Queens resident Jamie Stuart filmed scenes from the Christmas blizzard that clobbered New York City. His film, "Idiot With a Tripod," pays tribute to Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent classic "Man With a Movie Camera."

The mayor and Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty on Thursday said they don't believe there was a coordinated slowdown.

"I don't think it took place but we're going to do an investigation to make sure that it didn't," Mr. Bloomberg said. "It would be an outrage if it took place. But I just don't know."

During a news conference in Queens, Mr. Bloomberg again conceded that his administration's response to the storm was both "inadequate and unacceptable," an about-face from his defiant stance during the early portion of the cleanup effort.

"Clearly the response to this storm has not met our standards or the standards that New Yorkers have come to expect from us," he said. "The long delays in plowing some of the city streets should not have happened. We're not making excuses."

At the same time, Mr. Bloomberg said the city met its commitment to plow every street, except those blocked by stranded vehicles, at least once by 7 a.m. Thursday.

The mayor estimated there were about a dozen of those blocked roads in one section of Brooklyn and a handful of others elsewhere.

Some city residents and elected officials disputed the mayor's contention.

"We still have quite a few blocks that have not been touched, still have quite a few blocks," Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz said.

He added: "There is no excuse for this—absolutely no excuse. This was an outrage."

Moments after the mayor finished speaking, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, who hadn't been invited to speak, approached the lectern to dispute the mayor's remarks.

A newborn baby died after the blizzard in Brooklyn, New York, as his mother waited for an ambulance to arrive. Video courtesy of Fox News.

"Most of the roads, even where I live, there's still about four inches right where the cars and everything go," she said. During the last several days, she said, residents from nearly every section of Queens called her office, saying, "Where is the plow? Where is the plow?"

For the mayor, the poor response to the snow storm comes on the heels of federal prosecutors arresting six people on charges of stealing $80 million allocated to the city's long-delayed computerized payroll system, known as CityTime.

The mayor's critics have lambasted Mr. Bloomberg for failing to police the CityTime project. In recent months, the mayor has also taken heat from some for the city's uptick in homicides, his plans to close fire companies, the secretive process for selecting the new schools chancellor and for failing to stand up enough for the working poor.

"It's been all malaise, no magic, thus far in the third term, with a record number of working poor New Yorkers now relying on food stamps and feeling invisible to and forgotten by this mayor," said Dan Morris, a spokesman for a coalition seeking a living wage law.

A mayoral spokesman, Stu Loeser, responded by saying: "We're proud that New York City led the nation for job creation over the last year, often creating jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the country."

Mr. Bloomberg said on Thursday he believes his campaign to seek a third term was the right decision for both him and the city.

"One of the reasons I wanted to run again was that we're going to be going through some very difficult times and it's never easy to go through difficult times," he said. "Bad times require a dedication and a commitment and a desire to make sure that this city comes through."

The mayor said he's more committed than ever to lead the city. While he accepted some responsibility for some of the administration's shortcomings, he said, "There's an awful lot of good numbers out there, as well."

Mr. Markowitz, who supported the mayor's bid for a third term, said "this is not the shining moment" for Mr. Bloomberg.

"But in anyone's life, you have ups and downs," Mr. Markowitz said. "He'll be up again."

Bloomberg Says Plows Have Hit Every Street

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that snow plows had been down every street in the city except for those still blocked by stuck cars. He said that tow trucks would have those vehicles clear in the afternoon, and that plows would return to streets still buried.

But, as he did the day before, Mr. Bloomberg acknowledged that the city’s response was “inadequate and unacceptable” and said that his office would conduct an extensive review of what went wrong.

“We’re not making excuses,” he said. “The response to the storm has not met our standards or the standards that New Yorkers have come to expect from us.”

“When something goes wrong we find out why it went wrong and we roll up our sleeves and fix it,” he said. “The response to this snowstorm was inadequate and unacceptable.”

Mr. Bloomberg held a news conference in Queens after visits to Staten Island and Brooklyn where he spoke with residents about their snowbound plights. (He is to go to the Bronx in the afternoon.) He said that 1,600 plows and other equipment were clearing streets Thursday alongside 2,000 day laborers hired to shovel out bus stops and snow piles. The last of the 600 buses that were stuck have been freed, he added.

John J. Doherty, the sanitation commissioner, said he would look into claims that his department’s rank-and-file deliberately slowed down the cleanup work to protest budget cuts.

Mayor Says 911 Fell Short

As New Yorkers' fury intensified at the sight of streets still covered with snow, Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday acknowledged the city's response to the blizzard was "a lot worse" than previous storms and he voiced enormous dismay with the performance of the 911 system.

"My heart really does go out to those who experienced trauma and tragedy during the storm," said Mr. Bloomberg following reports of people who died waiting for ambulances to arrive. "We take our emergency life-saving responsibilities very seriously and I'm extremely dissatisfied with the way our emergency-response systems performed."

Scott McCartney looks back at the year in air travel and explains why it was a turbulent one for passengers, including the recent blizzard that paralyzed the East Coast and the Iceland volcano that grounded planes in Europe earlier in the year.

Mr. Bloomberg, speaking at a hardware store in the Bronx, said the city's 911 system became overwhelmed by the deluge of calls. On Monday, the city received more than 49,400 calls to 911, the sixth-largest volume in history, resulting that night in a backlog of roughly 1,700 calls to the NYPD and FDNY.

The mayor has ordered a comprehensive review of the 911 call-taking and dispatch functions, as some of the loved ones of those who died have taken to the airwaves to express their grief and anger at the city's sluggish response to the storm.

The administration is examining, among other things, whether ambulances should have taken different routes, and whether emergency personnel should have parked farther away from scenes and walked.

More than 48 hours after the last flake fell, a large swath of southern Brooklyn, parts of western Queens and areas of Staten Island remained covered with snow. Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said he expected to have "all the streets" in the city plowed by 7 a.m. Thursday.

As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, the Sanitation Department said 100% of "primary" streets citywide had been plowed, 96% of "secondary" streets and 89% of "tertiary" streets.‬

The mayor, who has been the target of withering criticism from elected officials and residents, many of whom supported his controversial bid for a third term, conceded his administration failed to respond properly to the blizzard. The mayor speculated as to why—such as an unusually high number of stranded vehicles blocking roads and strong winds deterring snow removal—but he said he couldn't offer any firm conclusions yet.

"We did not do as good a job as we wanted to do or as the city has a right to expect," the mayor said. "I cannot tell you for sure why it was a lot worse this time than the other times."

Still, the mayor offered a strong defense of Mr. Doherty, insisting the commissioner will serve the remaining three years of the mayor's term. "This is the best sanitation commissioner this city has ever had. Period. Bar none," Mr. Bloomberg said.

The region's transportation network continued its slow return to normalcy Wednesday. Its three commuter railroads ran close to their usual service, and gaps in subway service caused by the snow were filled in.

There were just over 250 cancellations at the region's three airports, down from 1,000 Tuesday. The airports handle 3,000 flights on an average day.

"Things are slowly but surely getting back to normal," said Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Armed with a movie camera and tripod, Queens resident Jamie Stuart filmed scenes from the Christmas blizzard that clobbered New York City. His film, "Idiot With a Tripod", pays tribute to Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent classic "Man With a Movie Camera."

But snow-covered roads continued to slow buses. Many routes were detoured or delayed, especially in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.

In Brooklyn, some major thoroughfares remained clogged, sections of sidewalks were covered with snow and garbage cans overflowed with rubbish. At Lincoln Place and Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, cars began double parking along the snowbanks in the intersection.

Yellow-cab driver David Baker, who made it 50 feet from a garage before his cab became stuck, estimated he's lost $1,500 in earnings as a result of the storm. "I can't get through the street. Nobody is helping me," said Mr. Baker, who noted he's always supported the mayor. "Things happen, but he can do better than that."

At the corner of Cortelyou Road and Argyle Street in Ditmas Park, Liena Zagare, a 34-year-old local blogger, took it upon herself to shovel the crosswalk. She cleaned the crosswalk on both sides of the street five times in the past few days, she said. Argyle Street, a side road, was "plowed for the first time around lunchtime" Wednesday, she said.

"I got tired of watching people not be able to cross, stopping and staring sadly," she said.

Ditmas Park, which is served only by the B and Q trains, had been without subway service until Wednesday, and buses have been running "once in a blue moon," she said.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, borrowing the mayor's words for the Board of Elections' botched handling of the September primary, has called the city's response to the storm a "royal screw-up."

In an interview on CNN, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, "People are mad and they have every right to be mad and I really understand that anger....Almost every other storm in memory the city has done so much better than this."

Mr. Doherty said his department has set a "very high standard" with previous storm responses and "unfortunately" this time didn't meet that standard. But, he said, "I'm not here to make excuses right now."

The mayor promised to do better in the future.

"The results were not what we'd like them to be, but it has not been for lack of effort," he said. "We'll find what was different this time and try doing everything we can to make sure it's better next time."

Snow Complaints Piling Up Bloomberg Under Fire as Streets Remain Buried, With Cars and Buses Stranded

Trains and planes slowly started running again Tuesday across the New York region, while many streets remained buried in snow and Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to fend off criticism of the city's response to the fourth blizzard of his administration.

Elected officials and residents lashed out at Mr. Bloomberg for what they called the city's sluggish and inadequate response to the post-Christmas storm, prompting a chastened mayor to plead for patience as he promised officials were "doing everything we possibly can."

Even some of Mr. Bloomberg's allies—many of whom supported his successful bid last year for a third term—said they were outraged by the slow response that has endangered lives and left many roads impassable 24 hours after the snow stopped falling.

"The mayor needs to stop acting like Baghdad Bob and saying every thing's OK when we can see with our own eyes that clearly it's not," said Queens Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., who crossed party lines to endorse the mayor last year. "Talking about going to Broadway plays when there is a public-safety emergency happening in Queens is irresponsible."

Scott McCartney takes a look at the air travel headaches resulting from the blizzard that slammed the East Coast this week and why it could take until the weekend to get things back to normal. Plus, why Wall Street is optimistic about GM.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has taken heat for siding with Mr. Bloomberg on controversial issues, said she would hold hearings on the city's response in January.

"By all accounts, the collective storm response was not anywhere near up to the standards New Yorkers are accustomed to," she said. "This is unacceptable."

The mayor, speaking at the Office of Emergency Management headquarters in Brooklyn, insisted this storm is "not unlike any other we've had to deal with," a position some elected officials and residents question. Still, trying to strike a conciliatory tone in the face of rampant criticism, the mayor acknowledged New Yorkers are still "coping with serious hardship."

"The bottom line is we are doing everything we possibly can, and pulling every resource from every possible place to meet the unique challenges that this storm is posing," he said.

But the mayor became irked when reporters began questioning him. When asked if he regretted the response, he replied, "I regret everything in the world." At one point, he said "complaining doesn't help," and, at another point, he noted, "I'm angry, too."

The mayor's aides have said Mr. Bloomberg, now in his third term, holds himself accountable for whatever happens on his watch but stands by his record during the past nine years.

Abandoned cars and buses clogged city streets, foiling attempts to plow them. Mr. Bloomberg said that was the key difference between this storm and others. Speaking at around noon Tuesday, he said it would likely take about 24 hours before all streets were plowed, but cautioned that it could take longer.

From Sunday evening to Monday, police and authorized private tow trucks removed 1,000 vehicles from three major city thoroughfares alone: the Gowanus Expressway, the Van Wyck Expressway and the Cross Bronx Expressway, a police spokesman said. The number of disabled or abandoned vehicles towed from other streets wasn't immediately available. "We don't remember towing that many cars in such a short period—not in recent memory," said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.

Some 250 Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses—out of a total fleet of 6,000—remained stranded Tuesday afternoon, down from a peak of 500, an agency spokesman said. Bus service remained slow and unreliable.

The city's transportation network, meanwhile, was slowly starting up again after being all but shut down for much of Monday. Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road both said they would be running a close-to-normal complement of trains Wednesday after running limited service Tuesday. Service had been restored on much of the subway system, but the MTA expected some outages to continue Tuesday night. Airports were open, but they faced severe delays.

The busy intersection of 86th Street and Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge was a microcosm of the upheaval on city streets Tuesday afternoon.

The U.S. East Coast was slowly digging out early Tuesday after a gargantuan year-end blizzard unleashed snow from Georgia to Maine, shutting down airports, grounding flights and crippling rail and bus transport services. Video courtesy of Fox News.

A B8 bus that had been stuck in the snow since Sunday night straddled both southbound lanes of traffic between 85th and 86th streets, reducing traffic in both directions to one lane. MTA workers with shovels dug along the tires while a snowplow removed a large mound of snow in front. They were finally able to get the bus loose at 1:45 p.m. The driver rocked the bus back and forth several times before shaking it loose. Cars facing the wrong direction were left abandoned, further hampering the cleanup.

Residents along side streets expressed their frustration. On 85th Street, Demi Liapis complained about a yellow taxi that was stuck in the middle of the street. She said it was the reason plows hadn't once come down the street. "It's ridiculous," she said.

The cab's owner, Abdul Dil was only a block away from home when he got stuck at 2 a.m. Monday while looking for a parking spot. He spent Monday with the cab trying to flag down tow trucks and snow-removal crews to help dig him out, all the while enduring the wrath of residents on the block. He said they even called the taxi company to complain.

Mr. Dil said his son finally came from New Jersey with a few friends, and they were working to dig out the taxi yesterday afternoon. Any delay costs him money—he pays $200 dollars a day to lease it.

A tour of other side streets showed that even blocks completely clear of vehicles had still yet to be plowed.

The trouble led at least one elected official, Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, to call for the resignation of Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty. But Mr. Bloomberg Tuesday called the city officials managing the cleanup "the best in the country to lead the city."

In an interview on New York One, Mr. Doherty acknowledged that the storm "got ahead of us"—and that he was forced to use workers who had less training than usual. Because of budget cuts, the city used 100 sanitation workers who were undertrained, he said. The city is down 400 sanitation workers from two years ago.

"They only went to school for two weeks, they usually would go for a month," Mr. Doherty said of the employees. "I put them out there on Sunday. I said, 'You're out on the street.' They said: 'We've only had a couple days of driving.'" He said he told them, "You're going to learn on the job, real time, real conditions, get the job done."

The outcry over the snow removal also raised the specter of the mayoralty of John Lindsay. Slow cleanup in Brooklyn and Queens from a 1969 blizzard after the city had weathered a series of crippling strikes crystallized discontent with his administration.

"Mayors throughout the country realize that responses to snowstorms are a very symbolic thing," said Vincent Cannato, the author of a recent biography of Mr. Lindsay called "The Ungovernable City." "It's a direct way that citizens interact with city government. There's an expectation that roads will be cleared in a reasonable time."

Budget Cuts Seen Slowing Cleanup

New York City's response to the blizzard has been hampered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to reduce the Sanitation Department's workforce as part of citywide budget cuts, the head of the sanitation workers' union charged Monday.

"We are undermanned—we need another 400" workers, Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association, said in a telephone interview. "This is a perfect example of why you need the manpower in New York City. We're shorthanded here."

Jason Post, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, confirmed that there are 400 fewer workers at the department than two years ago, but insisted the city's snow-fighting force has not been diminished.

"The number of people assigned to snow fighting is the same," Mr. Post said. "How? Other staff normally working in administrative positions have been reassigned to field posts."

Mr. Post said workers are staffing the same number of plows and sanding trucks "as ever." Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said he directed sanitation officers and administrative personnel to help clear the streets.

"I cut down on some of my support people to a minimum, so I'd get more plows out there," Mr. Doherty said.

The department currently has about 6,000 workers and the city has roughly 2,400 employees per 12-hour shift on the streets clearing snow.

Still, the city on Sunday announced it was seeking to hire private heavy-duty equipment to assist the sanitation department with snow removal. It is also seeking "licensed operators of dump trucks, tractor trailers, and roll-on roll-off trucks," the department said in a statement.

Mr. Nespoli praised the workforce, saying the workers are doing a yeoman's job. But he said the staff reductions have nevertheless taken a toll.

"Whenever you cut your workforce down, it's going to hurt services," Mr. Nespoli said. "Guys are retiring, and they have to replace these people. You can't allow a city like New York not to have the services that the public's used to," he said. "This is a major blizzard."

To combat multibillion dollar deficits, Mr. Bloomberg has been aggressively cutting city agency budgets to keep the books balanced. He unveiled last month his latest round of budget cuts, which called for a further reduction—via attrition—of 265 sanitation workers by June 2012.

Mr. Nespoli said he's hoping the mayor will replenish the ranks as the economy improves. "When something like this here, as devastating as what this city got hit with yesterday and today, the more manpower you have the better it is," he said.