Sunday, October 21, 2007
Liar, or high-maintenance* size queen?
Bush II administration lies are often so laughably obvious that you wonder why they bother.
Michael Kinsley
The title doesn't have much to with this post, but I liked that description of the mayor when I used it before.
I'm glad to see the Times Picayune ask the question:
How much shorter were the old cans than the ones the city is replacing them with?
But that leads to new set of questions. Some general:
Does Nagin consider the Sanitation Department a professional agency performing a vital city service or a cash cow for cronies and campaign contributors?
Do the mayor and high-ranking members of his administration feel any need to tell the truth? If not, do they feel the need to at least tell halfway believable lies?
Some more specific:
Why did a sanitation department that is in no hurry to implement a recycling program feel such a sense of urgency about recycling the metal in the old cans?
Is Veronica White really indifferent to recycling? Or is another money-making scheme planned? Did an important crony get left out of the last sanitation scam?
Why did the Sanitation Department first stonewall, and then say that the old cans were being "cleaned and serviced" if they were, in fact, being replaced?
Though nobody else seems to consider the last question anything more than a "gotcha" question, I'll make one more effort to show that it's anything but a gotcha question.
The possible answers are that the cans never were "cleaned and serviced" -- the cans were removed because the city could no longer afford to empty them and overflowing garbage cans are a health hazard; or the cans were "cleaned and serviced" and then they were replaced.
The first answer would seem reasonable enough, but why the dishonest answer to a reporter's inquiry? At best, the mayor didn't want to to answer questions about his budget priorities. At worst, there were reasons why Nagin and/or Veronica White wanted to avoid questions about the operations of the sanitation department. Either way, it would be fair to conclude that the mayor heads a dishonest administration and White heads a dishonest department.
If the cans really were "cleaned and serviced" before they were replaced, it would certainly be humorous, but it would also be reason to restart a recall effort. It would simply be unforgivable for a city government that was so broke that it had recently laid off 2500 employees to be that careless with funds. If the city had already decided to replace the cans, but paid to have them "cleaned and serviced" anyway...Robert Cerasoli has a big job ahead of him. I have to wonder how tough it could be, at least the investigative part.
*If the $670,000 cost of the new garbage cans ($335,000 already spent, $335,000 more requested) seems trifling, remember it was an argument over $600,000 that led the mayor to call the NORA board "high-maintenance".
Labels: "bombproof" garbage cans, Nagin, Veronica White
