Perhaps it was a sign that what the neighborhood really needs is a good shower.
By Dustin Brown
Perhaps the tone was set by the first guy who spoke out, a newspaper publisher who criticized the city’s new policy banning dumpsters from the sidewalk.
Perhaps it was a sign that what the neighborhood really needs is a good shower.
Regardless of reason, the topic that never seemed to die during Monday night’s town hall meeting in Astoria was not fear about the slumping economy or outrage at failing schools, two of the hot-button issues dominating the current election season.
The issue of the evening was waste.
From the steam emitted by dry cleaners to the rats burrowing through garbage bags and the trash that seems to end up everywhere but where it’s supposed to go, the unwanted byproducts of industry and everyday living caused the greatest uproar among the more than 200 people who showed up at the three-hour meeting.
Sponsored by state Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) and the United Community Civic Association, the event brought dozens of politicians and city officials to the stage at the American Museum of the Moving Image, where they answered a wide array of questions voiced by neighborhood residents. Although the economy and education certainly came up, the greatest volume of questions fell into a heaping mass of quality-of-life complaints.
It started with trash. Tony Barsamian, the publisher of the Western Queens Gazette, questioned the city’s new policy forcing businesses to remove their dumpsters from the streets, a program known as Operation Dumpster.
“We didn’t want the ugly dumpsters, but now without the ugly dumpsters there’s nowhere to put the trash,” he said.
Jerry Kann, the Green Party candidate challenging Gianaris for his seat in November’s elections, criticized the highly publicized deal to close down the Charles Poletti Power Project within the next six to eight years for establishing too distant a timeline. The notorious plant, operated by the New York Power Authority, is the single worst polluter in the city, and environmental activists have long complained that the emissions from Astoria’s many power producers clog the air and damage people’s lungs.
Gianaris defended the pact, noting that it will yield a dramatic decline in emissions by the beginning of next year by requiring the plant to burn cleaner fuel.
“I would have liked to see it close 20 years ago,” he said. “The decision is not mine, the decision is the governor’s.”
The laundry list of complaints even landed on the issue of laundry — or, more specifically, dry cleaners.
John and Ria Kerrigan, who live on Crescent Street just south of Broadway, expressed concern that a commercial dry cleaner rumored to be moving onto their block would release chemicals that could threaten the health of their three daughters.
“There’s residents on both sides of this building,” John Kerrigan said. “It’s not a safe place anymore.”
Although dry cleaning emissions are invisible polluters, other kinds of trash sometimes land right beneath your feet, one person complained.
“Is it possible for us not to be embarrassed by the way Broadway looks?” demanded Dorothy Lewis of Crescent Street. “Why should we walk out to pick up the Sunday newspaper and have to step between things that should not be there?”
Deputy Chief Doug Marchiola of the city Sanitation Department responded that the street is swept daily while sidewalks are examined during one-hour slots that fall every morning and afternoon during which time a business can be fined for dirty conditions. But the inspectors are few and the terrain large, he said.
When the economy and education did come up, the answers provided little concrete relief.
Mary Jean Bennett of Crescent Street wondered when the federal government would step in to help push down the city’s unemployment rate, which hovers above the national average. But U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) said securing additional aid was an uphill battle.
“Many people have talked about the love affair with New York,” he said. “The love affair is over, quite frankly.”
Meanwhile, Kiki Panos-Sperazza of 37th Street demanded greater accountability for the education system, prompting numerous legislators to tout their efforts in maintaining school funding during a budget crisis.
But the news from Sheila Evans-Tranumn, the associate commissioner of the state Education Department, was less promising.
“There is no borough, no place in this state that is more overcrowded in terms of school facilities than the borough of Queens,” she said. “The problem is getting the money to do the job that needs to be done.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
