Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani blasts Bloomberg over city snow cleanup snafuLast Updated: 5:08 PM, January 7, 2011
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani hurled snowballs today at Mayor Bloomberg on how it handled last week's blizzard cleanup, saying "it was a big mistake" and that he would have never fouled up such an operation.
"It was a big mistake. [He] didn't declare a snow emergency when predictions were for a decent amount of snow," Giuliani said during an appearance on MSNBC's "The Morning Joe" show.
"Didn't get plows out on time. If there was a slowdown ... you should have picked [the snow] up."
The criticism comes after Bloomberg admitted that the city's efforts to plow streets was not up to snuff.
You get a report every hour that says how many ... streets were plowed. This is computerized. This isn't guesswork," said Giuliani. "Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. Mike has been an excellent mayor and you make mistakes."
A Marist College poll released Thursday showed that attitudes toward Bloomberg's handling of the snowstorm was abysmal.
The mayor scored poorly with 71 percent of New Yorker's disapproving and only 21 percent approving.
Giuliani, known for fighting crime and going after quality of life issues plaguing the city, said the snow fiasco would have never taken place on his watch.
"I was a micro-manager. ... I liked going to the Sanitation garages at 4 in the morning, 5 in the morning," he explained. "People expect a mayor to pick up the snow, to pick up the garbage."
Bloomberg, who has reassigned some sanitation supervisors and demoted its EMS command chief, seized today's snowfall as a chance to restore its image as a government that smoothly handles emergencies.
Along with the GPS devices on some sanitation trucks, teams of workers were deployed throughout the city, toting video cameras that sent live feeds of street conditions back to commanders at emergency headquarters.
Source: New York Post
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