Washington’s city government has long been a symbol of poor management, wasteful programs, and gross inefficiencies. That image was reaffirmed this month after the city turned a program to replace trash bins into an utter disaster. Shortly before the primary election, Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) rushed the new cans out to every citizen. The program was so rushed that there appeared to be no system in place to collect the old cans. Now, it appears that the city has not only been chucking new cans but it has not been recycling the plastic cans — simply pumping them in Virginia for incineration. However, the city charged two people who tried to reuse the discarded bins.
The city delivered more than 200,000 new cans but left old cans on the streets. The result was alleys full of new an old cans. Then the rain washed off the stickers to identify the new cans so that crews began to collect new and old bins for disposal. In the meantime, the city arrested a District artist who decided to take some of the old discarded cans and repurpose them as flowerpots. So, while she was being prosecuted, the city was collecting old and new cans to throw them away. At least 132 truckloads of plastic bins — a third of the 16,000 cans that were to be collected and recycled — were simply dumped in Virginia to be burned.
The city has a curious defense. Since it failed to properly rollout the program, the mix of old and new cans now were clogging streets and presenting safety issues. Thus, the city decided to dump rather than recycle the cans in its rush to deal with its gross negligence. While the new cans came with stickers to put on old cans reading “Take Me” to allow them to be collected, the stickers fell off and left crews uncertain as to which cans were to be collected. Public Works Director William Howland (right) ordered dump trucks to “blitz” the city and treat the cans as garbage to be dumped.
In the meantime, outgoing Mayor Grey was not available — he is traveling to Las Vegas for a taxpayer supported conference. He is also unreachable to deal with another year of appalling school scores for the District and a new investigation showing police officers running red lights with impunity.
The city however charged Mina Karini and a friend with theft after they took the “Take Me” signs literally and repurposed some of the cans as planters. The District argued that by taking the cans, the two acted to “deprive” the city of “property of value” and potential profits from recycling the cans – which of course they did not do.
Source: Washington Post
DC could be as nice as Madison with some good leadership. First example, set up a summer program for the kids to paint the discarded bins, then plant them with one vegetable plant surrounded by flowers. Show them how to care to care for the pots and have an end of summer “show of pots” with modest prizes for various categories of pots.
Knick and Knack.
An run by crack smoking mayors.
Obviously you have not been to DC lately. It is not even in the same universe as Madison.
They should put a repurposed flower garbage bin/ pot on every street corner, it would beautify the city. Have neighborhood volunteer groups take care of he planting and watering, weeding, etc. Madison Wi, is a wonderful city with active neighborhood councils. My daughter and son in law are active on their particular neighborhood council, they do some good things.
Does the mayor who ordered the new cans have a financial interest in the company providing those cans?
What a great idea to re-purpose the discarded cans as flower pots! They need to have all charges dismissed and then collect more of the cans. Incinerating plastic is NOT a good idea.
bettykath – it is DC for goodness sake. Common sense is not in their vocabulary. Remember, they are a city basically run by the federal government. That should be your first hint of trouble.
This is but the tip of the iceberg of excrement known as government agencies.
Government agencies have this reverse Midas touch. Whatever a government agency regulates or controls turns into excrement. The kind of service the government provides is very like California Chrome’s future.
The minimal necessary government would be nice given the necessary truth of the reverse Midas touch.
At least somebody is not drinking all the Kool aide
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/21/video-house-democrat-destroys-shinseki-obama-over-va-fiasco-in-floor-speech/
I like Dredd’s links, keep ’em coming. The videos and music are terrific too.
As for the garbage can dilemma, Mr. Keebler has a point.
J. Brian,
Are your garbage cans bear proof?
Rob – my garbage cans cannot withstand the mechanical arm used to dump them into the garbage truck. Still, we have no bears here.
And you like to fog your foxy presstitute (In the Fog of The Presstitutes – 3).
Keep flogging that fog froggie.
Civilization has one up on the DC crew (New Continent Found – Garbage Gyre II).
But why sweat the minutia?
Dredd – I know you like to flog your blog every possible chance, but really?
Or, would this be better?
Is humanity treating itself as garbage and as garbage cans that are not worth enough to merit recycling?
This is really too stupid to comment on.
Government, justice and commonsense gone bad. Little people with little minds trying to manage big things is a recipe for disaster….GOP need voter suppression to win elections, Dems need garbage cans…..
After a few moments of reflection, perhaps I can offer a simplified version of my prior post on this thread.
Taken as a whole, is humanity treating itself much like those garbage cans were treated?
I happen to be acquainted with a human person who seems, to me, and so that human person has said to me, actually understands basic aspects of the bioengineering work that I have done regarding public safety aspects of the contemporary structure of human society.
There is a problem I have long noted about the contemporary structure of human society, and noted it globally, in every society, sub-society, culture,and sub-culture I have yet been able to study in depth and detail, using ethnographic forms of research methodology.
That problem is the actually mistaken belief that actually-avoidable mistakes actually happen or can ever actually happen.
It is this mistaken belief (in my doctoral dissertation, named, “The Fundamental Error of Social Reality”) which I have noted since my age of early infancy, drives people to becoming incapable of avoiding such seemingly stupid behavior as this story illustrates.
Having studied modern physics (modern in the late 1950s), including quantum mechanics then and since, the best cosmological fantasy (not yet a theory) is simply that the fundamental error of (human) social reality is as though an echo of what preceded the so-called “big bang” whose echo may be the approximately 2.3 Kelvins Johnson noise that Penzias and Wilson found during their work with microwaves at Bell Laboratories.
For a reference regarding Penzias and Wison, see:
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/20/314239930/big-bangs-afterglow-two-scientists-recall-their-big-discovery
To such extent as what came before “the big bang” was of the not-yet-existence of “ordinary matter,” ignorance of “ordinary matter” surely prevailed among all the humans who did not then exist, and did not exist for want of the existence of “ordinary matter.”
It is, in my work ignorance of the nature of learning which drives what may superficially appear as intransigent, adamant human ignorance.
Alas, I observe that ignorance is, and only is, a sign, in the biosemiotic sense, of not-yet-completed learning opportunities.
Because belief in people making avoidable mistakes is not only false, but also massively contagious and addictive, how long it will take for anyone not nearly totally socially inept because of profound autism to begin to grasp the actual nature of mistakes is a question that I cannot begin to answer.
Perhaps that grasp will take longer than the lifespan of the human species?
I would rather that is not humanity’s ultimate goal; the future of humanity’s seeming penchant for destroying itself through false pride in mistaken understanding of humanity.
I thought the theory on garbage was that once it was on the street it was open season. Since they declared it garbage, then taking it, regardless of signs makes it perfectly free to take.
Someone has too much time on their hands in D.C. Has the crime rate dropped so the police are freed up for mundane tasks like this?
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
Waste and mismanagement are DC’s only competencies.
What the committed Dem voters don’t understand is the last 6 years, a man who promised change and a good, efficient government, has failed. However, the failure is not just a presidency. The failure is of the Dem philosophy that government is the answer. It is not. our founders NEVER envisioned the intrusiveness and scope of the monolith that exists today. I know the hardcore Dems here and elsewhere will stick their heads in the sand. 2008 looked to many people as a paradigm shift. It indeed was, just not the one many hoped for.
Typical double standard – one law for the government and its friends, another law for the citizen.