Digging it

Editor’s: I'm seeking an unadulterated unabridged copy of the memo issued by the DPW regarding the disposal of such waste. Anyone with such a copy can send it here.

Cliff Staring might want to start looking for a new job. Less than a month after very publically giving his boss the finger, the Public Works mole managed to throw his department’s influential union into the fire with both the city and the state. No, it hasn’t been a good week for Staring, who can probably look forward to plucking gum and cigarette butts off the Caroline Street curbside for the rest of his DPW days.

In the “what the fuck were they thinking” category of campaign news stories comes this report from the Daily Gazette, chronicling more illegal activity by the city’s embattled public works department. As an astute reader pointed out Friday, the Department of Environmental Conservation was in fact doing some digging at the DPW composting site behind Weibel Avenue Friday.

The agency was apparently tipped off by Staring, the same environmental watchdog who blew the lid off an oil spill at the department’s Division Street Garage and then melodramatically recounted his good deed to the Metroland’s gossip column. Staring just happened to be milling about at the composting site late Thursday, when he discovered 70 cubic yards of raw sewage from two of the city’s pumping stations had been haphazardly dumped.

“I can assure you that there was human waste, toilet paper and, excuse me, used tampons,” he gleefully told the Gazette Friday. “As we speak right now, it’s still there.”

Being the good citizen that he is, Staring jumped on his DEC hotline and promptly alerted the authorities, who then launched an immediate investigation. At first, some viewed the incident as the bombshell to finally sink the listing campaign of Public Works fixture Tom McTygue, who critics have long accused of such illegal dumping.

But then the full story came out. Apparently in his zeal to break the news, Staring forgot to find out first who was dumping the material and that person’s connection with ongoing attempts to unseat the veteran commissioner. Unfortunately for him, it turned out to be Joe O’Neil, the same union leader who decided to endorse challenger Skip Scirocco last month.

So let’s get this straight. O’Neil supports Scirocco under the pretense that McTygue is a bully and the workers are fed up. The workers themselves say there was no vote and O’Neil unilaterally made the decision under the auspices of the union’s “leadership.” Then only five days remaining before the election, O’Neil dumps raw sewage at the composting plant, reaffirming many of the suppositions alleged by local freak show David Bronner. Of course, Bronner is the same fellow that was passing out the aforementioned gossip column in an apparent effort to sway voters in favor of incumbent Mayor Valerie Keehn during the Democratic primary.

Strange how all these incidents seem to tie together. It’s almost as if there’s a bi-partisan and concerted effort to oust McTygue from office. But strange was not how DPW director Bill McTygue labeled an incident involving a longtime employee directly violating department protocol. In fact, he characterized the dumping as suspicious, given O’Neil’s recent campaign connections. Suspicious? No. Highly suspect? Closer to the point. Nefariously orchestrated? Right on the money.