Queens Chronicle
Despite recent efforts of Howard Beach residents to draw the city’s attention to trash-strewn Joseph P. Addabbo Memorial Bridge, government officials have not followed up.
After a group of local women cleaned the bridge on July 16, they left around 60 garbage bags out for the Department of Sanitation to pick up, which had not come to pass as of Tuesday afternoon.
One of the organizers, Gina Barillaro, said that she had coordinated with state Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) before the event, who assured her that he would get sanitation workers to clean up the bags. Addabbo instructed her to leave the bags along each opening in the chain link fence running along the walkway, she said.
“It was so bad. There was like a bag or two by each opening,” Barillaro said.
She was dismayed to find them there — many ripped open and scattered by vermin — several days later, and did not hear back from Addabbo’s office when she followed up. Another organizer, Vincenza Connors, went back Tuesday only to find the trash bags still there nearly a month later.
Addabbo said that the lack of response is a result of the city’s recent budget cuts to the Sanitation Department. He said that he called Garage 10, the sanitation unit in charge of the bridge, but that it could not follow through on his request due to a loss of manpower.
“What we’re finding out is that due to budget cuts, these local garages, Garage 10 being one of them, got deep cuts into their operation,” Addabbo said.
