Some months ago, we reported here that the city had blown it again, that City Hall had awarded the trash contract for the French Quarter to a company with no trucks and no history of this kind of work. A few weeks before the work was to begin, they still had no trucks and no personnel. You could predict how this was going to turn out.
We were all wrong. The company called SDT has the most gorgeous shiny black garbage trucks you’ve ever seen (I predict Hummer owners will soon be trading up for one!) and employees who take a great deal of pride in what they’re doing. I think we’ve reported previously an account of the supervisor following the truck through the Quarter in her car, making sure no motorist pulls around the truck–lots of sanitation workers get killed that way–and seeing that every scrap of paper is picked up and the garbage cans replaced neatly.
Wednesday morning, someone wrote to the editor of following an SDT truck through the Quarter and seeing the driver stop, get out and pick up a single cup someone had tossed in the street, then driving on. Alan Petro said, “I just want to say thank you, SDT. You are doing an incredible job.”
It’s so inspiring to see people do their work well.
Perhaps we should remark here that our part of the world has learned how essential sanitation workers are to our lives. Let garbage workers go on strike, as they have done in New York City over the years, and when the refuse-of-our-lives piles up on the sidewalks in front of our buildings, suddenly we begin to value these men and women for their vital services. Some of us are old enough to remember a scow filled with NYC garbage running up and down the Atlantic coastline, seeking some landfill, some town, something, that would let them unload their smelly, unwanted cargo.
Bad news. A fellow held in the Orleans Parish jail and then released on bond in a 2000 murder case has been set free. The judge says the district attorney had plenty of time to make a case and bring this to trial, so he threw the charges out. DA Eddie Jordan’s office plans to appeal.
The public is incensed, not at the judge but at the DA’s office. How long should it take to deal with this? I don’t have the figures handy, but the paper reported a few days ago that out of all the murders in the last, say, six months, only a handful have resulted in arrests, and of those, there has been exactly one conviction.
Sean Conroy of Metairie writes, “I am tired of hearing the pathetic whining of the DA’s office…. I was a prosecutor in Suffolk County New York for eight years. NY’s release law allows five days between arrest and indictment, with an additional day if a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday intervenes. At best, we had 54 fewer days to get our cases together. The first thing that I learned as a prosecutor was that unlike steak and fine wine, the prosecution’s case does not get better with age.”
Recently, I bragged on my homeowner insurance company. But I suspect there’s not a company on earth someone doesn’t have a gripe about. Gayle Matherne of Metairie writes that American National Property and Casualty is canceling her daughter’s policy. I won’t bore you with the details.
On the subject of “what can one person do” concerning the eroding coastline in our part of the world, the executive director of the Lake Catherine Civic Association writes: “At 9:30 am today, citizens can go to the Corps of Engineers district assembly room, 7400 Leake Avenue, and speak up for the preservation of marshes that are vital to New Orleans. They are even more important to the communities around Lake Pontchartrain without levees.”
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., died recently. This prize-winning historian and former staffer in the JFK and LBJ administrations left quite a legacy. The long article in Newsweek honoring him says he frequently felt he spent too much time writing letters to the editor and op-ed pieces when he should have been turning out more books.
Some of us would beg to differ. A thin slice of humanity will buy his historical tomes and only a portion of those will finish them. But everyone reads the editorial page. Well, almost everyone.
Especially down here in our part of the world. Especially since life has changed forever and daily decisions are being made at every level of government that affect every strata of our existence.
Occasionally, I ask our pastors, “Did you read the paper this morning?” It’s the younger ones who tend not to have. But they should.
I intend to keep pressing.
Those not living in the desaster areas may have a difficult time understanding how seriously we take trash pick up. We went to twice a week pickup just about a month ago here in the 9th Ward. My very first spontaneous thought was, “Wow, that’s like living in a America.” I didn’t even realize the irony until after I thought it. Trash pickup and construction debris removal are very important to the quality of our lives. I was also among the ney sayers when it came to SDT, but I agree with you Bro. Joe. Those guys on the street are doing a fabulous job!