Halloran Talks Snow Removal, City Budget Cuts at Town Hall

Councilman Dan Halloran, R-Whitestone, warned community leaders from his district at a town hall meeting last night that “deep” cuts in the city’s budget could prevent neighborhood institutions from obtaining adequate funding this year.

The councilman also focused a significant portion of the meeting on the city’s snow removal efforts following the massive blizzard that blanketed the city on Dec. 27.

Halloran held the meeting at his district office in Whitestone, where he sat down with civic leaders and members of Community Boards 7 and 11 as well as residents from Douglaston, Little Neck, Bayside, Whitestone and College Point.

“The mayor is cutting 15 off discretionary spending and we’ve lost Frank Padavan, who was the most senior state senator in the majority and delivered $750,000 in services,” the councilman said.

Halloran told attendees that he believed important sites in the community could face a significant lack of funding this year amid cuts to the city’s budget.

“We barely saved our firehouses twice and I don’t know if that will happen a third time,” he said. “Our big institutions are in danger – Alley Pond Environmental Center, the Bayside Historical Society and the Poppenhusen Institute. The cuts are coming and they are coming really deep.”

He said he was also concerned that the city’s Department of Education’s plan to phase out some of the borough’s high schools could negatively affect schools in Districts 25 and 26.

“They are closing schools and displacing students to our district,” he said. “You could live across the street from a school and not get into it.”

Halloran also referenced a Dec. 30 teleconference he held during which he told reporters that three Department of Sanitation workers and two Department of Transportation supervisors had approached his office with allegations of a “systemic” slowdown during the city’s cleanup following the Dec. 27 snowstorm.

Shortly after that press conference, the councilman said he would not divulge the names of the workers.

Last night, Halloran told community leaders that he had not intended to imply that the “entire” Sanitation Department had been involved in the alleged slowdown.

“I think there were certain managers who were telling their people to take their time,” he said. “We’ve had Category Five storms we’ve cleaned up quicker. This was a Category Three storm. We all have photos of trucks not cleaning up.”

The councilman said he believed the city should have been quicker in cleaning the borough’s streets.

“We are geographically the largest borough in the five boroughs,” he said. “We have the second largest population. So, why were we an afterthought?”