Poll: Do You Believe There Was a Slowdown?

It was this very time last year that Queens was covered in over two feet of snow.

At the same time, Manhattan was well on its way back to normalcy, but not Bayside streets, which were not fully plowed until almost a full week after the storm.

During a City Council hearing in January, Brooklyn Councilwoman Leticia James blamed the poky cleanup effort on . Councilman Mark Weprin, D-Little Neck, believed the trucks were just .

The Bloomberg administration had said that the snow came down too heavy, too fast. And there were many cars left abandoned in the middle of the road that blocked plows.

Councilman Dan Halloran, R-Whitestone, had a different idea altogether.

Halloran went public during the storm cleanup with allegations that  workers came to him, professing that they were told to be  in their efforts.

The motivation, Halloran alleged, was the slated demotion of 100 DSNY supervisors—of which only 50 were ultimately demoted.

A report published this summer by the City's Dept. of Investigation, . Those Halloran cited as sources, did not corroborate his story.

"Obviously, some of the information the sources told Halloran wasn’t what they told the DOI," said Halloran spokesman Steven Stites said in June.

The DOI's review of video footage from around the city found that approximately 30 of the city’s 265 plows were observed with blades in upright position, eight of them found to be because of “minimal” snowfall.

In Northeast Queens, many people reported seeing snowplows travel with their blades upwards, while roads remained covered and impassible to emergency vehicles. One of them was Chair Jerry Iannece.

"While we are happy that there was no wrong doing, it still doesn't take away from the fact that the Department of Sanitation did a terrible job,” said Iannece, who does believe the DOIs findings.

“The report highlights some serious deficiencies, mismanagement, and employee misconduct, such as drinking on the job," said Halloran, referring to an incident in Brooklyn. "The fact that it doesn’t come to any definite conclusion that rises to the level of a concerted action is a reflection of the DOI’s imperfect data."

You can view photos from the historic .

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Additional reporting by Adam Lombardi.