"Let's tell the Bloomberg administration we've been dumped on long enough!" the flier reads. "Bring your signs, your banners and your strong voices!"
The 1 p.m. rally, organized by Councilmen James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn) and Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore), and backed by Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore), is designed as a bipartisan show of force in opposition to the city's plan to put the pilot project on the site of the old dump in Travis, which the mayor has been touting as a new park.The timing is designed to coincide with a busload of prospective contractors the Bloomberg administration is transporting to the Island to view the area, to let them know "they are not welcome here," according to Oddo and Ignizio.
Another flier is also being sent out, in person and online, with the blazing headline "Tell City Hall: Not Again! Say No to Garbage at Fresh Kills!" to alert residents about a town hall meeting April 26 at 7 p.m. in Rocco Laurie Intermediate School, New Springville -- the brainchild of former Republican Borough President Guy Molinari, who is teaming with the trio.
The fliers are being distributed to "anyone and everyone with a constituency," said Oddo yesterday, including civic associations, schools, religious and veterans groups, cultural organizations and community boards, along with old-fashioned campaign-style literature drops in various neighborhoods by supportive residents.
"We told Luke's Copy Shop to stay frosty," said Oddo of the thousands of fliers he's looking to have printed and distributed.
While the city maintains it is legal to put a waste station at the old landfill despite its 2001 closure mandated by state law, Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Mid-Island) earlier this week said siting any type of garbage disposal technology there is not legal.
Federal Judge Eric Vitaliano, who as a Democratic member of the Assembly co-authored the 1996 legislation shutting it down, has agreed, saying the law makes "unlawful the use of any real property ever within the footprint of the Fresh Kills landfill for the purpose of receiving or processing garbage after 2001."
Kate Rooney, former counsel to Vitaliano's co-author, the late Republican state Sen. John Marchi, affirmed that, saying the law prohibits "forever garbage 'acceptance' and 'disposal' on any part of the entire site ... which encompasses more than 3,000 acres."
The city first pinpointed the site last month in a Request for Proposal (RFP) it put out seeking contractors. While it said the waste-to-energy station could be built anywhere within the five boroughs or an 80-mile radius of New York City, the RFP specifically mentions Fresh Kills and noted a bus would be provided for interested parties.
Oddo, Ignizio, Ms. Rose, Molinari, Cusick and Rep. Michael Grimm (R-Staten Island/ Brooklyn) have said the Bloomberg administration has shown insensitivity to the burden Staten Island bore for more than half-a-century as home to the world's largest garbage dump.