Whatever it takes to get the job done.
Mayor DeBlasio is okay with the city’s multi-million-dollar business with private-sanitation company Action Carting, whose drivers have hit and killed five people in the last decade, according to his spokesman.
“There are no plans to sever contracts with the company at this time,” said Eric Phillips. “The mayor does not have a personal opinion about this company.”
Phillips relayed his boss’s comments after Hizzoner — while taking questions at an unrelated press conference on April 12 — said he wasn’t aware of the trash collector’s history of recklessness on the road, and promised to look into it in order to form an opinion.
“I’m concerned about the issue, but I’m not familiar with the specifics. So, this is one where I have to in a very straightforward way say I need to get you an answer because I don’t have the facts to be able to give you the full answer,” DeBlasio said. “Anything involving safety, I’m concerned about. We’re certainly not afraid to take aggressive action if there is a safety problem, but I need to get briefed on this before I can give you a good answer.”
The private hauler — which authorities slapped with nearly 2,000 violations since 2012, 342 of which are criminal — raked in a whopping $104,286,930 via city contracts since 2007, records show.
And less than a year ago, the firm racked up its latest fatality when one of its truckers plowed into 27-year-old cyclist Neftaly Ramirez in Greenpoint while behind the wheel without the proper license, then fled the scene.
Police issued that driver a summons four months after the deadly collision, and the district attorney let the man off the hook in January after a separate investigation by his prosecutors did not find enough evidence to convict him.
