(DPW spokeswoman Linda Grant says the District doesn’t currently have any “past due” bills from the company.) In April, can manufacturer Toter complained to DPW that the District had two “past due” payments worth more than a million dollars. As Gray chief of staff Christopher Murphy put it in an email to DPW employees, “We all now look like idiots.”Įven before news of the delayed can pickups broke in May, problems were mounting for the program. As the problems piled up, emails show Gray aides struggling to get a handle on the situation. Gray administration officials fumed as the Supercan replacement went from bad to worse, according to DPW records obtained by LL through the Freedom of Information Act. Some of the old cans, which were all meant to be recycled, ended up in landfills instead after being mangled by garbage trucks commandeered to help in the sweep. After news stories about the languishing cans-and the arrest of two people who took abandoned ones in Georgetown for an art project-the city’s Department of Public Works went into overdrive to collect them.ĭPW crews bolstered by temporary hires picked up every unwanted can they could get their hands on-and quite a few that weren’t actually supposed to be disposed of. When it came time to pick up the old cans, though, they had been sitting outside so long that it wasn’t clear which ones were meant to be thrown away. Gray, who was facing a tough re-election campaign, promised new cans for everyone and claimed the giveaway had nothing to do with politics, though anecdotal evidence that the new-can handouts surged ahead of April’s primary suggests otherwise. Six months earlier, Gray had announced a city-wide replacement campaign for Supercans, the ubiquitous green trash cans and blue recycling bins that line District alleyways. Instead, Gray was stuck in a quagmire familiar even to big-city mayors who aren’t under federal investigation: the inexplicable botching of a basic public service. What’s new, right? Except this time, it had nothing to do with U.S. In May, Mayor Vince Gray’s administration found itself facing scandal.
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