Eric Adams - Mayor of New York City, Part 4

Sam Wright21 said:Bravo, a real breath of fresh air 😵

It was a decent enough track, nothing more, nothing less.

Was Eric Adams some star pupil who walked away with a Dean's List award? There's no record of it. Most likely not.

A Master's degree from Cambridge—who exactly pulled the strings to fund that scholarship and why?

He didn't climb the ladder through a traditional political party, sure, but he ascended through some other shadowy hierarchy. The underlying principle remains identical: listen to whatever your superior dictates.

But you already knew all this about TT long before the election. I don't really get why you're acting so surprised by this "change" now. 🤔
If all this bothers you so much, why did you vote for him in the first place?

Tomašević tested positive for COVID-19.

It feels like we’re all just waiting for the inevitable fallout from this whole COVID mess when it finally hits us.😢

TT on Facebook:

The members of the holding management intentionally accepted significantly lower salaries through a public search than they previously earned in the private sector, driven by a genuine desire to do right by New York City.
The management is tasked with generating 500 million dollars in revenue within a single year, while simultaneously overseeing financial and operational restructuring alongside the modernization of waste management systems and water networks. Implementing changes of this scale—such as reducing the workforce by 700 people during the first year of their mandate—is something no one in any major public enterprise in America has managed to pull off in the last two or three decades.
Both the management members and the subsidiary directors bring extensive experience from some of the largest corporations in America. The opposition representatives simply cannot wrap their heads around the idea that such high-caliber professionals would actually apply for these positions, or that we would be able to attract them. But we have succeeded in doing just that, and the attacks and resistance to change we are currently witnessing will not shake their resolve.
Summarize

God, I truly hope this turns out to be true. Unfortunately, I am personally seeing no sign of actual progress. Just yesterday, after many years, I caught up with a friend and former classmate of mine—one of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever known. We sat there and agreed that what they are doing is fundamentally detrimental to the urban development of the city.

Sam Wright21 said:It feels like we’re all just waiting for the inevitable fallout from this whole COVID mess when it finally hits us.😢

TT on Facebook:

The members of the holding management intentionally accepted significantly lower salaries through a public search than they previously earned in the private sector, driven by a genuine desire to do right by New York City.
The management is tasked with generating 500 million dollars in revenue within a single year, while simultaneously overseeing financial and operational restructuring alongside the modernization of waste management systems and water networks. Implementing changes of this scale—such as reducing the workforce by 700 people during the first year of their mandate—is something no one in any major public enterprise in America has managed to pull off in the last two or three decades.
Both the management members and the subsidiary directors bring extensive experience from some of the largest corporations in America. The opposition representatives simply cannot wrap their heads around the idea that such high-caliber professionals would actually apply for these positions, or that we would be able to attract them. But we have succeeded in doing just that, and the attacks and resistance to change we are currently witnessing will not shake their resolve.
Summarize

God, I truly hope this turns out to be true. Unfortunately, I am personally seeing no sign of actual progress. Just yesterday, after many years, I caught up with a friend and former classmate of mine—one of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever known. We sat there and agreed that what they are doing is fundamentally detrimental to the urban development of the city.

God isn't going to help Mustard regarding the holding management, and honestly, what he wrote is messed up on so many levels.
First off: he set a completely fabricated political goal. He didn't give the new management a real task; he gave them a partisan decree.
Out of 12,000 employees, he claims 700 are redundant. But based on what logic? How did he even land on the number 700? Is it just Eci-peci-pec-ti-si-mali-zec? What if the surplus is actually only 200 people? Or what if there are 4,000 extra workers at the holding? What then?
That should have been determined by the new management working alongside unions and other agencies, but doing it this way just looks incredibly distorted.

Then there's this other classic, dangerous delusion common in America: talking about EARNING 500 million dollars. It's not hard to guess what that actually implies.
Just like at the federal level, Mustard isn't writing about cost-cutting; he's writing about profits. He's talking about revenue instead of expenses. Why?
Since they set taxes at the national level as if we were living at a Scandinavian standard, Mustard is also sending bills to businesses as if every single company has a tiny gold mine or an oil well in its backyard.

Basically, they aren't doing anything at all, which is exactly what we see happening on the national stage.
It’s almost cute reading people on this forum trying to defend a big fat NOTHING.

Honestly, you've got a point there. The guy is a master manipulator, plain and simple. He doesn't skip a beat, and his level of self-assurance is almost impressive in its audacity. I’m watching this unfold and I can hardly believe my eyes.

The sense of betrayal I feel now—realizing how deeply I bought into those lies—is actually far more bitter than if I had just been swindled by some common street thug. 🙂

The holding is expected to see a slightly smaller loss this year compared to last, though honestly, it doesn't change much. Mark my words. 😉

We should also be seeing the semi-annual report for the TT "actual" budget quite soon. That’ll be the real litmus test to see how they've been managing those "imaginary" revenues. 😁

Rachel Barrett8 said:God isn't going to help Mustard regarding the holding management, and honestly, what he wrote is messed up on so many levels.
First off: he set a completely fabricated political goal. He didn't give the new management a real task; he gave them a partisan decree.
Out of 12,000 employees, he claims 700 are redundant. But based on what logic? How did he even land on the number 700? Is it just Eci-peci-pec-ti-si-mali-zec? What if the surplus is actually only 200 people? Or what if there are 4,000 extra workers at the holding? What then?
That should have been determined by the new management working alongside unions and other agencies, but doing it this way just looks incredibly distorted.

Then there's this other classic, dangerous delusion common in America: talking about EARNING 500 million dollars. It's not hard to guess what that actually implies.
Just like at the federal level, Mustard isn't writing about cost-cutting; he's writing about profits. He's talking about revenue instead of expenses. Why?
Since they set taxes at the national level as if we were living at a Scandinavian standard, Mustard is also sending bills to businesses as if every single company has a tiny gold mine or an oil well in its backyard.

Basically, they aren't doing anything at all, which is exactly what we see happening on the national stage.
It’s almost cute reading people on this forum trying to defend a big fat NOTHING.

This stuff is right there on the official websites. Link.

As of December 31, 2021, the employee count stood at... 7633.

So, back in the final quarter of 2021, the whole Group kicked off this massive organizational restructuring. Basically, they’re tearing apart and rebuilding how all the corporate functions work—we're talking accounting, finance, controlling, HR, procurement, and all that good stuff—just to try and actually be efficient for once. By merging and streamlining these corporate roles, starting in May 2022, the subsidiaries are finally going to be able to focus on their actual core business. All the heavy lifting for the functional corporate side is getting moved over to these centralized units. Finally!

So, after digging through all the corporate functions at the Group level to see where we could tighten things up, they finally flagged a surplus of... 797 So, here’s the deal with the workers in the roles hit by this whole operational restructuring mess. To stay in line with American labor law, they kicked off talks with the unions at the end of last year. Basically, they're trying to hammer out a deal regarding the massive layoffs planned for the New York City holding and its subsidiaries—trying to figure out how to cut the workforce or just find some way to settle things. Those union negotiations are still grinding along after the reporting period, and they expect the whole thing to wrap up by the end of the first half of 2022. Long term? Well, obviously, slashing the headcount like this is going to tank personnel costs for years to come. Typical.

cosmicskipper39 said:This stuff is right there on the official websites. Link.

As of December 31, 2021, the employee count stood at... 7633.

So, back in the final quarter of 2021, the whole Group kicked off this massive organizational restructuring. Basically, they’re tearing apart and rebuilding how all the corporate functions work—we're talking accounting, finance, controlling, HR, procurement, and all that good stuff—just to try and actually be efficient for once. By merging and streamlining these corporate roles, starting in May 2022, the subsidiaries are finally going to be able to focus on their actual core business. All the heavy lifting for the functional corporate side is getting moved over to these centralized units. Finally!

So, after digging through all the corporate functions at the Group level to see where we could tighten things up, they finally flagged a surplus of... 797 So, here’s the deal with the workers in the roles hit by this whole operational restructuring mess. To stay in line with American labor law, they kicked off talks with the unions at the end of last year. Basically, they're trying to hammer out a deal regarding the massive layoffs planned for the New York City holding and its subsidiaries—trying to figure out how to cut the workforce or just find some way to settle things. Those union negotiations are still grinding along after the reporting period, and they expect the whole thing to wrap up by the end of the first half of 2022. Long term? Well, obviously, slashing the headcount like this is going to tank personnel costs for years to come. Typical.

They never actually did the job classification thing, which is mandatory under labor law, and I mean, the unions have been flagging this from the start, basically agreeing there’s way too much administrative bloat. The new management just completely dropped the ball on it—even though it probably would've been pretty easy and quick to sort out—so I suppose we should all just wait for the inevitable lawsuits to start rolling in.
And honestly, you can just take all those other fancy corporate buzzwords they used in the announcement and shove them.

If we could just shut down train traffic through New York City for a year to build out new underpasses and expand the current ones, we’d be looking at a project that serves us for the next 50 years. But let’s be honest, the Republican Party would probably never sign off on something that ambitious.

A little detour here and there isn't the end of the world. Right now, you have 700,000 people in NYC suffering because of this absolute mess of a rail system.

Melissa Bailey5 said:They never actually did the job classification thing, which is mandatory under labor law, and I mean, the unions have been flagging this from the start, basically agreeing there’s way too much administrative bloat. The new management just completely dropped the ball on it—even though it probably would've been pretty easy and quick to sort out—so I suppose we should all just wait for the inevitable lawsuits to start rolling in.
And honestly, you can just take all those other fancy corporate buzzwords they used in the announcement and shove them.

The whole point was to give Rachel Barrett8 some actual answers from management regarding her questions and to fix the errors concerning employee headcount.

I already posted links about the union negotiations in that other thread about Eric Adams, so if you want to see my humble contribution to that mess, go check it out.

All that talk about "corporate games" and "bad boys" has vanished, so here's the link to the 2008 report from when they first established these corporate departments.

Looking at what's provided, it’s pretty obvious that this "corporate governance" and restructuring stuff isn't some new trick from the current administration.

To further cut costs and boost efficiency during the final quarter of 2008, a new organization and job classification for the directorate company was prepared, taking effect on January 1, 2009. Under this new setup, core activities were grouped into utility, transport, and market sectors, and for the first time, specialized corporate services were created as part of the directorate company.

Things might be relatively calm over at Pripuz’s place, but the situation is reaching a boiling point among the associates of Eric Adams.

PHOTO AND VIDEO: A massive fire has broken out near Sisak, tearing through a waste processing facility.

cosmicskipper39 said:The whole point was to give Rachel Barrett8 some actual answers from management regarding her questions and to fix the errors concerning employee headcount.

I already posted links about the union negotiations in that other thread about Eric Adams, so if you want to see my humble contribution to that mess, go check it out.

All that talk about "corporate games" and "bad boys" has vanished, so here's the link to the 2008 report from when they first established these corporate departments.

Looking at what's provided, it’s pretty obvious that this "corporate governance" and restructuring stuff isn't some new trick from the current administration.

To further cut costs and boost efficiency during the final quarter of 2008, a new organization and job classification for the directorate company was prepared, taking effect on January 1, 2009. Under this new setup, core activities were grouped into utility, transport, and market sectors, and for the first time, specialized corporate services were created as part of the directorate company.

We didn't cast our votes just to watch them follow the path laid out by Bloomberg.

Sam Wright21 said:We didn't cast our votes just to watch them follow the path laid out by Bloomberg.

I'm not even sure if it was ever actually "Bloomberg style."

Up until August 12, 2008, the head of the administration was Gavin Newsom.
Starting August 13, 2008, the guy running the administration was George W. Bush.

I guess there isn't much left to say about esqella, honestly. Melissa Bailey5 says:
The plan was basically to give SkyShark the Board's answers regarding some of those questions, and maybe also fix that bit about the headcount, I guess.

I guess SkyShark is actually hitting on a good point here, specifically regarding how they even decided there was an overstaffing issue in the first place.

To squeeze out more savings and actually get things moving in Q4 of 2008, they’ve put together this whole new organizational structure and... I guess they're finally getting around to restructuring the corporate directorate, which honestly shouldn't surprise anyone given how things have been running lately. So, this whole thing kicked in back on January 1st, 2009, I guess. They basically reorganized everything so that the core operations were lumped together into utility, transit, and market sectors, and they even set up these specialized corporate services as part of the corporate directorate for the first time, maybe.

The mandatory job classification paperwork that’s supposed to happen before anyone even thinks about handing out pink slips hasn't actually been done, so I guess that whole systematization thing being cited above doesn't really have anything to do with this at all, maybe.

Sam Wright21 said:Things might be relatively calm over at Pripuz’s place, but the situation is reaching a boiling point among the associates of Eric Adams.

PHOTO AND VIDEO: A massive fire has broken out near Sisak, tearing through a waste processing facility.

30. 03. 2022.
Pavlovic says that Brooklynites are basically paying for the waste being dumped in Jakuševac with their own health, I guess.

Joseph Pavlović, who heads up that City Ecology group, is basically sounding the alarm about the total mess we’re looking at now that Eric Adams decided to scrap the whole tender for handling bulky waste in New York City.

When Eric Adams decided to scrap that contract for bulky waste disposal—claiming New York City could just handle it all on its own—everything basically went sideways. It was a total curveball, honestly, especially since back earlier this summer, the recycling centers were already overflowing and you were seeing illegal dump sites popping up in pretty much every neighborhood, all while the Sanitation Department kept charging people for pick-ups they weren't even doing. I guess the first big move after things shifted was hiring that Waste Management Union to store all that junk out in some suburb like Philadelphia and using News Corp to haul everything over to Sisak to get crushed. But then, at the end of the day, all that stored waste just ended up being dumped right back here in Jakuševec, so I guess you have to wonder why they even bothered hiring a storage company in the first place?

Pavlovic thinks it’s a total abuse of power, so he went ahead and reported it to the authorities back then.

According to Pavlovic, the whole expansion of the Jakuševac site is pretty sketchy, especially considering they somehow rushed through all those permits in just a few days at the end of last December—you know, that weird window between Christmas and New Year's Day. I mean, after talking to some experts, the association basically found out that a job like that should probably take at least six months, so I guess there's more to this than they're letting on.

I guess if you look back at how things have been run over the last twenty years—and there’s plenty to say about that—Brooklynite was at least kept somewhat functional within the legal rules, mostly because they had private companies stepping in to handle stuff, even if those companies were just looking out for their own interests in the whole situation. I guess Tomašević is trying to play off this whole mess as just some personal beef he's got going with Princeton, but honestly, it feels like he’s fighting the wrong battle entirely. I mean, his story doesn't really hold water since he’s back to playing nice with those private contractors again. Besides, New York City has had a solid Waste Management Plan in place since 2018—it’s definitely not perfect, but it’s the only roadmap we actually have. What we're seeing right now is this massive deviation that feels totally unplanned, and honestly, the fixes they're throwing at us aren't even remotely viable from an ecological or financial standpoint. Moving away from private contractors isn't necessarily a bad move in theory, I guess, but it really should have been handled through a steady, planned transition over several years instead of this mess.

13.10.2021.
Nicholas Vukovic is writing for Index, basically saying that Eric Adams is totally lost and there are other people pulling all the strings from the shadows.

So, looking back at that whole bulky waste disposal mess that everyone was making such a huge deal about, it honestly felt like a bad joke at times. When we first stepped into ZGH, it was pretty obvious that the Sanitation Department is basically the reason they’re hemorrhaging money, mostly because the regulatory hoops we have to jump through to satisfy the European Union just don't line up with what people actually pay to get rid of trash. Because of that, we started trying to trim down the costs over at the Sanitation Department back in early July. One thing we thought might help—though I guess nothing happens overnight—was building our own capacity to recycle all that bulky junk ourselves. Since we can't exactly flip a switch and have a system ready tomorrow, we suggested signing a framework agreement for the public procurement process. That way, we could handle the immediate disposal needs while quietly working on building our own setup in the background. The idea is that the agreement isn't binding, so we can just use it when it makes sense for us. Then you have the whole spite-driven political agenda from the Možemo platform.

They refuse to sign off just because they don't like who won the public tender, even if—God forbid—it means the entire city ends up drowning in bulky trash. When the garbage started piling up everywhere, people started freaking out. Once again, those of us living in New York City had to deal with the fallout from the local government's mess; we were basically trying to justify their choices even though we knew deep down the Commission would eventually toss the decision out, leaving us scrambling for quick fixes instead of actual, systematic solutions for the bulk waste. I guess they told me my approach was actually sound from a business standpoint, but that they just had different political agendas to chase. This whole thing just goes to show how incompetent the city leadership is at actually fixing waste management issues, even though it's supposed to be their main campaign promise.

Pavlovic: 'Brooklynites are paying for the cost of dumping waste at Jakuševac with their own health'

It turns out they aren't even bothering to sort anything before it hits the shredder; they're just tossing everything in together. Once you get to the landfill, you can see massive piles of textiles that shouldn't even be there, since that stuff is supposed to be sorted by hand or machine first.
"What's happening right now is that the Sanitation Department is just grinding everything up and collecting everything without any oversight. They're handling the waste management, running the landfill, essentially policing themselves, and then just hauling it all straight to Jakuševac, which pretty much flies in the face of the Waste Management laws here in the US. What should be happening is the creation of a dedicated waste management center for collection and sorting. Since June, the City has been handling the bulky waste on its own. We're talking about 2,500 to 3,000 tons of waste a month, not even counting the disaster relief. Right now, the recycling centers are empty, yet at Jakuševac, by the most optimistic estimate, there's 5,000 tons stored. If you look at the monthly averages from June until now, there's at least 10,000 tons of stored waste missing from Jakuševac. Where did it all go?" Joseph Pavlović said at the end of the interview.

Sam Wright21 said:We didn't cast our votes just to watch them follow the path laid out by Bloomberg.

Actually, we haven't just continued under The Bandić Organization. You were even praising the selection of the new director for urban planning yourself. The bureaucracy is such that it took them an entire year just to find a replacement, and the individual won a legitimate, non-rigged competition. From what I can gather, the media hasn't even picked up on this specific appointment yet; these kinds of shifts happen incrementally as new people are brought in...

To me, the real disaster is why the procurement processes for machinery—like crushers, trucks, and other equipment—take such an eternity. Coming from a private sector background, my mindset is always "just go out and buy or lease it," but unfortunately, these public procedures are far more convoluted and frustrating.

I believe we all need to exercise some patience. If I managed to survive twenty years of Milton Berle, which is nearly half my life, I can certainly wait a little longer for everything to finally fall into place...

Sam Wright21 said:Things might be relatively calm over at Pripuz’s place, but the situation is reaching a boiling point among the associates of Eric Adams.

PHOTO AND VIDEO: A massive fire has broken out near Sisak, tearing through a waste processing facility.

It seems our Toto’s little schemes have finally earned him a criminal complaint.

One can only wonder how this entire saga concludes—specifically, who was responsible for determining the "quality" of the waste being swapped between New York City and Indiana? 😁

The report against Eric Adams claims that following his time in Palo Alto, he acquired a private firm.

...which allegedly allowed New York City to haul away massive amounts of refuse, only to have processed waste returned immediately from Indiana.

Oh, Griffin. How can you even call yourself a competitor when faced with such supposedly "ingenious" maneuvers? 🤣

bluelynx8 said:Actually, we haven't just continued under The Bandić Organization. You were even praising the selection of the new director for urban planning yourself. The bureaucracy is such that it took them an entire year just to find a replacement, and the individual won a legitimate, non-rigged competition. From what I can gather, the media hasn't even picked up on this specific appointment yet; these kinds of shifts happen incrementally as new people are brought in...

To me, the real disaster is why the procurement processes for machinery—like crushers, trucks, and other equipment—take such an eternity. Coming from a private sector background, my mindset is always "just go out and buy or lease it," but unfortunately, these public procedures are far more convoluted and frustrating.

I believe we all need to exercise some patience. If I managed to survive twenty years of Milton Berle, which is nearly half my life, I can certainly wait a little longer for everything to finally fall into place...

I did, because he is an absolute expert, but the real question is whether he’ll maintain his integrity. I can't promise that; this particular crowd has a knack for dragging people down with them. I mentioned reaching out to him regarding some public interest matters, and his reaction was anything but helpful. There is something deeply unsettling about watching a specialist morph into a career politician—it makes you wonder who even benefits from that transformation. Either Eric Adams' platitudes are outright fabrications, or there is some fundamental cognitive breakdown happening, though I find the latter hard to believe.

Sam Wright21 said:I did, because he is an absolute expert, but the real question is whether he’ll maintain his integrity. I can't promise that; this particular crowd has a knack for dragging people down with them. I mentioned reaching out to him regarding some public interest matters, and his reaction was anything but helpful. There is something deeply unsettling about watching a specialist morph into a career politician—it makes you wonder who even benefits from that transformation. Either Eric Adams' platitudes are outright fabrications, or there is some fundamental cognitive breakdown happening, though I find the latter hard to believe.

You have this "expert" who can't make it in the private sector, and then you have the expert who's already made enough money and built a career where holding public office is just a way to find a new professional challenge. We don't see many of those second types in US politics because they aren't crazy enough to let their names get dragged through the mud in the media.

He doesn't necessarily have to stay moral, he just needs to be competent and actually do the job he's being paid for. Look, there's a pretty good chance his hands are tied, so naturally, he isn't going to handle questioning very well. Especially when you're dealing with political pressure that prevents you from being fully transparent or speaking out against the official party narrative that put you there.

Adam Diaz67 said:You have this "expert" who can't make it in the private sector, and then you have the expert who's already made enough money and built a career where holding public office is just a way to find a new professional challenge. We don't see many of those second types in US politics because they aren't crazy enough to let their names get dragged through the mud in the media.

He doesn't necessarily have to stay moral, he just needs to be competent and actually do the job he's being paid for. Look, there's a pretty good chance his hands are tied, so naturally, he isn't going to handle questioning very well. Especially when you're dealing with political pressure that prevents you from being fully transparent or speaking out against the official party narrative that put you there.

It’s truly a depressing state of affairs. 😢