With the 2013 mayoral race quickly turning into a test of which candidate can outpander the competition, it’s news when one stands up for principle.
That’s just what City Council Speaker Chris Quinn did last weekend, when she refused to back down from her support for an East Side waste-transfer station.
The speaker and four other Democratic wannabes faced a crowd of locals hoping to block plans for the facility based on typical Not in My Back Yard concerns. Not one of the other candidates had the spine to back the station. Instead, they resorted to weasel words, half-promises and even sympathy for the residents’ position.
Quinn, by contrast, gave the crowd its medicine straight: “I am not changing my position” on the transfer station, she said flatly — reiterating her support amid a chorus of boos and vows not to vote for her.
Quinn argued, correctly, that the station is key to the city’s five-borough plan to cut truck traffic by making greater use of waterways, and to distribute more fairly the “burden” of sanitation facilities. Historically these facilities have been placed in “low-income neighborhoods of color.”
Nor is she backing what residents think will be a smelly eyesore in someone else’s neighborhood instead of her own: Quinn sought a similar station on the Gansevoort Pier in her district.
As we’ve said before, the city’s plan for a major overhaul of its sanitation process involves a tricky balancing act, requiring equal sacrifices from each borough.
Quinn understands that, too. Good for her for having the guts to speak the truth while standing in the lion’s den.