Another crane falls

Construction in NYC is at an all time high.  Bloomberg has been a huge supporter of this growth.  We have seen some of the problems with growth over the past six months.  Cranes falling down and people being killed.  This morning, another crane fell on 91st street and killed 3 people. 

The Building Department was probably staffed with enough people 10 years ago but it certainly isn't today.  They are undermanned.  There are a variety of inspectors running around NYC inspecting cranes that make very little income and probably aren't equipped to make decisions regarding safety.  It is apparent from the serious of accidents that have taken place.

The other problem is that there are a variety of contractors who have recently cropped up in the city who probably shouldn't be building buildings of the size they are under contract for.  They have reached their peter principal. 

The cities reaction over the past couple of weeks has been to sent the Building Departments inspectors around to job sites all over the city and just shut down everyone and everything.  Some sites ( like mine ) has been shut down for something that could have been fixed with a conversation and was just requested not required.  In the past, an inspector would come back a day or so later to review and give the go ahead.  Now, they are coming back 6 weeks later.  Why?  Because they are short staffed and are at a loss of what to do.  Stopping jobs that are good jobs is going to have an effect on the city financially.

The city needs to bring in outside help immediately.  Bring in an outside source that knows how to evaluate safe job sites.  Have them branch out through the entire city quickly and effectively.  Shut the bad sites down and look into the contractors running them.  Get the good sites up and running immediately.

There is talk of some of the larger contractors looking to hire lobbyists to deal with this situation because there sites are being shut down for ridiculous reasons.  We don't want to bring unruly lobbyists into a situation that can be remedied immediately.

Bloomberg needs to hold the bad contractors accountable for poor safety and the death of their staff.  It is unacceptable.  But it is also unacceptable to pool the good guys with the bad with no information or transparency on how the city plans to fix this problem.  Stopping everyone does nothing but delay more deaths.  It is also creating anger and uproar among the developers and contractors in the city who have a lot of money at stake and have done nothing wrong.