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Subscribe to RSSA budget battle in New Jersey's capital city has some extremely unpleasant fallout, including a toilet paper shortage at police headquarters, fire stations, senior centers and municipal offices.
"It's serious right now," Lauren Ira, spokeswoman for the city administration of Trenton, said on Tuesday.
Supplies have been dwindling down to almost nothing in the months since a spending fight broke out among the City Council in November over a $42,000 spending request for a year's supply of paper products, including toilet paper.
“I’m embarrassed,” Council president Kathy McBride told the Times of Trenton. “I’m a little disgusted, and I feel we’re doing an injustice to the residents of the city and the employees.”
Paper towel and toilet paper dispensers in the city senior centers, police department, fire department, museum, water filtration plant and City Hall aren't expected to last through the week, McBride and maintenance supervisor Paul Heater told the newspaper.
Detective George Dzurkoc painted a desperate picture of conditions at police headquarters. He said the men's rooms are completely bare and just a few rolls are left in the women's rooms.
Dzurkoc, head of the city's Policemen's Benevolent Association, filed complaints Tuesday morning with the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration and the state Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health Program.
"The bottom line is they have a health issue knocking at the door," Dzurkoc said.
The City Council was scheduled to meet late on Tuesday to reconsider the spending request which has been stalled in debate each of the three times it came up for a vote since November. At issue was a line in the spending resolution that included a high unit price for hot drink cups.
“We questioned the cost and why they needed them,” North Ward Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson told the Times of Trenton.
That line has since been removed, but the debate has reportedly already tainted the city's reputation. “It is another black eye the city just doesn’t need,” Caldwell-Wilson told the newspaper.
Dzurkoc told the newspaper he couldn't believe that supplies could be held up by a dispute over cup prices.
“They’re just ridiculous over cups,” he said. “It’s a circus-like atmosphere for sure.”
This article includes reporting from msnbc.com staff and Reuters.
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Leave a Comment:
Use Christies left over burger wrappers - that should handle a small village on its own...
Anti-Christ Christie is involved in a conspiracy with Fruit-of-the-Loom to sell more underwear!
To bad they don't take this approach when their payraise comes to vote.
Simple answer to problem..BING YOUR OWN TOILET PAPER TO WORK..why should tax payers pay to wipe your aZZ's!
And they'd insist, "Use the other side, it's clean!"
I would voluntarily bring in a coffee mug from home if I could get toilet paper, paper hand towels and hand washing soap. I would even bring in my own hand soap.
It would be hilarious if someone on the council took the next proposal and literally wiped their a$$ with it.
“It is another black eye the city just doesn’t need,” Caldwell-Wilson told the newspaper.
... well, they'll now have a brown eye to match
...I'd say they really need to get their sh*t together.....
I can not believe this idiot is bothering OSHA and the equivalent state agency with chicken @!$%# crap like this. They have much more important things to worry about. He probably wasted more money in filing the complaint than it would have cost to go to the supermarket and just buy some TP for the bathrooms themselves. In the grand scheme of things, this is a complete joke and waste of time. The cops could skip their donut break for a day and chip in the buck or two each that they save and let one of the maintenance guys go to the supermarket and buy some TP. Same goes for the firemen. It is far easier to solve this problem than whine about it, but that would not get them the attention they crave.
I can see it already.
A toilet paper black market.
And a TPEA bureaucracy to fight all the toilet paper street dealers around state government offices.
.
i agree with mike, why cant they bring in their own sh!t tickets? outside of jails,and public restrooms, save your taxpayer a buck and bring in your own roll and stop crying. do something to help the effort, like you can buy a 4 roll pack for about a buck, cheap, but it works. each gaurd, put in a buck for one, get enough for a months supply. jk, but you get my drift. firefighters, justices, civil servants, can do something for yourselves, your taxes, are like our taxes, you pay em? you that stinking stingy you cant donate a bit back to yourself, your fellow taxpayers? i hope you guys cant get over this budget for another 3 weeks. make it 3 months. oh, but then you would have some paper company come to the rescue.. good pr i guess for some local buisness.
Umm, they are paying taxes too. You think they get tax free paychecks?
So, despite your flawed thinking, they are already paying to wipe but are just being handed an empty cardboard roll instead.
All the larger supermarket restrooms use a hot air blower for drying the hands, no paper towels. Now potty paper is another issue. If more are supplying hand wipes for us to wipe down the shopping cart handles then just reuse them. Can just see everyone getting a 15 minute break to head to Micky Dees for a coffee and a wipe.
Being a "Public Servant" I should not have to pay for my own bathroom tissue just because you think I should. Do you take your own bathroom tissue to work with you? I work, I pay taxes and I make less than those in the private sector.
I guess the Republican dream of less government is coming true, no @!$%#.
JR, interesting thought, but I believe the majority of the Trenton City Councel is Democratic.
Just bring you own from home you bureaucratic babies! Waaaaaaa.
Bottom line is, who cares, they are full of it in NJ anyway.
Or the city council should take a paycut if the city is so broke they can't afford toilet paper. Oh I forgot they are full of poop because they never sh!t.
"The bottom line is they have a health issue knocking at the door," Dzurkoc said.
Really? Tell them to bring their own TP until this is resolved. I would like to think that people would bring their own for a week or so rather than sit in their own filth.
JDills, absolutly! How many years have teachers had to buy school supplies for their kids? They have the grapes to yell about ass wipes for the ass wipes? Now that Stinks!
Curiously, it was the inability to provide its citizens with toilet paper that led to the downfall of the U. S. S. R., which is definitive proof that when a government cannot provide the people with toilet paper, the end is a bit too near, really . . .
Really! :-o
Frankly, I'm happy to see a government (any government, local, state or federal) look at the unit price of anything. It wasn't that long ago (and maybe it still is the case) when our government was paying $500 or so for bolts. Still, I agree with JDills - could they bring it from home rather than.......
Do you tote your own hygiene products to work every day?
Based of your comment, I would expect that you bring your own soap, towels and toilet paper to work daily.
You do realise that those being affected by this are tax payers too.
I'm sure there's enough useless paper lying around to keep the asswipes in asswipe for a while.
A high tech company I once worked for required employees to provide their OWN toilet paper and facial tissues. It was and is a huge company, but leaking that fact to the news was a firing offense. Big money always gets its way. NJ is no exception. What other expenses could they cut to pay for toilet paper? How about gun law enforcement, since they don't seem to be eliminating illegal guns, anyway.
Reminds me of when ex-Gov. (I use the title loosely) C. Whitman cut the budget by putting narrow width toilet paper in the Turnpike rest stops - you had to floss instead of wipe !
Oh, crap! This is just...too easy!
What a shi*ty article.
Tell Obama. He'll bail them out!
I'm sure you will be the first to start biatching when you find yourself in a paperless stall....
But teapublicans willl get by - they are all used to just slinging sh*t around...
I will not biatch. I'll just wipe with a Dem. Problem solved. See, I'm not biatching.
Or maybe the GOP could TARP them.
"The bottom line is they have a health issue knocking at the door," Dzurkoc said.
----------------------------------
I received this text message from one of my friends in my home state of Ohio, a medical intern earning his M.D. "More proof the right-wing in this country is against financing or protecting the health of the public. With them, if you get sick, their national health care solution is, JUST TAKE YOUR SICK KIDS WITH YOU AND GO SOMEWHERE AND DIE, AND NOT ON MY TAXPAYER'S DIME."
Meanwhile, I'm NOT shaking the hands of the moronic fiscal conservatives that screwed these middle-class laborers out of their TP. ...You don't know where their hands have been. Probably greasing the palms of wealthy people like Rush Limbaugh, he hates the idea of women getting access to affordable, public health care.
Like I said, tell Obama. He'll bail them out. Myself, I'll just wipe with a Libtard until the supply is returned. BTW, Rush and Palin do NOT represent us Repubs. We too think they're idiots.
rradiko, what makes you think anyone wants to shake your hand? idiot! you don't even have the sense to think for yourself, just spout your wornout party rhetoric.
rradiko's you will see in the unions. the type of people in the union i refer to as "union drools", that give unions a bad name. i am a taxpayer. i build for the Navy. OUR taxes go to my wage, and the wages of the rest employed with me. SOME of us taxpayers employed like to see our tax dollars put to good use, and unlike some unions, i think we are looking more to "clean" the name of our union, mostly not tolerating people wasting our money. There are people like myself who take great pride, and appretiation in the fact we were chosen to make the best vessels to sail water. ok, some of the best. there are other good ship builders out there.
i think it is like this. if you feel you need a union, maybe you do, maybe you dont. but your union is what you make it. you have brotherhood, men women working together to get something done. and you have those the brotherhood seem to carry, and in some cases reward them. i have never liked unions because they take these people who do mostly nothing, and find more ways it seems to keep them, then see them dismissed, moreso if anything on the grounds of action unbecoming of a union member. i support the people who i work with, not who watches me work for them. slackers dont collect wages, they collect welfare.
BYOTP
Hay you in the next stall got papers man I'm out?
Good government Governor Chris Christie has a really big supporter to take care of important matters. With long arms needed to each around back there but maybe it’s a portable commode hidden away. True he’s paranoid, but only because there are always two big ones following him real close behind, he can’t see them. If not just consider the New Jersey Jokes, the State plans to charge a joke fee to balance the budget, it’s like the Elephant in the Circus, except is carrying a Johnny mop, for a clean campaign. If this lasts too long, we have to keep the wind behind us with, all of New Jersey down wind. Poor New York, the refinery smell under control a while ago, at least they won’t have them coming in through a tunnel. Bio fuels are a fine, butt, having personal compost heap is not well thought out. Lucy a fellow in a Midwestern state plans to send a truck load of corn cobs, experience recommends softening them up first, but do not attempt to flush then when done, do not pass go, go directly to the outhouse. Never saw a comfort castle that size, Oh, it’s for the homeless. The good Governor governs least, over the hole state and nothing butt the state so help the rest of us.
So when you gotta go poop.......go home and do it!
Are you Serious? Have you seen the size of Government Employees lately? Most of them would not make it half-way to Lunch before they need a Stall.
Republicans want those who need paper to get an "invasive ultrasound" to insure there is a real need...
So just use the latest memo from the fat guy to wipe your parts.
Cut the supply at the State House in Trenton.
I guess America is becoming a third world country. You now have to take our own toilet paper when you visit New Jersey.
Do not shake hands with anyone from City Hall this week.
Word! LOL
So, they've run out of out bathroom tissue and the Bottom line is: "This has already Tainted the city's reputation". You gotta admit, that's funny right there...
How did they get themselves in such a craptacular situation?
Here's a suggestion: A Shamwow and a bar of soap! Wipe, lather, rinse, reuse. LOL
Not enough azz wipes working in government now to get the job done?
Time to get the old catalogs out and bring them to work :)
No more cataloges with online shopping now.