Declarations

Afterthought

“We had this spurt in the auto age where we built these enormous arterials. We built them very wide. We designed them to speed the movement of cars. Pedestrians were a bit of an afterthought.”

—Polly Trottenberg, New York City’s transportation commissioner, on the need to make the city’s most dangerous streets safer. Trottenberg said the city will embark on a $250 million project to extend curbs, widen road medians and add protected bicycle lanes to reduce fatalities on four major streets in the outer boroughs, where dozens of pedestrians have been killed or injured in recent years.

That Which Shall Go Unnamed

“We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability.’ That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel.”

—Christopher Byrd, a former attorney with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee. According to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting an “unwritten” policy about using the terms went into effect after Gov. Rick Scott, a global warming skeptic, took office. Florida’s DEP is charged with planning how to combat what could be a catastrophic sea level rise due to the very thing its employees are not supposed to mention.

San Francisco Crash Settlement

“This is the first positive step for these passengers to be able to get closure on a tragic, catastrophic crash and hopefully try to get their lives back together.”

—Frank Pitre, an attorney for 72 passengers who settled over the Asiana Airlines flight in San Francisco two years ago, did not disclose financial terms of the settlement.

A Bad Business Strategy

“I hope Kansas business owners are listening. … You can go to prison for knowingly employing undocumented workers. Violating federal law is not a good business strategy.”

—U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom on the prison sentences for Munir Ahmad Chaudary and his wife, Rhonda R. Bridge, who employed illegal immigrants in their Kansas City-area Clarion hotels. The pair didn’t pay workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance.

Topics Florida