vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #147 / Opinion / Reading article...

The city can breathe a sigh of relief that the garbage strike is resolved - for now. For five weeks, heaps of trash clogged streets and alleyways. Vladivostok was fouled not only by trash (and by the rats dining on it), but by malodor recalling a barbecue of rancid food as well-meaning citizens got rid of trash by burning it.
It is fitting, though, that such an ugly incident in urban life concluded with more of the trashy politics we have come to expect of our civic leaders.

Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko provided the funding to pay SpetsAvtoKhozyaistvo garbage workers some of their back wages, prompting them to return to work. Mayor Victor Cherepkov responded not with a thank you, but with a bizarre screed attempting to show that his own popularity is greater than the governor's.

Nazdratenko did his best to point out that garbage is a city issue. But he has been guilty of some similar antics to Cherepkov's: He had his policy office researching ways to discredit the mayor.

Another point to consider: The citizens have every right to wonder how Nazdradenko suddenly came up with the cash to pay the striking garbage workers.

Might doctors and teachers get some of their wages if they disrupt urban life sufficiently with a strike? Let's hope they haven't gotten any ideas.