Mayor Bloomberg is – again – throwing snowballs at the outer boroughs, City Council members say.

He’s refusing to send Sanitation Department reps to a series of Council hearings that will be the first chance for many New Yorkers to sound off about the disastrous Dec. 26 blizzard.

He’ll instead send community affairs representatives with details about the mayor’s 15-point plan to improve the city’s snow response.

“Unacceptable!” fumed Council Sanitation Committee Chairwoman Letitia James (D, WFP-Brooklyn). “This is an actof disrespect to the outer boroughs, mostof which were ignored during the blizzard.”

James had asked for the sanitation superintendents from each borough to explain at six hearings what went wrong in the hardest-hit parts of the city.

“I don’t want Community Affairs to tell me about salt, snowplows, chains, deployments and assignments,” James said.

New Yorkers were so furious after the wind-whipped blizzard left streets unplowed for days that the Council took the extraordinary step of scheduling eight hearings into the city’s response.

Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty both acknowledged, at a major hearing on Monday, Jan. 10, serious flaws in the city’s snow response. Top Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials were grilled at a second hearing this past Friday.

The first outer borough hearing, tonight at Staten Island’s Petrides School, will be the first chance for New Yorkers to testify. It will be followed by hearings in downtown Brooklyn, southern Brooklyn, Harlem, Queens and the Bronx.

A spokesman for Bloomberg said the community affairs reps will be equipped to respond to concerns.

(Source: NY Daily News)