A Hoy newspaper article refers today to the fact that the Municipality of Santo Domingo has not been successful in resolving the garbage problem in the capital city. While garbage would pile up in low-income areas, usually the city government made a special effort to clean up affluent residential areas. Residents in the Polígono Central area of Santo Domingo (between Ortega y Gasset and Núñez de Cáceres) are complaining about the accumulated garbage, due to delays in trucks passing. The Hoy newspaper carries a comment by Santo Domingo resident José Matías who complains that there is no justification for the problem to continue as the municipality has everything going for it now. "If now they don’t carry out a good administration, it’s because the city officers do not want to do so. Look, they have Congress in their favor, the central government and most of the city aldermen. We hope being in power does not go to their heads and they go nuts and they forget it was we who put them there, because if this happens, then when the congressional and municipal elections come along, we will vote them out," he commented. Municipal elections are scheduled for May 2002. In a separate news item in Hoy, Luis José Chávez, secretary general of the Santo Domingo municipality, commented that income of the municipality is up 58% compared to 1999.
