City has loose definition of "clean"

DIRT ON NYC 'CLEAN' POLL
By DAVID SEIFMAN, NY Post

City government took a hit yesterday in a new survey that found 19 percent of residents rated the cleanliness of their neighborhoods as "poor."

That's a comedown from the city's own ratings, which claimed 96.1 percent of streets were "acceptably clean" as of October.

The opinions of residents were revealed yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg in the "NYC Feedback Citywide Customer Survey."

Bloomberg said such stark differences are one reason the ambitious survey was undertaken.

"If there are significant discrepancies between the way they [city agencies] rate themselves and the way the survey respondents do, then maybe we need to take a second look at those self-evaluation measures," he said.

Overall, the quality of city services was rated "excellent" by 4 percent of residents, "good" by 38 percent, "fair" by 44 percent and "poor" by 15 percent.