From the NY Times:Unrepaired sidewalks...expose the city to tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits and liability settlements.
But cash is tight. In the 2010 fiscal year, which starts in July, the amount originally allocated for the program in the city budget was only $1 million. Jesslyn Tiao Moser, a parks department spokeswoman, said on Wednesday that since the program began, $12 million has been spent to repair 4,703 sidewalks.
Meanwhile, Mr. Liu and Councilman Simcha Felder have said that allocating an additional $15 million could pay for the remaining sidewalks that need fixing.
There was, lately, encouraging news for the program: Mayor Bloomberg announced on March 30 that the tree program would get $3.7 million more in federal stimulus money in the coming year. Still, Mr. Liu said, more money will be necessary, because sidewalks will, unavoidably, keep cracking.
From the NY Post:
Neighbors of St. Bonaventure Catholic Church on 170th Street are wondering why workers tore out two sidewalk slabs to plant two new trees that block pedestrians' paths.
"Those two were planted in the wrong place," said Father Gordon Kusi, the church's pastor. But he said the Parks Department told him it had "no control" over the trees' placement.
When neighbor Mark Field asked the workers' supervisor why they were cutting up the sidewalk for the two trees, the supervisor checked a clipboard and answered: "Those are my orders."
"Obviously, the people who did that had just had a liquid lunch. It doesn't make sense," said City Councilman Leroy Comrie, a Democrat.
11 comments:
This headline is misleading.
The title should really be....
"City Agency Screws Up Something as Simple as Planting a Tree".
This is not a response to this particular post but your blog in general. I came across it because I worked at my local historical society in Queens as a teenager and became interested in the history of my neighborhood.
I love my home, my street, my borough as much as anyone, but I am chilled at the virulence and hate that appears on this blog week after week. The fact is that the city has been home to immigrants for over a hundred years, and to attribute all urban ills to illegal immigration or even immigration in general is not only too simplistic an explanation, but also irresponsible. Please, if you are going to make racist comments, please at least have the testicles to do it under your own name rather than anonymously. These are your neighbors, our neighbors you are talking about so inhumanely.
I am the child of immigrants. I am an American citizen, born and bred. I love Queens, I love New York City and I want to preserve its history as much as you do. And the fact of the matter is that the next generation of American citizens will look even more diverse than it has in the past. No amount of chest-thumping and hysteria is going to change that. Please, please, please, stop posting pictures and speaking about Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and people of color on your blog as if they can ONLY be criminals, as if white people don't commit crimes at all in New York. That is bullshit.
They are much more than that. They are like you, and me, and just because you don't understand them does mean they are the sole cause of all our city's problems.
DIANA SAID............
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are you a child of a leagl immigrants or illegal immigrants? and who is to say we are all white people blogging here? maybe, we, as people having to follow the law of the land are sick and tired of carrying the burden of people who don't. this is AMERICA,you have the right to your opinion as i have the right to mine. you may not agree with my opinion, but you have the right not to read it. so take this as you will but in my opinion, you need to learn to relax.......
Those trees are great.too bad the shopkeepers and landlords won't loosen the soil,clean weeds and duh water the trees once a week.All th$$$money spent to plant,but no maintenance!
Stimulus money for this? I do not see why these funds are applied to regular city budget items. Cities and states are lining up at the trough to fill budget gaps, not to expand our economy. Something is wrong here.I heard all stimulus $$$ was tracked on some website/spreadsheet. Who monitors what Bloomturd actually does with this money? It should not go to payroll, equipment, etc. How exactly does this stimulate the economy?
"Street trees sometimes cause problems"
They also cause pollution..according to the great genius Ronald Reagan.
I always thought trees clean the pollution. Ronald Regan really said that? Well i think they should plant more. To many people are not allowing the city to plant and it's a shame. In the summer you want the shade of a tree, keeps your house cooler. the trees they're planting are not big rooted ones, so it should be safe to plant one and not destroying your foundation.
Diana -
1) This post is about street trees.
2) I post about crime when I feel it is relevant or to make people aware to be on the lookout for someone dangerous. I have posted photos of white people as well as blacks, hispanics, asians, etc.
3) I have never attributed anything bad to legal immigration.
4) If you don't like what you read here, don't come here. It's still a free country last I checked.
We need a lot more trees, bushes and green roofs if we want it so that the sewage treatment plant doesn't overflow into the Newtown creek every time it rains. But seriously you can't just plant a tree and hope it grows, they need o give them a lot more room. Often I see the sidewalk pavement go right up to the tree. This is why its broken.
The real reason this happens is that no one wants to do it right the first time because now they are going to get paid to come back and fix it. Its the best kind of job security "in these troubled economic times yadda yadda".
Diana, you are not alone.
There are a handful of sane folks around here who are equally dismayed by the rampant racism expressed even in this, the most diverse county in the US.
wow this topic is about trees and diana if your so upset with the blogs maybe sweetie you shouldn't come onto crapper. everyone has a right for their opinion and sadly everyone is a racist of some kind. i'm sure at one time you didn't like someone or a race, you can't be perfect. I don't like having our tax dollars wasted on educating illegals. They don't pay tax and if they can't find work, oh well time to go back home to your country. illegals can be of any race, they are abusing the system and we need to give workshops to the americans who are seeking work.
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