Parks makes a mess, Sanitation fines homeowner

From the Daily News:

A Flatbush senior citizen was slapped with a $100 summons from one city agency last week for not cleaning up another city agency's mess.

A Sanitation Department enforcement agent wrote 78-year-old Asher Ohevshalom the costly fine for not removing six 100-pound Norway Maple tree trunks left outside his E. 27th St. home by a Parks Department crew that dismembered the dying hardwood.

Ohevshalom, who immigrated to Brooklyn from Iran 19 years ago, is a retired garment worker who survives on a $550-a-month Social Security check - and said the $100 fine is too steep for him to pony up.

Ohevshalom and neighbors placed at least two 311 complaints this month about the 20-foot-tall tree, which was rotting and dangerously teetering over his driveway, next to a city-owned guardrail on his dead-end block.

Two weeks ago, a Parks Department crew chopped down the tree, collecting all the branches but leaving behind half a dozen massive trunks.

When Ohevshalom and neighbors complained last week, Parks officials said they'd bring a shredder to chop up the wood - but not before a Sanitation agent fined Ohevshalom for a "loose rubbish" violation.