Friday, May 8, 2015
DOT damages woman's property while paving
From PIX11:
Like so many other streets in Jamaica, Queens, Foch Boulevard was riddled with potholes and in desperate need of paving. So when the New York City Department of Transportation began working on the street in late April, resident Latisha Wilson was relieved. But, she says, “Something went wrong with one of their trucks and the tar got all over my property, the gates, the sidewalks, the retaining walls.”
Letisha grabbed her cell phone and documented the damage, the wet tar covering the concrete slabs on top of the wall surrounding her yard, tar on the fence, the gate posts, even tar footprints from the workers’ shoes leading up the stairs to Latisha’s home.
“One of the guys came over and apologized, he said he was sorry, that it was an accident,” said Latisha. “He said we’ll clean it up.”
The D.O.T. used a power washer to try and remove the tar, but Latisha says it made the situation worse. So she called PIX11 to show us what it looked like two weeks after the power washing. Much of the tar was still visible and wet. In addition, the clean-up efforts also damaged the sidewalk. When it became clear this was a much bigger job than could be done with t power washer, the D.O.T. workers told her she would need to file a damaged property claim with the New York City Comptroller’s office.
7 comments:
I feel terrible for this property owner; I hope she is able to get this resolved, but I wonder how long it will take, or even if it will happen at all?
I think eventually she will have to get a lawyer, and this will add to her expenses and frustration, but it may be the only way to get this resolved....
Tell that lady that baby oil could remove some of the tar. Yes , baby oil!
Good luck! I am still waiting 5 years later for DOT to repair my sidewalk they broke during paving of the street!
They did it in Fresh Meadows too. Power Concrete just knocks over bricks own people's lawns and destroys the outer edge of the grass. I've seen sidewalks where they didn't lay down the barrier and poured the concrete, allowing some of the concrete to go on the grass. They also poured some of the concrete on days where it was below freezing. When they finish the job, they've left broken shovels and other tools on other people's lawns even after coming back to take their cones.
@anon 1:
citrus-based cleaners like goo-gone took roofing tar off my hardwood floor like it was water. should pull it right off the tile.
So careless and incompetent. It's looks like a squid ejaculated on that fence. And the following week DOT workers splooged on it.
Where is the accountability that I thought we were getting, Blaz? And why is Southeast Queens continued to be shat upon when it's not ignored?
That woman better get paid. Unfortunately the only witnesses are the stooges that wrecked the sidewalk.
The curb in front of my property has been seriously damaged by DOT since October 2007, when they repaved my street, as I caught them in the act of damaging my curb, where the work foreman himself assured me that a repair crew will return within 10 days to repair it. It never happened!
Despite repeated calls to Councilman Eric Ulrich (corrupt, dishonest and derelict), Assemblyman Michele Titus (worthless), State Senator James Sanders (equally worthless and unresponsive), and my district's former Senator Joseph Addabbo, Jr. (an exalted Babylonian king of unprecedented failure and corruption), Community Board 10 (a country club), 311 (useless), an incomplete letter written by the Public Advocate (11/02/09), to Queens DOT Deputy Commissioner Leon Heyward, and anyone else who continues to practice selective (and occasional) representation, my curb is exactly the way DOT left it in the fall of 2007--with large jagged chunks of concrete missing, which I've stored in my garage as proof of DOT negligence.
Instead of a repair date, the city last told me to have the missing curb repaired myself, followed by sending the bill to whatever bureaucrat du jour will undoubtedly ignore it.
Now, since it looks like it won't be repaired before the end of my natural life span, I will patiently wait for someone to have an accident while parking their oversize car in front of my home (and partially blocking my driveway, no less), and falling on top of this jagged part of unpaved curb space that is missing, and leave this derelict city to their own unresponsive devices, for a lawsuit to eventually prevail!
Yet another blatant, egregious example of taxation without representation!
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