Developers and investor consortium looking to supress environmental review of luxury tower development by Flushing Creek

Curbed

Along the banks of the Flushing Creek—one of New York’s most vital and most polluted waterways—dozens of construction cranes loom over the landscape, and half-finished glass towers cast ominous shadows over the water. During heavy rain storms, the waterway regularly swells, flooding pathways in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the streets of Willets Point, and even portions of the Van Wyck Expressway. And after those storms, the city’s overtaxed sewer system often pours raw sewage into the creek and Flushing Bay, causing a stench to waft from its brackish waters. Dead fish occasionally float upon its surface.

But this chunk of Queens real estate has been targeted for development by a consortium of landowners and stakeholders, including a group called the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corporation (FWPCLDC) that has long pushed for revamping the waterfront. Last December, the group quietly submitted plans to redevelop a 29-acre stretch of industrial property along the waterfront, which would include rezoning the northernmost section from manufacturing to residential use.

The proposal calls for creating a Special Flushing Waterfront District, which could accommodate a huge mixed-use development with more than 1,700 apartments, retail, a hotel, and publicly accessible open space (including a riverfront promenade that would connect to the recently opened Skyview Flushing Creek Promenade). Developers also want to integrate a publicly accessible road network with the existing street grid, effectively expanding downtown Flushing. The portion of land that would be rezoned could eventually be home to just under 100 below-market-rate apartments.

While proponents say the development will benefit the community, critics are concerned that development will have “immense impacts” on the fragile condition of the Flushing waterfront. 

“Adding significant residential development could overwhelm the Creek’s overburdened infrastructure that already releases over one billion gallons of raw sewage and stormwater runoff into the Creek every year,” the Guardians of Flushing Bay, a group of environmental activists, said in a statement. “Though the plan aims to provide critical access to a virtually inaccessible swath of the waterfront, it is essential that this project, if enacted, be implemented in a way that would enhance coastal resiliency, recreation opportunities, ecological stewardship and equitable access to the waterfront.”

The proposal comes as downtown Flushing experiences a development boom: Between 2009 and 2019, the neighborhood saw the second-largest number of condos constructed in New York City after Williamsburg, Brooklyn, according to Nancy Packes Data Services, a real estate consultancy and database provider. Over the past five years, rents have climbed by a whopping 21 percent. Although historically home to a largely working- and middle-class Chinese immigrant population, many of Flushing’s new developments—such as the massive The Grand at Skyview Parc, which has two-bedrooms selling for around $1.27 million—cater to a new wave of immigrants with deep pockets.

With Flushing booming, the waterfront remains the last frontier for developers. But given the size of the proposal from the FWPCLDC, as well as the fact that the Special Flushing Waterfront District is situated in a coastal flood hazard area, critics have argued that an environmental impact study—which is not required for this particular project—must be conducted before the plan moves forward.

“They’re adding three million square feet along the waterfront,” says Tarry Hum, chair of the Queens College Department of Urban Studies. “Can you imagine the environmental impact?

Update: Community Board 7 approves the rezoning anyway

 At a tense Monday night meeting, Community Board 7 voted 30-8 to approve a development team’s plan to rezone a large section of land by Flushing Creek.

Dozens of protesters showed up to criticize the land-use application filed by FWRA, a consortium of real estate firms behind the project.

The development group wants to rezone a section of the area so it can construct a 13-tower project with 1,725 residential units and 879 hotel rooms–along with retail and office space–by the waterfront.

The 29-acre property is bound to the north by 36th Avenue, to the east by College Point Boulevard and to the south by Roosevelt Avenue.

FWRA seeks the creation of the Special Flushing Waterfront District and a rezoning in order to move ahead with the proposed plan.

The standing-room only meeting was heated. Activists grew frustrated that they were unable to speak until after FWRA presented its lengthy and time-consuming presentation, which continued on until after 9 p.m.

“Let us speak,” some in the crowd pleaded during FWRA’s presentation.

CB 7 Chairman Gene Kelty walked into the crowd and tried to hush some of the unsatisfied people who were waiting for their turn to speak.

In a video of the meeting, one frustrated woman tells Kelty, “Why are you saying this is a public hearing? This is not a public hearing and you know it.”

The footage shows the CB 7 chairman saying, “It is a public hearing,” uttering a few more words that are drowned out by other noise, and then appearing to lunge at the woman to steal her phone before being stopped by police officers and others.

“Let us speak! Let us speak!” the group chanted as Kelty walked away.

Broken 30 year old sewer main pipe caused raw sewage to flood houses in South Ozone Park

NY Post

The massive sewage spill that forced dozens of families out of their homes in Queens was caused by a catastrophic pipe collapse — and not a grease clog caused by residents, as city officials initially claimed.

The city Department of Environmental Protection’s six-page review, a copy of which was obtained by 
The Post, found the key clue came from a massive sinkhole that opened in a roadway above where the massive 42-inch sewer main broke.

“The road collapsing due to the subsidence of overburden demonstrates that the 42-inch sewer constructed in 1987 is significantly collapsed, and that any other cause for the November 30th blockage is extremely unlikely,” DEP concluded.

The massive 20-foot deep sinkhole revealed that an estimated 250 cubic feet of dirt had disappeared from the site.

“DEP accepts responsibility,” for the flood of sewage and resulting damages.

It filed the report with the City Comptroller on Dec. 16, clearing the way for the city to pay the South Ozone Park residents for damages.

All told, the DEP said 74 homes were flooded when the sewer line, which was built in 1987 and buried 40 feet beneath ground, broke along 150th Street, near JFK Airport.

The result mess left dozens of residents in the southeast Queens neighborhood waking up on Nov. 30 to the putrid smell of sewage in their basements.

City officials initially pinned the mess on a grease clog in the pipe and even suggested that residents may have caused the problem by dumping grease from Thanksgiving meals down drains.

How did it take 3 weeks to find this out when there was a massive sinkhole in the middle of South Conduit Blvd? When did the EPA actually show up there?

South Ozone Park sewage claims clinic hearing tommorow

City Council gets to hear it from South Ozone Park residents about city's shitty response to sewage overflow

Jamaica Patch


In the basement of Laron Harmon's South Ozone Park home, no space went to waste. It was fully furnished, and Harmon kept all his clothing down there. It's where his daughter, who was back home from college for Thanksgiving, had put her clothes into the washing machine. His 10-year-old son's toys and bicycle were there too.

About 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 30, that basement started filling with waste. Harmon had gotten used to sewage and flooding issues in the three decades he'd lived there, and he cleaned out the sewer trap in his basement twice a year. But he had never seen anything like this.

"By nine o'clock in the morning, I had close to four feet of sewage in my basement," he said.

Harmon was one of four South Ozone Park residents who recounted tales of raw sewage flooding their homes that morning as part of a City Council oversight hearing Wednesday on how city officials dealt with the crisis, which affected an estimated 74 homes.

"I'm one of those families that had to sleep in their car, in my driveway with my children," Harmon said in his testimony.

 Nearly two weeks later, residents like Harmon continue to grapple with the aftermath of the sewage that devastated their homes. Harmon said he still hasn't gone back home, where there's no heat or hot water. Instead, he's living in a hotel.

"I've never seen nothing like this before," he said. "This was a disaster."

City Council representatives lambasted the Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the city's wastewater plants and sewer system, for being slow to respond to the crisis and promoting a narrative that blamed the backup on residents pouring grease down their drains.

"They certainly didn't deserve to be publicly shamed in the midst of a tragedy," City Council Member Adrienne Adams said.

Adams said her constituents' calls to 311, the city's emergency hotline, went unaddressed for hours and that it took the Department of Environmental Protection hours to arrive at the scene and start fixing the issue.

Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Vincent Sapienza said crews had arrived that morning, hours before Adams claimed, but acknowledged that issues communicating with 311 representatives meant they were slow to realize all the flooding complaints were connected.

Queens Eagle 

 Some lost prized possessions, like clothes, toys and furniture. Others said they waded through knee-deep muck to try to stem the tide of raw sewage. One man questioned how he would ever get the stench of human waste out of his basement, where the wastewater rose more than four feet.

Inside the City Council chambers on Wednesday, South Ozone Park homeowners took turns describing the impact of the sewer backup that flooded dozens of basements during Thanksgiving weekend.

The wastewater affected about 80 houses in the early morning hours of Nov. 30, destroyed belongings and filling home with a lingering odor.

“It was almost like I was in a horror movie,” said Kari White, president of the 149 Street South Ozone Park Civic Association. White described moving from house to house in his neighborhood as wastewater filled neighbors’ basements. He said he refused to even enter one house because it was the stench was so foul.

Comptroller Scott Stringer, who is tasked for making sure these residents get compensated for their destroyed belongings, did not show up at the hearing.

Mayor Big Slow finally shows up to South Ozone Park to assess waste water damage

CBS New York I am here now he says. Idiot.

D.E.P. immediately blames 300 homeowners for the rivers of feces in their basements

NBC New York

New York City residents are dealing with awful and vomit-inducing conditions days after a sewer backup forced them to leave their homes. Officials say the disruption pushed human waste into about 300 homes in Jamaica, Queens.

They think cooking grease poured down the drain might be the culprit. The city’s water agency says drinking water is safe and unaffected.

Cynthia McKenzie said she woke up around 3 a.m. Saturday to an odor she thought was a gas leak, only to realize that sewage water was rushing into her basement.

“When you open it, it just smells,” she said. “It makes you want to vomit. We have to pack up all the clothes.” 

 Raw sewage. There were worms coming out of the toilet. Sludge. Feces. All kinds of stuff," said South Ozone Park resident Gwen McElroy.

Why does the city (mainly the D.E.P.) think the residents are at fault and are sticking with that theory before they actually find the cause? This preemptive determination smells shittier than the stench and the gallons of biological waste they are hosing back out.

Backed up sewer line inundates South Jamaica homes with crappy water and the city is slow to help

NY Daily News
 

Queens residents driven from their homes by a clogged sewer line demanded answers Sunday from city officials who said they weren’t sure when the problem would be fixed.

A jam in a sewer line serving 300 homes in a swath of South Jamaica just north of Kennedy Airport backed up raw, fetid sewage into about 80 residences on Saturday.

Officials from the Department of Environmental Protection, which runs the city sewer system, said they weren’t sure when flooded-out residents could return.

“We are alive and OK but everything is gone,” said Sani Lakudi, 50, an Uber driver who lives in the neighborhood. “My TV, printer, computer — they are ruined. We stayed up all night pumping water. We had to do what we had to do or the water would have destroyed everything.”

“Nobody from the city has come to me,” Lakudi added. “We are doing all the work ourselves.”

Streets were blocked off, including 133rd Ave. near Inwood St., as crews pumped out of the blocked sewer to keep the smelly, stinking waste from pouring back into homes across the 15-square block area affected by the crisis.

Residents were asked to turn off their heat, hot water and electricity while the problem was addressed.

DEP spokesman Edward Timbers said crews worked overnight to “pump around” a blockage in the neighborhood’s main sewer conduit near 150th St and Rockaway Blvd.

City officials on Saturday said that 300 homes were affected by the sewage backup. On Sunday, Timbers said that figure was the total number of residences served by the affected sewer line, and that only about 80 of them were flooded.

“We don’t know when it will be fixed,” said Timbers. “People should contact their home insurance carrier. The DEP has been helping people fill out claim forms against the city.”

A bypass system to prevent further basement flooding was to be finished by Sunday evening, Timbers said.

City screws Astoria homeowners financially from shitty water main repair job

(Photo by Jeff Fox/THE CITY)

THE CITY

 Astoria homeowners are fighting to recoup tens of thousands of dollars they say they were forced to spend after a city water main repair snafu sent raw sewage spewing into their homes.

The Department of Design and Construction acknowledged in letters obtained by THE CITY that a “number” of sewer-to-house connections were “inadvertently damaged” as a result of a water main project that began two summers ago.

 “The contractor when excavating on 38th Street affected a series of private sewer connections that were not indicated on the maps,” DDC spokesperson Shoshana Khantold THE CITY. “As a result, several of those lines were severed.”

 Yet some residents on the quiet stretch of 38th Street between 21st Avenue and Ditmars Boulevard say they can’t get city government to pay back the cash they were forced to spend on cleanup.

Some say they’re getting no clear answer on the holdup, while others say they’re caught in a bureaucratic Catch-22: a 90-day statute of limitations that ended before problems emerged.

“All of us got negatively impacted by this work,” said Jeff Fox, 40, a longtime homeowner. “It strikes me as incredibly unfair they can get away with doing shoddy work.”

City: "Now that LIC is overdeveloped, let's worry about infrastructure"

From LIC Post:

The city has committed to investing millions in Long Island City under a new plan released today aimed at supporting sustainable growth in the neighborhood.

The Long Island City Investment Strategy, as the longterm plan is called, outlines the ways the city is and will be addressing practically all infrastructure in the neighborhood, ranging from parks, schools, transportation, and sewage systems.

To fund the improvements, the city is funneling $180 million into the neighborhood on top of $2.2 billion it says it has invested into the area over the years.

The city admits the impetus for its strategy comes from rapid residential development that has strained neighborhood resources and the quality of life of people living in the neighborhood since the 2001 rezoning.

The plan, additionally, stems from coordinating with multiple city agencies and engaging with the community since 2015, where the city heard concerns from distressed locals on infrastructure keeping pace with development.

Middle Village basements fill up with crap after heavy rain

From the NY Post:

Residents in Middle Village are up to their knees in their own waste any time there’s heavy rain — thanks to aging sewer lines the city hasn’t fixed despite a decade of promises, The Post has learned.

“I pray when I hear storms coming,” said Pat Donovan, 66, one of many local residents affected by the overflowing sewers.

Last Tuesday, a powerful storm pounded the central Queens community, causing the sewers to back up and leaving homeowners with as much as 3 feet of waste in their basements, with “actual turds” floating in the noxious waters, residents and a local official said.

“We had a waterfall just coming out of the toilet in my basement,” said Louisa Gennari, 61, who called dealing with the floods a “horrific” battle.

“Somebody came in to help us at some point and he went home and put his feet in alcohol,” she said. “It was disgusting.”

The problem goes back decades, but came to light on Aug. 8, 2007, when a flash flood left Middle Village residents with tens of thousands of dollars in damage, with many needing help from FEMA.

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection said the existing storm drains can handle only 1.5 inches of rain — and after that storm, it vowed to fix the issue with drains that can handle 1.75 inches.

It slapped a $22 million price tag on the project, but waited nine more years to break ground in May 2016. It was then halted in November 2017 when contaminated soil was discovered.

The city’s Department of Design and Construction said an additional $8 million was needed to finish the job, but those funds were never allocated.

Overdevelopment leads to shitty beaches

From the NY Post:

The waters at three beaches in southeast Brooklyn were festering with so much fecal bacteria, they were deemed unsafe for swimming on 101 days over the past two summers, according to city Health Department records.

The filthy surf plagued the roughly mile-long stretch covered by Kiddie, Manhattan and Kingsborough Community College beaches, which are concentrated around Rockaway Inlet.

They accrued more than triple the total bacteria warnings issued at the city’s seven other public beaches. Ocean beaches have less stagnant water than inlet beaches.

The Health Department attributed the bacteria uptick to “increased rainfall.”

A clean-water advocate explained that the city has 460 points along its shoreline where about 27 billion gallons of raw sewage and storm water are dumped into New York Harbor every year when combined sanitary-storm sewers overflow during heavy storms.

“That’s the product of hundreds of years of overdevelopment in the city,” said Dan Shapley, the water-quality program director for Riverkeeper. He explained that certain city sewer designs date back to “when people were dying of cholera and the goal was to get [the sewage] out and away from the neighborhood as fast as possible.”

Here's where they want you to hold onto your poop

From QNS:

The next time it rains, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) wants Queens residents to wait until it stops before doing the dishes, taking a shower or flushing a toilet.

The appropriately titled “Wait…” pilot program is expanding throughout western Queens, the DEP announced on Monday. Participating homeowners and tenants are sent text messages alerting them that the Newtown Creek and Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment plants are near capacity — and that they should minimize their water use in order to prevent sewer overflows from spilling into already polluted waterways such as the Newtown Creek and Flushing Creek.

The pilot program area of Queens covers all neighborhoods north of the Jackie Robinson Parkway and west of the Van Wyck Expressway, as well as portions of Kew Gardens Hills and Briarwood.

According to advocates, the Wait Program is geared at educating the public about where their dirty water winds up after going down the drain. Wastewater produced whenever someone washes clothes or dishes, or even flushes a toilet, travels into the city’s vast underground sewer system, destined for one of many sewage treatment plants for cleanup and processing.

But in a heavy rain event, not all of the storm runoff and wastewater winds up in the sewage treatment plants. When the plants hit capacity, excess wastewater is expelled through combined sewer overflows into waterways across the city. About 90 percent of the overflow is comprised of storm runoff, and the rest is household wastewater containing detergents, chemicals and raw sewage.

Hey, how about limiting the building in these boroughs until the city gets a handle on how much waste they produce?

What killed the Flushing Creek fish?

From the Queens Tribune:

With reports last week of “thousands of dead fish” floating in Flushing Creek, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) placed the blame on predatory TK fish, which the agency said chased the defenseless fish into low-oxygen areas where they ultimately died.

But Councilman Peter Koo (D-Flushing) and local environmentalists tell a different story, blaming the deaths of the fish on the polluted conditions in the creek, where the city is currently looking to reduce combined sewage overflows (CSOs). These are instances where, during heavy rainfall, sewage-treatment plants cannot handle the increased load, and a combination of excess rainwater and untreated sewage seeps into local waterways.

On Aug. 11, Koo used the deaths of the fish as evidence that the city should rethink its long-term control plan for Flushing Creek and Flushing Bay—which is the DEP’s plan to reduce CSOs. Alongside environmentalists, Koo argued that the plan’s use of chlorine to disinfect the waters could have a negative impact on the waters’ ecosystems, and that the city should invest in increasing the capacity of the area’s sewage infrastructure.

The DEP also says it sampled the waters the Monday before the fish kill, which occurred on Aug. 9, and found sufficient oxygen to support marine life. Additionally, it says the rain that occurred that Monday was all captured by the $350 million sewer overflow tank. It argues that fish kills like this have happened before, and if the water conditions were at fault, the predatory fish would be dying as well. The DEP is building green infrastructure in the area to capture stormwater before it enters the sewer system.

But marine immunologist James Cervino, who is the chairman of Community Board 7’s environmental committee, said that he analyzed the dead fish and concluded that the fish were killed by polluted waters. He said that had the fish been killed off in a predatory event, there would be “massive lesions and bitemarks.”

“There [are] no bitemarks,” he said. “Some of the fish have been eaten by blue fish and chased, which is a normal process, but a majority of fish that died off were due to a harmful algal bloom.”

What the hell is a TK fish?

Scientist discovers MacNeil Park sewage problem

From QNS:

At first glance, the bubbling puddle shown on video taken at College Point‘s MacNeil Park this weekend doesn’t look that bad. The smell and the contents of the water, however, told a much more dangerous story.

Dr. James Cervino, a local marine scientist, told QNS that the geyser popped in the park in the last few days. He took a sample of the water for testing which revealed that it contained two different types of bacteria — E.coli and enterococcus — typically found in raw sewage.

At first, no one in the neighborhood knew for certain how or why the wretched geyser formed, according to Cervino. The city’s Parks Department, however, was able to provide an answer on Monday afternoon.

“There was a blockage in the sewer line which caused a backup in MacNeil Park,” a Parks Department spokesperson told QNS on Aug. 7. “Parks plumbers have been on site since 8 a.m. this morning to assess the situation. Parks hired a cesspool company to clear the line, and we are working with DDC (the Department of Design and Construction) to repair the issue.”

While the sewage-laden area was roped off, the rest of MacNeil Park remains open, the Parks Department added.

The Parks Department’s response came after state Senator Tony Avella — whom Cervino alerted about the condition over the weekend — reached out to the city’s Parks Department, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of Health. He then followed up on Aug. 7 with a letter to the commissioners of all three agencies demanding that the problem be fixed, as well as a joint investigation to figure out what happened.

Sewer construction causes Whitestone debacle

From CBS:

Homeowners in Whitestone, Queens are dealing with a stinking mess after sewage backed up into their basements.

As CBS2’s Jessica Borg reported, residents on Tenth Avenue between 152 and 154th streets in Whitestone said they were living a nightmare during Friday’s rainstorm – as toilets turned into fountains and raw sewage covered basement floors.

And on Monday people like Jeanmarie Golden were still cleaning up. They were also still dealing with the stench.

Residents blame construction on their block for the sewage overflow. Crews with the city’s Department of Design and Construction are working on the street’s sewer pipes.

The department said the project is to “upgrade aging infrastructure.”

But resident James Martino said it is no upgrade. He believes the re-lining of the pipe caused the problem.

“It made the pipe circumference smaller, so it couldn’t handle the sewage that was being pumped,” Martino said.

Residents said they have had thousands of dollars’ worth property destroyed. The Kelly family had to throw away furniture, tools, and clothing.

The city said the project was completed earlier this month and there was simply too much rain for the sewer system to handle. CBS2’s Borg could not get answers when she asked how the pipes will handle future downpours.

Flushing Bay dredging to commence

From Curbed:

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced the projected $34 million cleanup which is to be completed in phases that will likely carry on for decades. In fact, could take as long as until 2042 to complete if things go according to the DEP’s plan.

The first phase will focus on decommissioning the ten sewage outflows that spill into the bay. Next, the DEP plans to create a three acre marsh and mudflat area to help filter the water. Ultimately, the goal is to build a 2.5 mile tunnel and “dewatering” station that would divert sewage away from the bay and into a pumping system for processing but that could cost as much as $5.7 billion and has not received approval from the state.

Now that's what you call a shithouse!

From PIX11:

Instead of a sanctuary, a Queens home is more like a biohazard.

Maria Garcet said her home is sitting on raw sewage but she doesn’t know where it’s coming from or how to clean it up, so she called PIX11 News.

When our crew arrived, we smelled the problem right away. Dirty water and raw sewage was seeping into her front lawn, backyard and beneath her home.

Her neighbor Mo Rahman is beyond angry.

“This whole house is floating on human waste, literally, totally, totally human waste,” Rahman said.

Three families live in the apartment complex, some with small children.

Rahman said he's called every city agency and nothing has been done.

That's a lot of crap!

From Crains:

A review of data reported under New York's 2012 Sewage Pollution Right to Know Act shows that nearly 2,700 sewage overflows were reported between May 2013 and June 2015.

The nonprofit Environmental Advocates of New York released a report on the sewage overflows on Thursday. The group reports 2,696 overflows during that span but says the true number is likely higher because of inconsistent data collection.

The group says funding for the state Department of Environmental Conservation must be increased to enforce the law and finalize regulations to provide standard reporting requirements.

Astoria craphouse redux

Hi Crappie,

The house at address: 34-06 38th st. Astoria that leaks crap is leaking crap again. I don't know what you did last time, but it worked! Maybe you can do it again?

Jimmy

Well guess what, Jimmy? 4 of the 5 members of the City Council's Environmental Protection Committee are STILL from Queens! Including Astoria's own council member, Costa Constantinides! I'm sure he'll get right on this (again)!

East Elmhurst asked for infrastructure upgrade, got dog run instead

Bill Parry/Times Ledger

From the Times Ledger:

Rev. Lisa D. Jenkins, and several of her East Elmhurst neighbors, were in shock when they learned the city plans to invest $3.2 million to upgrade Overlook Park and build the neighborhood’s first dog run. When the project was announced in October, the city Parks Department said it would improve green space and the quality of life for area residents.

The minister said $3.2 million to renovate a park was not what the residents and homeowners had asked the city for.

“For decades we have asked for the sewer system and piping in our streets to be replaced,”Jenkins said. “For decades we have had sewer backups and water damage. Our homes have consistent water damage and permanent mold because the problem will not go away.”

Every time it rains, the system that was built in the 1930s and 1950s is overwhelmed with raw sewage and stormwater run-off, she said, bubbles up through toilet and floor drains into her basement. Black mold is a fixture on the floor and walls and the door to the basement is covered with plastic sheeting.

Jenkins has suffered respiratory problems from the mold and mildew left behind by frequent flooding.

“It’s bananas, it’s really hard to wrap your head around,” she said. “My parents made that basement my own when I was growing up and now I can’t even go down there without a breathing apparatus. I’ve got no more money to make repairs. As a single mother with a kid in college, I can’t even get insurance anymore. What happens if there’s a fire? I’ll be homeless. We’re told they don’t have the money to replace the pipes in our streets, but they have $3.2 million for a dog run? Our houses are deteriorating and nobody is concerned. Who will hear us?”