Thursday, August 10, 2017

Classic NYC government at work

From Brooklyn Daily:

Neighbors are outraged that the city tried to fine a Bay Ridge woman $100 for letting other residents’ garbage bags pile up in front of her 94th Street home — after it ordered residents of a nearby private street to leave them there for pick-up.

Earlier this year, the Department of Sanitation ordered residents of four private streets to start hauling their trash to the nearest public street corner to be collected, and the irony that the agency is now penalizing their neighbor for the pileup shows how flawed that new policy is, one resident said.

“Because of the change of policy, [the agency has] created a sanitary condition and is now going to penalize people for a condition created by its policy change,” said Bill Larney, who lives on Barwell Terrace, one of streets affected by the change.

The department has since moved to withdraw the July 26 summons, and claimed the ticket was a mistake. In fact, according to a agency spokeswoman, department staff was warned not to cite certain violations in the are, to avoid just such ironies.

“The Department of Sanitation instructed its enforcement personnel not to issue summonses for certain infractions at these locations,” said Kathy Dawkins. “Unfortunat­ely, a summons for storing plastic trash bags placed out on a public sidewalk on a non-collection day was issued to that address in error.”

The city told residents of Barwell Terrace, Wogan Terrace, Hamilton Walk, and Lafayette Walk back in March they they would have to start bringing their trash out to the curb of a public street for collection, ending the nearly 80-year practice of sanitation workers walking down the private walkways to pick up trash from the homes, according to Community Board 10 district manager Josephine Beckmann.

“These four locations are unique in that they’re off a main public street, and the manual collection was designed for that reason,” she said.

On June 5, the Department of Sanitation’s director of community affairs, Harry Ehrhardt, sent a letter to CB10 explaining that sanitation workers would no longer collect trash from the private streets due to safety concerns. And on June 26, residents of the four private streets responded by filing suit against the city and Department of Sanitation seeking restoration of service.

A resident who also lives on 94th Street between Hamilton and Lafayette Walks said he does not want to pay a price for the new policy because he lives in front of a newly designated trash drop-off area.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those locations are by no means "unique". There are MANY private streets in NYC - the BSA allows waivers to promote development; the new homes are required to set up HOAs. The developer reaps profits, the HOAs fade away. Meanwhile, taxes are collected for services which are not provided. The Dept of Transportation was told to report on these private streets, but no one at DoT seems to know what's going on... the usual City BS.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand the selective enforcement. There are people on my block who either never bring their garbage cans in, or put trash in front of their house on a continuous basis instead of just the evening before the pick-up - but I've never seen them get a ticket.

Anonymous said...

This is so DeBlasio.

Anonymous said...

My father got a 100 dollar fine for putting his garbage out 2 hours too early. I hate mayor dumbdumb....

(sarc) said...

Much moneys are needed from YOU for the Comrade Mayor's legal defense fund.

His Liar for hire is quite costly...

Anonymous said...

Cut the damn weeds people, WTF.

Anonymous said...

>Cut the damn weeds people, WTF.
Yeah, it's not like we need more green in this city. Keep it concrete!