QUESTION
Does the parks department have adequate resources and staffing to maintain city parks?
5:31:42
·
119 sec
The parks department representatives state that they do not have enough staff and resources to properly maintain and clean city parks.
- There is a shortage of staff to clean up needles in parks, especially in the Bronx where there is an 'epidemic' of needles.
- Some parks workers are experiencing homelessness themselves.
- There are not enough staff for late night lockups and cleaning after the second shift was eliminated.
- Parks are left extremely messy after holidays, requiring significant effort to clean up.
- Staff numbers have been decreasing year after year despite growing needs.
- Union representatives agree that staffing levels are severely inadequate to do the job properly.
Shekar Krishnan
5:31:42
I just have two questions.
5:31:44
One was Do you feel that you all have the resources you need now to keep the parks clean, to do your job?
5:31:54
Do you feel the parks budget gives you what you need to do your job.
Dilcy Benn
5:31:57
No way.
5:31:59
No way we we have enough to do our jobs.
5:32:01
I have you talked about the needle crew.
5:32:04
Okay.
5:32:05
In the Bronx, there's an epidemic of these needles.
5:32:07
And we only have 2 needle needles, and there's not enough people to clean them up.
5:32:12
We don't have enough people to clean up.
5:32:14
On top of that, I have twelve people that are homeless right right now.
5:32:18
They work for the city of New York.
5:32:20
Okay?
5:32:20
We don't have enough staff and they're not getting on on enough people to even clean up by do the late lockup.
5:32:27
And this second shift that they just took away, Okay?
5:32:31
And they told them they had primary jobs, well, the people that did the lockup.
5:32:35
So now they were here during the winter, and now the summer's coming when everybody's coming out into the playgrounds, and they have no money to lock up, and they take these lines.
5:32:45
These lines end on June 30th.
5:32:47
So who's gonna lock up the parks?
5:32:48
You have the games out there.
5:32:50
You have people out there, Bobby Chuman.
5:32:52
You have the kids out there in the parks.
5:32:54
At night, they we have to lock up in order to clean up during the day.
5:32:58
Take a walk on a 143rd Street in Lenox Avenue on on C.
5:33:02
Jackie Robinson Park on one of these parks.
5:33:05
After the 4th July or either after holiday.
5:33:09
And see, it looks like it looks like a bat a battle zone.
5:33:12
It takes them almost half the day just to clean that.
5:33:15
Okay.
5:33:15
We don't have enough staff now.
5:33:17
And they talk about taking these lines.
5:33:19
Every year, we come back in here, and we lose more and more and more every year.
5:33:24
It's not enough staff now.
5:33:25
There's no way in the world is enough staff to do this job.
5:33:28
No way.
Joe Puleo
5:33:30
I agree with severe severely on the staff.
5:33:33
And we do need, you know, to bring bring our numbers up to do the job that we'd love to do.
Shekar Krishnan
5:33:39
Thank you.
5:33:40
No further questions.
5:33:41
Counsel Amber, holding.