REMARKS
Council Member Avilés discusses environmental justice and language access in her district
0:09:02
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133 sec
Council Member Alexa Avilés expresses support for Intro 5, which aims to improve language access for the Citizens Air Complaint Program. She highlights the environmental justice issues in her district and emphasizes the importance of empowering residents to address air quality problems.
- Avilés represents a district with a large non-English speaking population facing numerous air quality issues
- She questions the sufficiency of current language access services for the air quality program
- Avilés calls for greater integration of language services to allow non-English speakers to participate more fully in the program
Alexa Avilés
0:09:02
Thank you, Chair general for holding this hearing today and for offering intro 5 to be heard again as we did hold a hearing for this bill as intro 898 a little more than a year ago.
0:09:15
So good afternoon, everyone.
0:09:18
As many of you know, I represent an environmental justice community with a large non English speaking constituency.
0:09:25
Nearly half of the residents in my district natively speak Spanish, Mandarin, fujones or Arabic.
0:09:32
As an environmental justice community, we are also impacted by a host of air quality issues, all of which we are working diligently on, including the BQE, which cuts through our district, a truck route that runs through the residential roadways, cruise ships that dumped toxic air exhaust into our neighborhood, and last mile vehicles at idle at their point of origin in our district, and throughout the neighborhood.
0:09:58
As they make deliveries among others.
0:10:02
While intro 5 only gets at a small portion of what we are experiencing in district 38, it makes sense to me that at the time, it makes sense to me that at a time when DEP is understaffed, and when we want to minimize police encounters where they may be unnecessary that we wouldn't find ways to further empower our residents to help make the changes that we would like to see in our own communities.
0:10:27
Last time we heard this piece of legislation, the administration testified that language access services were sufficient to help those who submitted who submitted idling reports and that it was unclear whether evidence in a legal proceeding could be submitted in a language other than English.
0:10:46
I look forward to hearing today from the administration what data they have to support the sufficiency of language access service with regards to the air quality program, as well as an answer to the question of how these same services may be used in a more integrated manner to allow for their to allow for submission of evidence allowing greater access to the program for communities like mine.
0:11:11
So thank you chair and look forward to hearing from everyone.
