Q&A
Council Member Sandy Nurse discusses public bathroom improvements and maintenance
1:10:37
·
3 min
Council Member Sandy Nurse inquires about accommodations for various needs in automated public toilets and suggests exploring the use of vacant storefronts for public bathrooms. She also emphasizes the need for increased funding for maintenance workers to keep public bathrooms clean and safe.
- Nurse highlights the importance of sinks in bathroom stalls for menstrual cup users and accommodations for diaper changes and delivery workers.
- Ya-Ting Liu, Chief Public Realm Officer, acknowledges the points and promises to follow up with more specific information.
- Nurse proposes using vacant storefronts as public bathrooms to simplify plumbing issues and suggests issuing RFPs for management.
- The council member calls for parks to request more funding for maintenance workers in the next budget cycle to improve bathroom cleanliness and safety.
Sandy Nurse
1:10:37
I'm gonna be very fast.
1:10:39
I wanna talk about the automate automated public toilets what's the company named JC?
1:10:45
Just oh, yeah.
1:10:46
I'm okay to go.
1:10:48
Just wanna double check for how they're accommodating the multiple needs of a public restroom.
1:10:54
So one of the things that that I gripe about is not all the a lot of stalls in our public bathrooms don't have a sink in them.
1:11:02
And as people are utilizing menstrual cups, for example, if you don't have sink, it's it's quite it's messy.
1:11:09
I won't go into details here, but making sure that someone can change their diaper, making, you know, there's needs of workers.
1:11:19
People who are especially are delivery workers, they need to lock up a bike near it.
1:11:24
So just wondering how these this this company that's installing this and redesigning it, how they're accommodating all of that, all of those different needs in some of their redesign work.
Ya-Ting Liu
1:11:41
That yeah.
1:11:41
No.
1:11:42
Those are absolutely great points, and we can absolutely circle back with you to get more specific I know that JC Dakota is in the process, right, of updating the units that they are giving to New York City as part of this massive, like, FCRC franchise agreement that has just been re upped.
1:12:06
I know that a lot of the elements have to do with the kind of water and sewer electrical connections in these new units so that they're less underground intensive.
1:12:20
To the other amenities, that critical amenities that you're talking about, we we can circle back with you just to make sure how the new designs are accounting for.
1:12:29
Okay.
1:12:30
That's all on this.
Sandy Nurse
1:12:30
I can submit the question and follow-up.
1:12:32
And then the only other thing I would say is that I I somebody had come to us about looking at commercial corridors where they are vacant storefronts because it sounds like the plumbing issue and and water and all the underground networks is a big issue.
1:12:47
And, you know, I think we should be looking at vacant storefronts where you can be setting up stalls that can be publicly managed and and have workers because that kinda cuts out half of your stuff.
1:12:59
Right?
1:12:59
You're just doing internal plumbing and filings of paperwork.
1:13:02
And I think we should be exploring that kind of model similar to what you mentioned in your testimony testimony about, you know, cities paying businesses or incentivizing it.
1:13:11
We could also be, you know, doing RFPs for people to manage these things.
1:13:15
And and lastly, I I do hope that parks comes next budget season and asks for more money for maintenance workers because we're we're 3 budget cycles in, and everyone says we do the best with what we got, but it's not enough.
1:13:27
And every time you guys just tell us to our face that you have what you need and you don't.
1:13:31
So just come and tell us what you need.
1:13:33
And we'll fight for it.
1:13:35
We're already fighting for it, but, you know, we need the workforce to accommodate this so that the our bathrooms, you know, don't have smeared feces as people were mentioning outside today.
1:13:44
We need it to to be clean and safe.
1:13:47
Thank you, chair.
Lincoln Restler
1:13:48
Thank you very much, council member nurse.
