REMARKS
Council Member Bottcher explains new legislation on news rack regulations
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179 sec
Council Member Erik D. Bottcher presents remarks on the new legislation (Intro 663-A) regarding news rack regulations in New York City. He emphasizes the importance of well-maintained news racks in contributing to neighborhood aesthetics and quality of life, and outlines the key provisions of the new law.
- The legislation gives the Department of Transportation (DOT) the ability to establish standards for news rack placement, installation, and design.
- It requires news rack owners to affix their contact information to the racks for easier accountability.
- Bottcher stresses that while this may seem like a small change, it significantly impacts the overall appearance and livability of neighborhoods.
Erik D. Bottcher
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New York, as we know, it's at the end of the day, we're a collection of small neighborhoods.
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And within our small neighborhoods, we take a lot of care to make them look better, make them nicer, planting trees, removing graffiti, cleaning.
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And one of the things that's holding us back from making our neighborhoods as nice as possible are often these plastic newspaper boxes on the sidewalk that are poorly maintained.
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A lot of them are well maintained, but sometimes oftentimes, they are covered in graffiti.
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They're broken.
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They're tipped over.
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They're empty.
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They are filled with garbage sometimes.
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Unfortunately, the city has had very limited tools to make sure that they are well maintained, make sure that they're placed in the right locations, to ensure that they're operative, and that has been a policy failure.
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So today, the city council is going to pass intro 810, which will direct the Department of Transportation to establish standards regarding the manner in which newsracks and boxes can be placed and installed.
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It gives the DOT the ability to create design standards regarding the size, shape, and appearance of newsracks.
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It also clarifies that news boxes shouldn't be used just for advertising or promotional purposes other than announcing the name and or the website or the publication offered for distribution.
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It would require NewsRack owners to affix their name, address, and telephone number and email address in a readily visible location on the front or the sides of the news rack.
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That way, everyone knows who's responsible for it and who to contact if there's a problem with it.
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It might sound like a small thing, but how a neighborhood looks matters.
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It affects so much else in a neighborhood, and this is just one step towards making our city, a better place to live.
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I wanna thank the cosponsor prime cosponsor of this legislation, council member Sandra Ong, and all the community organization, the bids, and everyone who's behind this.
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I also wanna thank majority whip, Selvina Brooks Powers, for her leadership as well as all the staff at, the city council and Hannah Moses and Carl Wilson in my office.
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Together, we'll work to continue working to improve life for New Yorkers in ways large and small.
