REMARKS
Council Member Paladino discusses park maintenance and fire prevention measures
0:54:19
ยท
3 min
Council Member Vickie Paladino addresses the Parks Department about brush fire prevention, emphasizing the importance of proper park maintenance and staffing. She draws comparisons to California's wildfire issues and stresses the need for preventative measures in New York City parks.
- Paladino criticizes the Parks Department for inadequate park cleaning and maintenance, particularly in large parks like Alley Pond Park and Cunningham Park.
- She advocates for increased staffing in the Parks Department and better equipment for firefighters, including helicopters for fire response.
- The council member emphasizes the importance of preventative measures over signage, noting that people often ignore signs and engage in prohibited activities like unauthorized barbecues in parks.
Vickie Paladino
0:54:19
This is for parks.
0:54:22
We know what caused the fires in, in California.
0:54:25
My sister lives in California.
0:54:26
I've been to California many times.
0:54:29
As far as parks go, you are failing miserably in cleaning up the parks.
0:54:37
I know you're short staffed.
0:54:39
How many people work in your forestry division?
0:54:42
I have parks in my district.
0:54:45
Beautiful parks.
0:54:46
Thank the good lord.
0:54:47
Nothing there has gone wrong.
0:54:49
However, when you do not clean out the underbrush, and you do not clean out leaves, and these places are not maintained as they should be.
0:54:59
For example, Alley Pond Park is huge.
0:55:02
Okay?
0:55:02
Cunningham Park.
0:55:04
That's my and I not my park, but I know the parks.
0:55:07
Casino Park.
0:55:08
These are huge parks that need attention, that are being neglected.
0:55:13
Now what parks needs to do if we wanna help prevent fires, we not only need to give our firefighters the equipment, high-tech equipment, because in California, if there's a fire and there was a short little brush fire, 2 helicopters, bam, 2 guys came down, the fire was put out immediately.
0:55:35
That's you guys need what you need as far as a helicopter to to circumvent the area without leaning on the cops to do that.
0:55:43
You need your own.
0:55:44
But parks, you need to do your job.
0:55:46
How many people work in Forestry?
Marit Larsen
0:55:52
Thank you for the question.
0:55:53
Right now, we have this year about 60 in our natural resources group.
0:55:59
That's just, on the natural areas side of things.
0:56:04
My colleague from forestry is also here, of course.
0:56:08
And, of those, we cover, you know, all of our natural areas, of course, in stewardship.
0:56:14
About half are in some way involved in forest care.
Vickie Paladino
0:56:18
Preventative always works.
0:56:22
This did not have to happen in California.
0:56:25
California also has a law where you can't flip a cigarette out a window because they're drought conditions.
0:56:31
They're dry constantly.
0:56:32
With an ocean right there, we won't get into that.
0:56:35
And in reservoirs that could have been filled that were not, hydrants that were empty, we don't have that problem.
0:56:41
What we need to do is make sure that some way somehow Parks is able to hire a significant amount of people which you're not.
0:56:53
You're short staffed.
0:56:55
And I I meet with Parks.
0:56:57
You like I said, I love your commissioner, but you guys are just like you're you're you're between a rock and a hard place because you're not able to do the jobs that you know you need to do.
0:57:07
So, there's different ways.
0:57:10
Yeah.
0:57:10
We need to figure that out.
0:57:12
Because once we get we are able to to prevent, not so much about signage.
0:57:16
People ignore signs.
0:57:17
People could care less about signs, especially today.
0:57:21
Alright?
0:57:21
So, the carelessness, people coming barbecuing in parks where they know they're not allowed to barbecue.
0:57:28
And if you don't have a parkie in the park to tell them to put out the barbeque, guess what?
0:57:33
They don't care anymore either.
0:57:35
So there's a mountain of things to help prevent this from happening and I think getting you the staff that you need, getting the it all sounds sounds wonderful, doesn't it?
0:57:44
Like, it can happen in a blink of an eye.
0:57:46
Funny thing is it can if the money was spent in the right places.
0:57:50
Thank you very much, everybody.
0:57:52
I gotta get to my small business hearing.
0:57:54
Have a great day.
Joann Ariola
0:57:54
Thank you, council member.