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Q&A
Council Member Louis questions DSNY on park services, enforcement, and bin affordability
1:19:33
·
4 min
Council Member Farah N. Louis engages in a Q&A session with Acting Commissioner Javier Lojan of the Department of Sanitation (DSNY). Louis asks about park perimeter services, enforcement strategies, and accommodations for low-income residents regarding compliant bins. Lojan provides responses on DSNY's coordination with the Parks Department, enforcement challenges, and the current lack of funding for bin reimbursement programs.
- DSNY works with Parks Department to identify high-traffic areas for Greenway locations but makes final decisions on service areas
- The department is collaborating on illegal dumping prevention, including camera installations
- DSNY currently lacks resources to enforce inside parks but assists with perimeter issues
- No current funding is allocated for bin reimbursement programs for low-income residents, with estimates reaching $34 million if fully implemented
Farah N. Louis
1:19:33
Thank you chair and good morning commissioner.
1:19:36
I wanna thank your team for their leadership and their support in Brooklyn.
1:19:40
I just have four quick questions so I'm gonna just do rapidly and then you all could respond.
1:19:45
Which park perimeters and Greenway locations will be directly serviced through the restored 1,400,000.0 and FY '26 funding and how are these sites selected and is DSNY actively coordinating with the Parks Department to create joint rapid response strategies for parks perimeters experiencing illegal dumping cause we experienced that a lot in Central Brooklyn.
1:20:11
I also wanted to know and you mentioned the misuse of litter baskets and enforcement.
1:20:17
I wanted to know with civilian enforcement funding in Brooklyn held flat at 685,000 between FY '25 and FY '26, can DSNY ensure this body that enforcement against alternate side parking violations and other quality of life infractions like household trash being thrown in front of businesses will continue to, will not continue to disproportionately impact Central Brooklyn and my last question is in regards to DSNY bins.
1:20:47
How does DSNY plan to accommodate income, low income older adults and households in need who cannot afford compliant bins, particularly given the 10,700,000.0 requests for reimbursement was unmet in the executive budget and I mentioned that as well because in your testimony, you mentioned that the agency does not have access to STAR and ESTAR, but I haven't heard a solution within that testimony.
1:21:14
So those are my four questions.
1:21:18
And I could go back.
1:21:19
Okay.
1:21:19
I'm limited on So
1:21:23
The Greenway.
1:21:39
But who picks the location?
1:21:40
Is it DSNY and is it parks?
1:21:50
Okay.
1:22:02
is the coordinated or rapid response being that Parks is doing this solo?
1:22:07
Right.
1:22:07
Is there something that you all are working together as a strategy?
1:22:49
And the last one regarding low income older adults.
1:23:18
no But does the agency have its own solution while you guys are trying to figure
1:23:42
Alright.
1:23:43
Thank you.
1:23:43
Thank you, chair.
Javier Lojan
1:19:35
Good morning.
1:21:15
Okay.
1:21:16
So let me see if I can get the
1:21:20
as far as the
1:21:23
The Greenway is the Parks Parliamentary Greenway.
1:21:25
There are about 600 locations across the city, and we work closely with parks to identify which are those more higher trafficked areas.
1:21:34
But we work with them regularly and, you know, we we obviously are happy to make any adjustments where we're seeing any
1:21:42
DSNY, but we work closely with parks on any feedback they give us, so we're happy to make those adjustments, but also it's our supervision that make those adjustments.
1:21:51
I think the next question was about the illegal dumping in the parks.
1:21:57
In the parks.
1:21:57
In the parks.
1:21:58
So your question was specific to what What
1:22:10
So I think we're working together with them on some I think they just announced recently some installation of illegal dumping cameras, so we're working closely with them on our you know, we have the model that we use for the three thirty one cameras that we have across the city.
1:22:25
So we're working with them on that and assisting where necessary.
1:22:29
As far as any kind of enforcement inside the park, that was part of proposition two.
1:22:35
So that gave us the authority to go in there, we don't have the resources right now to go inside the parks.
1:22:41
But, you know, we work with them closely on any locations on the perimeter, and we're happy to work with them wherever they see necessary.
1:22:53
Correct.
1:22:54
So that, right now, we are not appropriating any funds for that bill.
1:23:01
One of the things that we had initially suggested was to only focus on the disability homeowner exemption or the senior citizen homeowner exemption, which was a lot lower of a cost, but right now we have
1:23:21
it So it it depends on how much the funding levels would be.
1:23:24
Right now, we are not appropriated anything.
1:23:26
I think our estimates were upwards of $34,000,000 which would be if we if we get that amount and we have to reimburse everybody and give everybody a bin, then we'd have to scale up a lot bigger of an operation.
1:23:38
So right now until we know what funds are appropriated, we really don't have a sense of that.