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Q&A
Discussion on lot cleaning program and backlog
1:25:32
·
108 sec
Council Member Williams raises concerns about the extensive lot cleaning backlog and the limited resources allocated to address it. Acting Commissioner Lojan acknowledges the backlog and explains the current approach to addressing it.
- There are only about 10 sanitation workers assigned to lot cleaning for the entire city
- Over 1,700 lots are currently backlogged
- The department prioritizes the most egregious cases and health risks
- Council Member Williams highlights the difficulty in addressing vacant lot cleaning even with discretionary funding
Nantasha M. Williams
1:25:32
All of that gets factored into how you budget out for each Yeah.
1:25:39
All right.
1:25:39
So I just had a question on the lot cleaning program.
1:25:44
So I know that the chair asked you a series of questions and I know this is supposed to be the best budget ever but just trying to understand how you are going to address the extensive lot cleaning backlog if the PEG restoration only keeps things status quo and as far as I know there's only about 10 sanitation workers that are assigned to a city of 8,000,000 with tons of lots spread across the five boroughs.
1:26:16
That does not seem like a best budget allocation to address a very serious issue.
1:26:57
Okay.
1:26:58
Because I do give a lot of discretionary to my garages and they still have this problem because I have a ton of vacant lots and it's very difficult to get them to go out and clean them even though they want to and sometimes they find the resource to do it which is why I gave Chief Kavanaugh a shout out, but they do not have the resources to truly do a robust job around cleaning the lots.
Javier Lojan
1:26:24
Right.
1:26:24
So yeah, I mean, yeah, we have over 1,700 lots that are backlogged.
1:26:31
I think we'd be happy to work, you know, on on future budgets, but I think at least now it gets us that baseline where previously it wasn't.
1:26:39
And we always go after our goal is to try to clean them all, but we're gonna go after them with the most egregious ones and anything that's obviously like a big health risk.
1:26:49
So we're just gonna work closely on making that more efficient and working with the administration on future budgets.