More people dumping house trash in city bins

From the Daily News:

Home trash in city litter bins is really piling up — and this year, scofflaws have been largely getting off scot-free.

The number of $100 fines issued for illegal dumping of residential garbage in street bins dropped by 78% in fiscal year 2013, which ended June 30, city records show.

The number of trash tickets doled out declined to 922 from 4,185 in fiscal 2012.

The Sanitation Department said the huge drop happened because the agency’s cadre of enforcement officers were transferred to traffic duty for weeks after Hurricane Sandy.

While fewer tickets were issued, illegal trash dumping at the city’s 25,000 litter baskets is on the rise, local authorities say.

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An unacceptable situation

From Clean Up Jamaica Queens:

While riding my bike Sunday morning, I encountered several garbage strewn places (many illegal dumping and most of the spots have been reported numerous times).

Take a good look at our community:

1. Our Post Office (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) at the corner of 164th St & 89th Ave.



2. Post Office Parking Lot at 164th St & 89th Ave. This has been piling up since last week and I wondered how long it would stay like that.



3. Lot next to 170-18 Liberty St, or as I like to call that block, “Ghetto Row”.



4. What appears to be an empty house at 103-24 171st St.



5. The next two photos are a house at 104-11 171st St that I have reported several times.





6. The next three photos are an empty half built building next to Mike’s Towing at 115-45 Merrick Blvd right across the street from the Northeastern Conference of Seventh Day Adventists Administration Building and a few blocks from the beautiful Roy Wilkins Park. It is obvious this has been an illegal dumping ground for a long time and obvious nothing has been done about this.








7. And here again is the notorious empty James Fobb house at 107-58 108th Ave, which has been reported for two years now.






8. The bus stop at Merrick Blvd & 108th Ave, a major spot for dropping off household garbage.



9. Over flowing garbage cans at SE corner of Jamaica Ave & 170th St. A constant problem.



10. The SW corner of Jamaica Ave & 170th St.



Now does anyone reading this think that this is totally acceptable? Would any of this be acceptable in a majority white area? So why is this acceptable in a community of people of color? Is it that people of color do not deserve to live in a nice area, is that it, but white people are.

Again this is a combination of some of the majorly low class ghetto people we have in our community, a major lack of enforcement by DOS, poor leadership from our top officials down to our community boards and upstanding citizens of our community either ignoring this, thinking this is the norm or not doing something as small as reporting these places to 311 and calling your local officials.

Yesterday, I was at a screening of the film: Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes put together by Art, Food & Soul and presented at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning. Afterwards I talked to several of the people in attendance, many young and open-minded artists in our community who want a better Jamaica and they talked about the conditions of our community and what it looks like and they were not happy about it at all.

And this is why the perception of Jamaica is the way it is. The perception is REALITY!

So why is NOTHING being done about this? Why I am constantly reporting on these conditions, many that are the same areas over and over again?


Joe Moretti
Jamaica, NY 11432

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Lots of pols responsible for the sad state of St. Saviour's site

Here are photos from nutrichris on Flickr that show the current condition of the St. Saviour's site. Currently, 1/4 of the site is occupied by 4 warehouses, one of which is for sale (although strangely, that's not a photo of it at the link for it).

The others have already been sold, with involvement by the Empire State Development Corporation and the U.S. Small Business Administration. (Because news of being screwed out of a park by the local government got around, so the state and feds decided to join the fun.)

Recently, applications were put in for 4 more warehouses on the undeveloped portion. The architect? CB1's Gerald Caliendo.

Now, as you can see from the photos, the site is still being used as a dump inside and out, the construction fence is falling down and part is still sidewalk-free.

Of course, the lion's share of responsibility for this lands squarely in the lap of no-talent Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, who totally bungled an amazing chance to develop a park at the site. However, there's plenty more blame to go around. What involvement did the BP candidates have (or not have)? Here's what I have gathered from activists:

Council Member Peter Vallone said he couldn't get involved because it wasn't in his district, yet he had no problem showing up at rallies for Brinckerhoff Cemetery as far back as 2008. I guess since Caliendo gave $12,275 in donations to him, he decided it was a convenient excuse.

Former Council Member and Chair of Land Use Melinda Katz sided with Dennis Gallagher and wanted to see the church torn down and replaced with 75 housing units. Had the zoning change ever come in front of her, it surely would have passed. As Land Use Chair, Melinda had the power to influence the Landmarks Preservation Commission when the site was suggested for designation. She refused to do so. (We won't even go into what she did to landmark-worthy sites in her own district.)

Council Member and current Land Use Chair Leroy Comrie has been head of the Queens delegation now for years. The county delegation chairs get a pot of money every year during budget time to spread around their boroughs. Comrie had no interest in securing the extra $50K or so that was necessary to begin the ULURP and get the acquisition process started when everyone was on board and it was actually possible.

And of course, we don't have to remind you that the only BP candidate that ever showed up and tried to help was Tony Avella.

If this shitshow can happen in Maspeth, it can happen in everyone else's community as well. Vote for a borough president candidate wisely.

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Sanitation worker dumps trash in front of restaurant

From Eyewitness News:

It doesn't get much clearer than this. A New York City sanitation worker picks up a black garbage bag, dumps it on a doorstep, and rips the bag open. When he walks away from the heap of trash, the letters "DSNY" are clearly visible on the back of his bright yellow vest.

The incident took place on the doorstep of Fast Eddies on West 47th and 10th Avenue, owned in part by Richie Winckelman. The time stamp on the surveillance video - 6:59 Saturday morning. From the angle pointed East on West 47th, you can see the large sanitation sitting in the intersection. In another shot, the worker is, in fact doing his job - dumping the trash can into the back of the truck, not onto the sidewalk.

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City makes a mess of Jamaica

It is bad enough when Jamaica property owners do not clean up their own property and the city does not enforce the laws, especially with repeat offenders like below.
Major repeat offender. Vacant lot at 170-19 89th Ave. High weeds and garbage inside them.
Side of house at 168-22 89th Ave.
And really bad when the property owners are businesses in Downtown Jamaica (you know the “Diverse and Vibrant” slogan that the powers to  be  like to throw around in hyping Downtown Jamaica) and the City again does not enforce the laws and allows this to happen over and over, like all along the stores on 164th Street off of Jamaica Avenue.
In front of store at 89-31 164th St.
The stores along 164th Street. This mess actually sat here for about a month before being cleaned up.
The mess above sat for over a month, even though I reported it to DOS and , city officials and elected leaders. Alas that did not last too long as this exact same spot after finally being cleaned up looked like the below on June 15th when the Jamaica low life people got to it and again property owner is not held responsible and no did anything about this.
This spot in front of store along 164th street did not stay clean too long.
All of this is bad enough but when the property is New York City owned such as the NYC Department of Transportation property at 92-33 168th St, then that says everything about our system. What makes it worse is this same situation happened last year and here is is happening all over again.

Although you cannot see it, there is much trash and litter in those high weeds on city property.
This is just totally disgusting, what is this some low class Jamaica flea market.


So just how long is this city property going to look like this. I reported it several days ago, so let’s see. But the big question is why would the city allow their own property to look like this to begin with.

Damn, Jamaica needs a complete overhaul, a total clean-up of the city, major litter law enforcement against property owners (a huge one that would help eliminate much of this problem), toss out that certain element that is destroying and trashing all parts of Jamaica and then getting new leaders here who have the balls to stand up and do what is right for the community.

It is the same damn song over and over again with this community.

The powers to be say “Invest in Downtown Jamaica” and I know I would like to see a big overhaul of Downtown Jamaica, but  really, like why would people want to invest if nothing is changing to make it better, the place is a mess and no one is doing anything about it no matter what some of you say. Because if you were doing something about it, then I would not have photos like the ones above (and some of the same areas over and over again) and I would not be doing this for over 2 years. Something certainly is not right and someone is not doing their job, you are letting the undesirables take over.

So for those that want me to write about something positive on my blog, give me something positive because I have pretty much run out of the very little positive within this community.

Joe Moretti
Jamaica, NY 11432
http://cleanupjamaicaqueens.wordpress.com/

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