Civic Spends Day Finding, Reporting Woes
The Woodhaven Residents Block Association (WRBA) held their first “311 Day” last Saturday, Mar. 31, to report quality of life problems around their community, and the effort gave a great deal of insight on how the city services hotline works, according to the civic group’s president.
“It was definitely an educational experience for us,” WRBA President Ed Wendell told the Times Newsweekly in a phone interview on Monday, Apr. 2. He stated in an email on Wednesday, Apr. 4 that 81 conditions such as graffiti, potholes and sunken sewers were reported by area residents to the city’s 311 hotline.
Announced at their Mar. 17 meeting, the WRBA’s 311 Day initiative asked residents to walk around their community on Mar. 31 and to look for and make note of any conditions, then report them to both 311 and the civic organization.
The WRBA had a goal of reporting at least 100 separate items last Saturday, which they intend to follow up on with the city to keep track on which conditions are resolved. The 311 Day event also doubled as a fund-raiser for the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps, with participants encouraged to donate as little as 25 cents per 311 call to the WRBA on behalf of the paramedic unit.
Even though the organization fell short of its goal of 100 reported items, Wendell stated that he learned a great deal from 311 operators when calling in graffiti observed on private homes.
“The first one I called in, the operator was confused,” he said, noting that the call-taker “reported it as a building with a business instead of just a private residence with graffiti,” as he observed.
“It seemed like every call we made regarding graffiti on homes, none of the 311 folks knew exactly how to handle it,” Wendell added. But after asking an operator point blank on how exactly to report it-as “making a graffiti cleanup request for a residence as a non-owner”-he found that he was able to make subsequent requests to 311 “in under four minutes.”
“We have to train ourselves to be able to report it better to get on and off the phone quickly,” Wendell stated. He noted that he recorded one of the calls and would use it as a guide to fellow WRBA members on how to properly report graffiti vandalism on area homes. He noted that once such vandalism is reported to 311, it is added to the Graffiti Free NYC cleanup list.
“The city is offering a free cleanup. It doesn’t cost the homeowner anything, and it takes less than four minutes of somebody’s time to report it and get it in the queue to get it cleaned,” Wendell said. “This is one of those things that a neighborhood needs to take advantage of together. There should be no excuse for any graffiti on houses in our community over a period of time, because the city does take care of it.”
Complicating the effort, Wendell noted on Wednesday, was that 311 stopped “accepting graffiti complaints as the software is currently ‘undergoing maintenance.’ This started on Monday morning and continues today. I was assured that it would be back online this evening.”
As for the fund-raising aspect of 311 day, Wendell said that the WRBA raised $330 for the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps “before our first 311 call” was made. Private donations were brought to the civic group by residents and business owners, some of whom had family members who were assisted by the private paramedic group.
“Once we tally up the pledges, we’ll be up to close to $400” for the ambulance corps, he added. “The ultimate goal of the fund-raiser for the ambulance corp is good. That was the most important thing, because they need the money.”
Wendell stated in his Wednesday e-mail that “our fund-raising total … currently stands at $448.15. I am still hoping for a few small donations and I expect that the WRBA will top it off to $500.”
