By Rich Bockmann
Southeast Queens lawmakers are taking the gloves off in order to deal with the area’s persistent trash problem.
City Councilman Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica) is backing proposed legislation that would toss litterbugs behind bars for up to a year for throwing their household refuse away in sidewalk trash baskets.
“If you are caught using these litter baskets illegally, you will be fined, and after the third subsequent fine you will be charged and locked up,” Wills said Monday morning during a news conference in South Jamaica as he announced a sweeping initiative aimed at cleaning up southeast Queens.
The councilman said he and his colleagues have been forced to take “drastic measures.”
“Our litter baskets are for refuse when you’re going to and from. They are not for you bringing garbage from inside of your homes, putting it on the litter baskets,” he said. “It is disgusting and it has to stop.”
The councilman said southeast Queens has been plagued by a trash problem for at least 15 years, although the issue has been thrust into the spotlight recently by Joe Moretti, a controversial community activist who documents his disgust with dirty streets — and the leaders he blames for them — on his blog cleanupjamaicaqueens.wordpress.com.
While Wills did not mention Moretti by name, he did make reference to “people always jabbing at elected officials, people always saying things that are negative about elected officials and never seeing the work that we actually do.”
Moretti, acknowledging his long streak of criticizing Wills, said he thought the lawmaker was finally on to something.
“I think it’s good,” he said, adding he thought a jail sentence may be “drastic,” but would probably be effective. “My big thing is, what took so long? You knew the issue was going on for a long time.”
“But I think it’s great,” he said.
Standing alongside Wills were community members and Councilman I. Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans), who has co-sponsored a bill that would allow the city to repossess trucks used by contractors who dump illegally.
“Once this legislation is passed, if you are caught, we will hit you in your pocket and we will take your vehicle away from you,” Wills said. “If you are a construction worker or a contractor, which I suspect a lot of these people are, your license will be suspended.”
Other prongs of the initiative include the city Sanitation Department’s adopt-a-basket program, which provides volunteers with liners so they can empty trash baskets before they overflow as well as the Wildcat Service Corp., a nonprofit that employs disadvantaged and hard-to-place job seekers in cleaning up neighborhoods.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
