Dear Budget Negotiation Team:
 
We are writing on behalf of New York City residents that have endured the outcome of the pandemic budget cuts to DSNY of more than $100 million. This past year New Yorkers made the importance of a cleaner city clear. As garbage continued to pile on sidewalks and streets, communities began to organize cleanup events across NYC to perform essential governmental services. The message is clear! A clean city is important we need full sanitation services. We need to improve how we manage garbage overall in our city.
 
The immediate impact of the cuts hit high-density, low-income, and minority neighborhoods, hard as they were already struggling with garbage issues. It took the budget cutbacks and the obvious overflowing of garbage for the public to realize the importance of sanitation workers. During this time DSNY’s active staff worked hard at doing their best with all the shortages even working through the pandemic and putting their lives at risk. They deserve full support. Money from the federal stimulus has since helped to fill some of the voids and brought back some services. It would be unthinkable for the City to further reduce or freeze DSNY’s budget. The City must restore and increase DSNY’s budget moving forward. Our environment should be prioritized.
 
New York City has built its culture on being progressive. However, our city’s inability to prioritize composting programs and implement efficient recycling programs is regressive. We should be redirecting our focus on taking the lead in these areas as it will save costs in the long term.  We all agree New York is suffering financially due to the pandemic. The loss in the tourism and rental market decline has had a huge impact on the bottom line. Having a cleaner city is a good starting point in rebuilding the economic toll it has taken.  The backlash of the budget cuts should be reflective of our need for new infrastructure.  Our focus and budget should be reflective of solutions that will allow for long-term environmental quality and equity.
 
Our Ask:
 
·       Restore back all the funds for NYC Cleanup Initiative Discretionary Program
·       Allocate more funding towards Marketing programs to help educate the public on sustainable waste management to reduce garbage.
·       Promote zero-waste education around mitigating the use of plastics and advocating for the use of reusables
·       Organize a virtual town hall open to the public on educating attendees on utilizing DSNY resources to mitigate the litter problem
·       Re-visit/re-strategize the sanitation citation program. Concentrate enforcement in areas of larger developments. Holding developers accountable for their spaces and or incentivizing them to keep their spaces cleaner. 
·       Fully restore the Composting Programs budget to help reduce the landfill cost
·       Partner up with companies like Rubicon  to find economic value in their waste streams and execute on their sustainability goals. They use advanced software and centralized data collection to identify disparities within cities.
·       We ask for 100%  full restoration of litter baskets and street cleaning services. With restaurants now having the usage of sidewalk space, it would be detrimental to businesses to have overflowing baskets nearby and dirty streets.

With over 1000 signatures collected we hope to be heard!

Sincerely,
 
Debora Rivas on behalf of all of NYC Community Organizers!
Keep NYC Clean