Residents in one Queens neighborhood are crying foul after they were written up for failing to clean up the city’s own mess. It is yet another new complication in life after Superstorm Sandy.
Rosanne and Joe Cavaliere are still trying to clean up from the hurricane. They have branches through their roof, busted front windows, and, to add insult to injury, they recently received a citation notice from the city.
“It makes me angry, but it’s also ridiculous!” Rosanne Cavaliere told CBS 2’s Jessica Schneider. They got it on Nov. 9, cited with “failure to maintain” their property. But as they pointed out to CBS 2’s Schneider on Tuesday night, it’s a city tree that they were waiting for the city to remove.
Why surely that must be a mistake, right? No city would give someone a ticket for what they city itself is responsible for?
The Department of Buildings released the following statement: “We have been working closely with property owners as they prepare to rebuild, and part of our process is documenting the damage that has occurred. These violations do not carry any monetary penalties, and if any homeowner has a question, please call 311.”
But that explanation didn’t fly with the Cavalieres. “I want the violation off my house, off my record, and all of our neighbors,” Rosanne Cavaliere said.
The Department of Buildings said, for the now, the citations will stand, but the Cavalieres said they’ll continue to fight to get them removed.
So the only mechanism they have for keeping track of their owned downed trees is to write a ticket out to homeowners. Even I know how to set up an ACCESS data base...
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