Greenport is dirty and needs a good sweeping, say Greenport Village Trustees.
At Monday evening’s work session, the trustees expressed concern over the cleanliness of the village – much of the lack of which seems to stem from street sweeping management, said Trustee George Hubbard.
“We’re getting a lot of complaints that the sweeper is not going down some streets,” Hubbard said to utilities director Jack Naylor.
Hubbard said Manor Place has not been swept properly and it appeared as though the sweeper was going down the middle of the street.
Naylor explained to Hubbard that the village has always scheduled street sweeping after a brush removal. He said that some residents are immediately putting more brush on the streets before a sweeper can make a pass. This means the sweeper has to go around the debris and miss certain areas. He also said the aging street sweeper has been breaking down a lot.
“Our plan is to do brush removal one day and send the sweeper through the next day,” Naylor said.
He said his department is putting together a schedule and a map to encourage people to put brush out on certain days. The street sweeper would then follow a half or a full day behind the brush pickup.
Trustee Mary Bess Phillips suggested that Manor Place should be done early in the morning before cars park outside Eastern Long Island Hospital and the sweeper has to go around them.
While they were discussing street cleaning, Trustee David Murray said several business owners had complained to him over the weekend about how dirty the concrete is on Front and Main streets.
Greenport Mayor David Nyce told Murray that, technically, it is the building owner’s responsibility to clean in front of the businesses.
Phillips also chimed in with her concern over use of the village trash cans. She said some of the local merchants are putting trash bags in the village’s cans at the village’s expense. She questioned whether the village could switch to covers with smaller holes to fit coffee cups and paper and prevent whole bags of trash from being stuffed into the municipal garbage cans.
Trustee Christine Kempner questioned whether the offenders could be ticketed for putting commercial or personal trash in the cans.
Nyce said he understood the board’s frustration and reminded the board that property owners should be responsible for trash removal for their tenants. With more people visiting the village each summer, Nyce said he can see the problem getting worse.
“Ultimately the village does not look good,” Nyce said.
There are codes about trash and illegal dumping in Greenport, but Nyce said enforcement of existing codes is a problem. He said he was not sure the town could enforce it.
Nyce said he plans to bring the issue up at the next Greenport Business Improvement District (BID) meeting and ask merchants for their help.
