good morning once again everyone we're here standing to let everyone know that Patterson is not a Dumping Ground nor is it Gilligan's Island last week on Keen Street we towed
a boat and today here on Bergen we will be towing two more behind us is The Happy Hooker some might call the loveboat well that's about to that ship is about to sail really soon and this is
all a part of operation Clean Sweep which is what my Administration launched last year to address illegal dumping and we will have updates as far as cameras that will be coming in to make sure that we identify who the violators are and
make sure they are penalized we also want to inform the public that in one day in court $115,000 of fines were assessed to people for illegal dumping so it is a
serious situation that is not exclusive to our city but we are taking the appropriate law enforcement action aligned with the Department of Public Works to make sure that we crack down on illegal dumping so at this time I'm going to call forward our Corporation
Council to elaborate on the penalties that will be assessed to those that that will be identified and ultimately made to pay the price for their illegal actions Aman abushi you again thank you mayor and thank you all for being here
today um dumping is a is a problem in our city and we're taking it seriously thanks to the leadership of council president Mendes and uh the men and women standing behind me including BPW uh we amended our ordinance to raise the fund to
upwards of10 ,000 per violation for dumping um the residents in this great City deserve better there are means to lawfully dispose of your garbage and and things that you don't need and if we catch you and we will catch you dumping we will seek the maximum fine of
$110,000 um I will continue to work with the administration and the city council as well as the department heads to ensure that we are tracking these individuals we are catching them and holding them accountable and we'll continue to do so so you thank you sir corporate Council we really appreciate
your leadership we really appreciate the fact that our city council has supported an initiative to really make these malactor pay for the crimes they're committing unfortunately to neighborhoods like this one here in Bergen at this time I want
to call forward since we are on the subject of law enforcement our officer in charge Patrick Murray good appla please thank you mayor good morning morning as the mayor said the Patterson
Police Department will continue to work with the administration the Department of Public Works and all other City agencies to identify those who are responsible for not only the illegal dumping but the
other quality of life issues that affect the residents of Patterson the residents of Patterson deserve nothing less yeah and to have their City clean and quality of life issues dealt with so that they can go
about their daily lives in a peaceful and normal fashion so mayor we're going to continue to work with you as I said to identify these illegal dumpers and um work along with DPW
director and all the other City agencies thank you thank you officer in charge also to the members of the General Public those that are viewing on our social media sites want to let you know there are notorious areas that have unfortunately been victimized by illegal
dumping particularly Peach and Plum that property is owned by the Department of Transportation I've reached out to their leadership they're going to make sure not only is it clean but they erect a barrier to prevent future illegal dumping in that area also Oliver Street
is another notorious site for illegal dumping again owned by the Department of Transportation and we're holding them accountable to make sure that they not only clean up their site but also have a barrier to prude people from dumping going forward at this time to call call
forward our director of the Department of Public Works Billy Rodriguez thank you mayor um just want to say I appreciate the collaboration we have throughout the city with all the Departments together um working on this uh dumping issue we have in our in our city um this press conference shows that
we're not standing for it no more we will do anything in our power to make sure our city is clean for our residents they deserve it um today we'll be taking two boats out of here uh last week we took a a boat out of King Street and Summer Street our most notorious Dumping
Ground and we cleaned up the area um Wednesday we'll be back down here doing a total clean up of the lot the street and anything else that comes down here just want to let everybody know that we won't be standing for it no more we are going to prosecute to to the full extent of the law and you know keep P clean
thank you thank you thank you and keeping Patterson clean starts with you so everybody plays a role in making sure that Patterson is clean and like I stated before it is a constant battle keeping our city clean but we are going to continue to fight in fact we went to
Camden and met with our counterparts last week to learn best practices relative to how they have cracked down on illegal dumping and in the near future you will see some of those proven practices in Camden implemented here here in the city of Patterson speaking with we referred or should I say our
Corporation Council alluded to our council president earlier and what they can do legislatively we'd like to hear from our council president at this time Alex Mendes thank you mayor thank you good morning um as we hear before from our Corporation Council we took action immediately uh at the city council and I
introduced the amendment of the legislation to increase the fine to up to $10,000 for those people that are coming into our city dumping garbage everywhere dumping is a real problem we investing we spending thousands of dollars in our Public Work cleaning those sites we just recently cleaned
Alabama Avenue this morning we have a group of men and women for our appr work cleaning that area so we need your help if you see something say something if you see people coming into our city dumping garbage construction debris of any kind of material please cor our Police Department you see our Police
Department our chief and the leadership is behind us working together we working together on this matter because it's affecting the entire city p have to be clean and pison it's not a Dumping Ground we all working together to stop people from coming to our city and dumping garbage in into our community
thank you mayor thank you sir thank you so like we stated before keeping our community clean is a constant struggle but we're taking a multi-pronged approach requires all branches of government executive legislative Judiciary so we appreciate the fact that
we are aligning our efforts whether it's public works or Public Safety we want to make sure the public knows that we're taking this matter very seriously and if I can reiterate Patterson is not a Dumping Ground and with all these boats that have flooded our city it's not Gilligan's Island
either thank you and I'll now open the floor for questions what does it do Scott I knew you were going to ask what does it do to uh quality of life well it'll improve the quality of life in the city and it sends a message that we will not tolerate illegal dumping in our city and
it's pretty Brazen I think our Corporation Council would agree and if he wants to also elaborate it's Brazen just to dump a boat somewhere and two no less and then one that our DPW director alluded to earlier on Kanan summer which
is ding itself affect theow well it there's a couple of reasons I can give you one it sends the S wrong message to the residents right like okay wait a minute I take pride in where I live but people feel like they can
just dump a boat in the middle of my neighborhood or and second It also says that well what are we doing as a city and now we're telling those residents as a city we are going to seriously address
these issues whatever is dumped in our city we're not going to take that anymore mayor uh one of the guys who lives Works around this area says that one of those votes has been there for well over a year what's up so long well part of the problem is we used to to
crush the boats ourselves internally so now we've identified a company that can do it for us so now that last week we set a precedent we're going to follow through and have these boats crushed at the same company so that was part of the issue if you want to elaborate directly or you
could just confirm that's the case that we used to be able to do it in house and we don't have that capability anymore not just boats but your tires the Trac construction debris this stuff a year ago this stuff was floating around because water was 34 ft High um what
took so long to clean it out well part of the issue here is the equipment and we have been receiving equipment now and we are expecting to have the bandwidth to address large scale illegal dumping of this kind that's behind me right now
I know so it's unfortunate it took that amount of time but we're here now and it's going to get done I know a couple years ago there you were installing cameras to catch illegal dumpers is there one on this block by a chance or no there isn't but I probably wouldn't tell you if there was anyway fair enough was that a
good answer than thank you I'm glad you asked that where where are these dumpers coming from well we did identify the dumper from last week or whom we believe could potentially be and he was not from the city of patteron so these people are coming from well at least in that one
instance with the boat yes New Jersey when we met with our counterparts in Camden a number of their illegal dumpers were coming from Philadelphia cuz all they had to do was cross the bridge so it could be people from New York nothing against people from New York and
it could be from other towns of course but primarily in New York no it's not new yor right from are from New York from the law enforcement perspective is it easier to identify let's say a boat more than a more so than a tire because of the the and the registration yes that
correct the first thing that officer in charge said when I called him he said there's going to be a registration a VIN number can we ask you can we ask yeah sure cuz they can remove you talk about identifying a boat versus let's say an old Tire because of the registration
number correct boats just like motor vehicles that are manufactured do have uh vehicle identification bin numbers so um all it takes is running the serial numbers through the state database to identify uh the last registered owner of
that uh particular code what a bracing crime though it is yes it is any other questions okay I one question why the Govern before coming here he Li to the community he Li to you he said he give a support to the community he never
come he give a support I try call the government I go you up he try H to me and the government do nothing talk about that to but the government it to you for the problemu nobody to you he's referring
the governor was here last year when Bergen was flooded and I'm not quite sure exactly what the governor said to him but we can we can follow up with the governor give me a business car but he said talking to my my my guy I go a lot of time nobody got to me and nobody do
nothing about the government everybody say oh the I know that's here support for the government can do nothing thank you we'll Javier and I will follow up with you right after this press conference okay thank you all right so you are
about to witness live two boats getting towed from Patterson those ships are about to sail right now thank you [Music] [Music] he oh
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