Press Release Archives - 538-96 City Streets Rated Cleanest in 22 Years

Archives of the Mayor's Press Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: October 21, 1996

Release #538-96

Contact: Colleen Roche (212) 788-2958, Jack Deacy (212) 788-2969 or Lucian Chalfen (212) 788-3916 Department of Sanitation

MAYOR GIULIANI ANNOUNCES THAT CITY STREETS ARE RATED THE CLEANEST IN 22 YEARS

Credits Aggressive Management Techniques & Use Of Work Experience Program (WEP)

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani today announced that during July, August and September 1996 city streets received the highest quarterly cleanliness rating -- 82.9 per cent -- since the City instituted the rating system in July 1974. The Mayor also reported that for the first time since 1988, none of the city's Sanitation districts received a rating of "dirty". Joining the Mayor in announcing the improvements were Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, Mayoral Senior Advisor Richard Schwartz, Mayor's Office of Operations Director Donna Lynne, community leaders, Sanitation workers, and Work Experience Program (WEP) participants. Queens Borough President Claire Schulman was also present at the announcement.

"Not only are city streets safer than they've been in decades, today we are pleased to announce that they are also the cleanest they've been in decades," Mayor Giuliani said. "The City has been able to achieve this historic level of street cleanliness through aggressive and innovative management style and the continued use of Work Experience Program participants who have helped to clean up our neighborhood streets in return for their welfare grants. I want to congratulate Commissioner Doherty , his management team and the workforce at the Department of Sanitation, the WEP workers, Donna Lynne and her team at Operations and Richard Schwartz and his staff who have helped the City design and implement the most effective workfare program in the country."

According to the new rating, more than eight out of 10 of the City's 6,000 miles of streets were rated as clean. The quarterly cleanliness rating of 82.9 per cent was formulated by combining a an 86.6 rating for July, 80.6 percent for July and 81.6 percent for September. The previous quarterly high of 79.9 percent was recorded earlier this year.

For the first time since 1988, none of the City's Sanitation districts were rated as "dirty". In 1992 and 1993, there were l5 districts rated as dirty, in 1995 it dropped to seven districts, in 1996 it dropped to four districts. The July through September 1996 quarterly rating was the first time no districts were rated dirty. A Sanitation district is rated "dirty" when less than 50 per cent of the streets are considered "acceptably clean".

New cleaning strategies devised by Sanitation Commissioner and his management team, which include the tactical use of over 3,700 WEP participants in street sweeping and cleaning functions, are having demonstrated success in cleaning up chronically dirty districts throughout the city. This long term strategy, dubbed OPERATION SLICE -- streets ,lots, intensive cleaning and enforcement -- hinges on giving total accountability to the Sanitation district superintendents for all cleaning in their districts.

The success of the new strategy is evident on the Lower East Side and Chinatown in Manhattan's Community Board #3. For the past 20 years, though the administrations of four Mayors and eight Sanitation Commissioners, this district had the distinction for consistently being the dirtiest district in New York City with an average cleanliness rating of 33 percent.

But during the last two quarters -- April through September 1996 -- the new management strategies have resulted in a dramatic turnaround. During this period, District 3 has averaged a cleanliness rating of 71.4 percent, which represents an improvement of over 200 percent.

The program is now operating in several districts. Other targeted districts which have experienced improvement because of the WEP and SLICE strategies include Queens District 1/Astoria-Long Island City, Brooklyn District 8/Crown Heights and Bronx District 1/Mott Haven -Port Morris.