Community Watchdog

Elaine Lampert was walking along Old Country Road when she tripped and fell on a sidewalk near her home, causing a badly-bruised eye socket. Photo was about a week after her fall in Plainview.
Newsday photo by Gwen Young

I live at a senior housing complex in Plainview. We’re having a lot of problems with the sidewalks on Old Country Road near Barnum Avenue. I spoke to everybody in the Town of Oyster Bay and nobody has come to check. I fell on the sidewalk by a funeral parlor and got a black eye. We are seniors and we can’t walk anywhere because the sidewalks are pulled up because of the trees. I walk every Sunday to Hicksville and I have to walk in the gutter because the sidewalk is so bad. Our people here are falling here and we can’t even walk to the stores.
--Elaine Lampert, Plainview

Mrs. Lampert kept calling the town because she wanted an official to see the condition of the sidewalks on the north and south sides of Old Country Road.

But the town employee who spoke with Mrs. Lampert a number of times apparently didn’t make it clear that Nassau County has jurisdiction on that road.

We talked to Nassau Public Works Commissioner Ray Ribeiro and told him about the problem. He promised to have someone contact Mrs. Lampert and send an inspector to examine the sidewalks next week.

Ribeiro said that with miles of roads and sidewalks to oversee, the county doesn’t have a crew dedicated to inspecting them, so the department relies on people calling in problem areas.

The county notifies property owners when sidewalks need to be repaired and the owners are responsible for getting them fixed.

Once a report is lodged, “We identify what needs to be repaired,” he said. If the complaint involves sidewalks, a tree expert is dispatched to determine whether the tree needs to be taken down before the sidewalk can be repaired.

Owners get a notice from the county, which gives them two months to do the required work. After two months, there’s a re-inspection. If the work hasn’t been done, a second notice goes out and the owner gets another two months to complete the work. A third inspection is done and if the sidewalk is still in hazardous condition, the county does the work and bills the owner, Ribeiro said.

Ribeiro said Tuesday, “We’ll arrange for a day to have one of our inspectors go out and walk it with her next week. It’s something we would do anyway if she contacted us.”