Community Watchdog

A reader who signed himself as VINNY MAGRINO posted a comment about the LIRR Hicksville train station issue that addresses a big part of many of the problems across Long Island. He wrote: "STOP POINTING THE FINGER AT EACH OTHER AND GET IT TAKEN CARE OF , PERIOD. THIS IS AN ONGOING PROBLEM TODAY, NOBODY WANTS TO TAKE CHARGE. IT'S ALWAYS BLAME THE OTHER GUY."

It's not exactly finger pointing, but that's what it looks like to those of us who don't care whose jurisdiction it is, we just want the problem fixed.

The Hicksville station has at least three agencies that are responsible for cleaning up the area - the LIRR (for the station and all the platform areas, plus the areas under the trestle), the Town of Oyster Bay (for all the out areas and parking lots) and the state Department of Transportation (for the roadway areaon Route 107). BUT, DO YOU CARE?

Apparently, these agencies don't coordinate their cleaning efforts, don't communicate with each other and assume they're all doing what's right and responsible.

Long Island is always going to suffer because of "finger pointing" as long as there are overlapping jurisdictions. We're in a maze of taxpayer-supported jurisdictions and we're not about to escape anytime soon.

Our Sunday column in Newsday focused primarily on conditions at the LIRR station in Hicksville. Judging by many of the comments posted with the story readers want to let off steam or just rag on other bloggers.

We appreciate feedback, but we''re also hoping to hear from commuters who have real issues with the LIRR station they use every day. That means we'd need your name, address and day phone number. The best way to do that is by email. Our address is watchdog@newsday.com. Let us know which station you use and what the problem is.

Thanks.

James Ryan wants to know why litter along an LIE service road in Nassau Couny is ever-present.
Newsday photo by Viorel Florescu

The westbound service road of the Long Island Expressway near Exit 41 is choked with debris. I called Nassau County numerous times last fall to get the debris removed. They cleaned up the area, but why can't the county have a crew maintain it?

--James Ryan, Oyster Bay

We got the county’s Department of Public Works to schedule a spring cleanup for the service road west of Robbins Lane.

But don’t expect the road to be maintained regularly yet. The county's contract with a California company that oversaw cleanup of the service roads expired last year and a replacement hasn't been hired, said Senior Deputy Commissioner Ray Stefanowicz.

The county’s LIE service roads had been maintained by Adopt-A-Highway Maintenance Corp. The county’s road maintenance crews have been handling grass-cutting and tree-trimming duties, but roadside debris goes uncollected “unless it gets to be outrageous,” Stefanowicz said. “We hope to have...things back to normal sometime this summer.”

To request debris cleanup for a county-owned road, call 516-571-6900

--MICHAEL R. EBERT

A Watchdog reader, Ann, wants to know about those little signs. I haven't had a chance to call some towns (Huntington and Babylon will be the first ones I get to because I see them in those areas the most) to find out if those grounders are legal or not.

If they're not, I guess that means - like other litter - anyone can pick them up and dispose of them properly.

Ann, I'll make those calls as soon as I can. Thanks for your continued interest.

I've been exchanging comments with readers about our frustrations with the litter problem on Long Island and this weekend, I heard about the Town of Brookhaven scheduling it's community cleanup dates.

The town's looking for volunteers to take part in it's Keep America Clean/Keep Brookhaven Beautiful campaign.

It's likely that at least some of the other 12 townships on Long Island will be holding the same kind of clean-up days.

To all the volunteers who put in the effort to keep your communities litter-free, nice going.

Thanks to Ryan for his comments on cigarette butts. Those filters are so annoying and never seem to disappear no matter how much rain, snow or wind we have.

Check out Ryan's comments on yesterday's blog and a link he found about what the city of Slidell, LA. is doing to stop the problem.

Is it my imagination or is there more litter - everywhere?

Driving along local roads, there are so many areas that look like garbage escaped from sanitation trucks and landed along the streets of Long Island.

A lot has to do with drivers who think nothing of throwing plastic bottles, coffee cups, wrappers, fast food containers and other trash from their cars. What about the slobs who empty their ash trays in parking lots, not to mention used disposable diapers?

We rarely see clean-up crews picking up debris, but Long Island's not looking too spiffy these days.

UPDATE
Thanks for your comments on this issue.

I've lived on Long Island for most of my life, and I can't remember it being as littered as it is now. Ryan, Toby, Richie and Mike we're on the same page.

But what to do about it? Mike, the question of manpower is a big one. None of us want to pay more taxes for litter clean ups. But we pay more taxes now than ever. How did the various government agencies manage in the past when we could be proud of our communities?

And what about having a sense of pride in where we live? Not just our own home towns, but Long Island as a whole.

The person Toby talked about - the smoker who threw his cigarette wrapper out the window - multiply that slob by 1,000 (a lowball number for sure), which is only a fraction of the people living in Nassau and Suffolk, and you've got mountains of fast food trash and other garbage being tossed out of car windows, landing along the highways and commercial areas.

Anybody travel along the Town of Babylon's New Highway lately? What a mess.

FRIDAY UPDATE:
Mike talks about overlapping jurisdictions, which is one of Long Island's biggest problems. But people who live in Nassau and Suffolk have always been reluctant to give up any "local" control of anything, including their school districts.

If I had a solution, I'd offer it. But I think so much of the problem is the lack of pride and respect people have. That's the bottom line. Linda (see comments) talks about the litter campaign of years ago. I agree we need one. And if kids can learn the importance of recycling, they can learn to have pride in where they live. Kids are always a great place to start when you want something good to happen. Some parents would argue that they have more important concerns, but community pride would be something youngsters would carry into adulthood.

Maybe in the scheme of things, litter doesn't seem like a big problem, especially if you're trying to raise kids in a sinking economy, when you're worried about keeping a roof over your head and problems many Long Islanders face. It wouldn't take much to have a litter-free Long Island, but it would have to become a priority and, let's face it, it's obviously pretty low on everyone's list.

Where are the Boys and Girl Scouts? The community groups that used to have clean-up days. Everyone is so busy with their own lives, we've forgotten about our community as a whole.

If anyone knows of any area on Long Island where there are programs to keep the community beautiful, let me know. I'd love to give them space on this blog. Maybe we can all benefit.