Sheepshead Bay City Councilman Chaim Deutsch is spending the dog days of summer traveling throughout his district, and he has found East 15th Street between Avenue Y and Z to be a jungle – literally.
Overgrown weeds, shrubs and trees creep out over the sidewalk as if the Brooklyn neighborhood had become a ghost town. Deutsch took one look at the scene and immediately called the MTA and the Department of Transportation to clear the vegetation. The two agencies control the strip as one side of the road abuts the elevated tracks on which the B and Q lines run.
“These are things I pick up from traveling around my district and being proactive,” said Deutsch, adding he will stay on the two agencies until the brush is cleared to a manageable level.
Deutsch said his travels around the district allows him to observe quality of life issues first-hand such as the need for additional garbage pickups along the commercial hubs of Sheepshead Bay Road, Brighton Beach Avenue, Avenue U and Kings Highway.
As such, the lawmaker has called the Department of Sanitation about getting more waste basket pick-ups and has spoken to district businesses to become Adopt-A-Basket volunteers in which his office will give them free industrial strength garbage bags if they tie and change the garbage bags in the corner baskets when they get full.
Walking around the commercial strips, Deutsch has also seen several empty storefronts and wants to encourage local entrepreneurs to fill them. He’s also heard some complaints from small business owners that they are getting summonses that carry costly fines when warnings are more warranted.
To address the situation, Deutsch is having the City’s Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Julie Menin come to the district for a town hall meeting next month.
“For the town hall, we’re going to invite business owners to let them know how Consumer Affairs will be more business friendly in regards to violations, that there will be more warnings instead of violations. It will also be for people who want to open small businesses in the stores for rent,” said Deutsch, adding he will do it in partnership with Coney Island and adjacent City Council Member Mark Treyger.
Deutsch said the goal of both the clean-up effort and the town hall is to do more community and small business outreach so that the commercial strips in his district become even more vibrant.
The Town Hall Meeting is slated for 7 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 5 at the Shorefront Y, 3300 Coney Island Avenue.
