NYC ballot measure would expand trash pickup — and street vendor crackdowns

Mayor Eric Adams will ask New Yorkers this November to grant him sweeping new authority to expand his trash revolution.

A question on the back of voters’ ballots asks whether to expand the sanitation department’s enforcement of cleanliness rules in public spaces and its ability to clear out unlicensed street vendors.

The proposal would codify the sanitation department’s responsibility to clean areas that fall out of the agency’s jurisdiction, like city highways, neglected medians and small plots of green space. It would also strengthen the department's responsibility to containerize waste across the five boroughs, a signature Adams policy that he's dubbed a "trash revolution." The proposal also includes language that would underline the department’s ability to enforce street vending rules in city parks.

“Voting ’Yes’ will expand and clarify the Department of Sanitation's power to clean streets and other City property and require disposal of waste in containers. Voting ‘No’ leaves law unchanged,” reads the text of the ballot proposal.

Sanitation officials say the measure is necessary to clean up sidewalks and lots across the city, but opponents call it a power grab that gives the department too much authority that will lead to continued aggressive crackdowns on street vendors.

The plan to containerize trash across the city is already charging forward. The proposal clarifies that the sanitation department has the authority to regulate how garbage is set out for collection, according to the Charter Revision Commission.

The ballot proposal comes amid Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s dramatic expansion of its enforcement efforts. During her tenure, the department has collaborated with the police and taken on responsibilities that had been assigned to other agencies for decades.

The question is one of a handful of ballot proposals that have earned the ire of the City Council and advocates who say Adams pushed them through in an opaque and undemocratic charter review process.

“The charter revision process that took place was a sham. It was rushed, it was undemocratic, and there's never been a charter revision process like this in the last two decades,” said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez with the Street Vendor Project.

Voter guides describing the ballot proposals are already being mailed out. Early voting begins on October 26.

“The Department of Sanitation (DSNY) would have increased authority to keep all city property clean, including parks and highway medians, and to hold street vendors accountable for following rules at those locations,” the proposal description on city voter guides reads.

The benign language frustrates advocates who say the wording leaves out that it would enhance the sanitation department’s power to issue fines to unlicensed street vendors.

”There's a huge disconnect between what people are going to see on the ballot and what that actually does,” Kaufman-Gutierrez said.

The city charter doesn’t specifically allow the sanitation department to enforce rules on vendors beyond city streets and sidewalks. The proposal would make it clear that sanitation enforcement workers can issue tickets to vendors in city parks and on other city property.

The sanitation department has a full-fledged police department with some 150 uniformed officers who carry firearms and can make arrests. They can also issue tickets to vendors.

The proposal would boost the authority of the department to clean spaces that charter commission director Diane Savino called “‘bureaucratic no man’s lands.”’

If passed, the ballot proposal would make the sanitation department responsible for cleaning city highways – something the transportation department had done for decades. The sanitation department took over the duty last year with a new Highway Cleaning Unit.

“The proposal to expand DSNY’s jurisdiction to allow us to enforce violations of any and all laws and ordinances as they relate to cleanliness as well as providing DSNY with broad cleaning authority is the key to closing this gap and creating a more liveable city,” spokesperson Joshua Goodman said at a July hearing of the Charter Revision Commission.

“It's time to cut through the red tape and bring DSNY cleaning and enforcement authority in line with what most New Yorkers already believe it to be.”

City Councilmember Shaun Abreu criticized the ballot measure and the process that landed it in front of voters this November.

“This ballot proposal only exists because a failing mayor is attempting to evade accountability. That is the goal of this ballot initiative, and any changes to sanitation policy are incidental. We need to containerize our trash, and we should use our normal legislative process to make that happen,” Abreu, the chair of the sanitation committee, said.