 Is that a Yankee color though? That's my color. Come on, that's got to win tonight. I know. I was watching. How are you? Good, how are you? Good, how are you? Good, how are you? Good, how are you? All day. How are you? Good, how are you? Good, how are you? Good, you should wear those. That's awesome. You know some of my constituents, Mr. Commissioner. It just grows up to me. Acupuncture for banner. Really we used to hang on the grass. Yep, we used to hang on the grass. It just grows up quickly. A little girl. Wait, what that... That's coming to the corner too? Yeah. I have no complaint. I just got my speed hump done from seven years ago. All right good evening everyone members of the media thank you for being here my name is our Chief Jeff Madger. I'm the Chief of Patrol for the NYPD and I have the honor to stand here with the mayor of the city of New York the honorable Eric Adams. I will command an officer of Patrol Borough Queen South assistant Chief Kevin Williams and Deputy Inspector Brian O'Sullivan who's the commanding officer of the traffic enforcement division also standing with us our elected officials from Queens our commissioners and I want to thank them for not only being here but with along with the community bringing this issue to our attention. So we're here to highlight the recent work of the NYPD officers and our traffic enforcement agents during operation heavy-duty enforcement heavy-duty for short targeting illegal overnight parking of commercial vehicles and residential neighborhoods of Southern Queens. New York City parking rules prohibit these vehicles from parking overnight on residential streets from 9 p.m. at night to 5 o'clock the following morning and that's seven days a week. This is a multifaceted effort consistent of three teams use utilizing heavy tow operations along with applying boots to vehicles as well as issuance summonses for the parking infractions. This operation spans across several NYPD commands, bureaus and other city agencies. This enforcement action is a direct result of community concerns and community complaints and I spend a lot of time on a personal note. I spent a lot of time in this neighborhood and I've noticed personally how the residential blocks have been inundated with these large vehicles that should not be parking overnight. These vehicles negatively impact our communities here. The residents reached out and of course the NYPD responded our department to date took action and in the first five days of this endeavor, which started on Monday, August 15th and went to Friday, August 19th. We issued 635 summonses. We attached 89 boots to vehicles and we told 55 illegally parked vehicles, some of them, some of them what you see right here in the backdrop behind us. And I like to take a moment to thank the owners of this facility here and supporting us in this endeavor, allowing us to use this facility to store these vehicles and use it as our operation center. We're committed here at the NYPD to improving the quality of life of every New Yorker in every New York City neighborhood. We will do this in close collaboration with the residents, our other leaders here, people who work in our neighborhoods and visitors to our city. It is very critical that the NYPD listens to the people we serve. And this is just the latest example of how we're working together to make New York City safer and better. So now I have the honor here to introduce our mayor, the honorable Eric Adams. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Yes, sir. Thanks so much. And our partners here, Queensborough president, Donovan Richards, Councilwoman Savina Brooke Powers, Councilwoman Natasha Williams, Councilwoman Linda Lee, our civic groups and organizations that are here. This is a real problem. And during the campaign trail, I recall the president talking about the park areas, Springfield Boulevard, parts of the Bronx, where these trucks are lining the neighborhoods and some parks you cannot even see outside the park because trucks are lined up. And we committed that we were going to tackle this problem head on. And we knew that it was going to take some coordination. We're clear that many of the truck drivers now have to take the necessary rest, mandated rest by federal law. We understand that. And we are partnering with a combination of city agencies to deal with this long term issue. But in the interim, we have you social media and direct interaction and communication to tell the drivers you cannot park in residential communities. And it's not lost on us. This type of parking is not happening in affluent areas. You are not going to go in affluent parts of the city and see these 18 wheelers parked out front. And it goes without enforcement. This is a residential community. They deserve the same level of quality of life that we give to other parts of the city. That is how we're going to give to every part of the city. They have been raising these concerns, these elected officials, even prior to being elected and just communities advocates, they have been raising these concerns over and over again. And those concerns have fallen on deaf ears. January 1st, 2022, mayor came in that not only listens, but he responds. We believe in GSD get stuff done and we getting it done tonight. We get it done during the day. We get it done during the afternoon. This is a problem that has been in place far too long. And so tonight, you're seeing the vehicles that were told here. We're going to go to a location and show how we either told or we put on the boot to send a clear message that this is not going to continue in the communities in the city. We are proud of what the police department is doing from everything from paper plates to the illegal ATVs and dirt bikes on our roads to targeted enforcement of noise complaints to targeted enforcement of disruptive behavior in our city. New Yorkers are stating we want to live in a city where quality of life is considered as paramount no matter where you live and no matter what block you live on. And that is what we're doing. That's why we're out here at 9 30 p.m. To look at those who are breaking the law that are parking on our city streets during the hours that they're not supposed to be a parking. This is not a hit on those low wage workers who are driving trucks. It is a hit on ensuring we get the quality of life that we deserve. And so I want to again thank my electives and I want to turn it over to our bar president. I've been seeing a lot of you, a bar president, Donovan Richards and have our elected officials say a few words because you have played a crucial role in pointing out this issue and stating that partnership between this my office city hall, our agencies and our elected officials. President Richard said something today with a speed bump problem he had. He says your agencies are responding. We want to be known as a city agencies in the administration that we respond to the needs and the cause of our local elected officials. We're turning over to Queensborough President Donovan Richards. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And it's been an honor to be with you and earlier as we talk about GSD being with my sister Sylvina Brook Councilwoman Sylvina Brooks Power, a majority whip. It's proud to be out fixing the making sure the 116th Precinct happened. So today is really a great day for for Southeast Queens. And I want to thank you for bringing us together today to talk about an issue that infuriates me and the rest of Southeast Queens to no end. Every single night you'll see commercial trucks parked up and down Springfield Boulevard like it's their own personal parking lot and not just here on Springfield. You can go up the Van Wick. You can go to many parts of the spiral and you'll see the same thing. And every night in residential streets throughout Southeast Queens, you'll see scenes just like this. And let me be clear. As the mayor said, you do not see this in affluent neighborhoods. These trucks should not be using residential streets as their parking lots. It's disrespectful to our neighbors. It's dangerous. And honestly, it's just outright dumb. Under no circumstances should we surrender our streets to these trucking companies. I've told the mayor that I've told the NYP that PD that and they've responded. And I've demanded stronger enforcement along with my colleagues and I'll continue to do so until these trucks are a thing of the past. So Mr Mayor, it is great to partner with you. I look forward to partnership with our state officials as well. I know I spoke to Commissioner Rodriguez and many of my colleagues here raising the fine as well. So we look forward to working with the state as we move forward. And obviously as the co-chair of the JFK advisory board, we're going to be talking to JFK or potentially having a place where we can also have long term parking as well. So let's talk about ticket in these trucks every single night. Let's talk about enforcing the hell out of this problem like we mean business because we do. It's ridiculous. It's time to fix it. And I know my colleagues Linda Lee, Nantasha Williams and Sylvina Brooks Power share my passion on this issue to the community. Thank you for all of your advocacy because when you advocate and speak up, you get results. So thank you, Mr. GSD. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you to the NYPD partners at the Department of Transportation as well. I am Councilwoman Sylvina Brooks Powers representing the 31st Council District and I have the privilege of serving as the chair for transportation and infrastructure. And as a Southeast Queens resident, we all know firsthand how our quality of life continues to be diminished by the chronic illegal truck parking that takes place across our community. We do recognize now that it's not only Southeast Queens, but we we do want to make sure that we are getting stuff done here in Southeast Queens and responding to our community. I know we'll be joined shortly also by a community leader that's a part of the Southeast Queens illegal truck parking task force that has been formed that crosses not only my district but Councilmember Nantasha Williams, Councilmember Linda Lee's district and continues to expand by the week I feel like because again, this is an issue that is impacting New York City. And so I am pleased that the work that is being done echoing what the mayor said we recognize that this is an industry in terms of people providing for their families, but we have to find the balance and continue the conversations to find alternative options for our trucks to be able to park while at the same time not impacting the quality of life of the residents of this community. So thank you once again. Thank you so much mayor and for the commissioner and all the other electives and colleagues here today. So this is definitely a multifaceted issue and there have been several attempts at fixing it with raising the fines which we know helps but it's not the only way that we're going to solve this problem and we need to raise the fines like our borough president said but also we need to think about how to work with finding places locations where the trucks can go and also you know with the onset of the pandemic and everything that's happened so many more of the e-commerce industry and a lot of these companies have grown and so that's why we're seeing so many more trucks on the streets in the roads and I gotta say we were in a meeting one time with our fellow Dem conference folks on the council and one person actually brought up this issue with the truck parking and it just sparked a whole entire conversation and we were talking about illegal truck parking for literally at least half an hour 45 minutes and it's something that just it wasn't on the agenda it just came up and and this is an issue that we're seeing across the entire city from Staten Island to the Bronx and I've spoken to other colleagues in other cities across the U.S. and it's not just specific to New York but it's an issue that a lot of other folks are facing and you know with the growth of this industry we also need to bring these companies to the table as well and say hey how are you going to help us with this issue as well and how can we partner and work together on this so this is definitely a multifaceted issue but I want to thank everyone who's here today NYPD for working so closely with the communities because this is impacting all of us in terms of our daily lives quality of life and and you know I feel confident though that with this mayor and with this administration we can definitely work closer to achieving that goal so thank you so much. Thank you. This is a woman Williams. Well thank you all for coming to my district because you are located in hashtag inside the 27 so I'm really excited to be here from day one of coming into this seat tow towing cars derelict vehicles and trucks has been one of the main things our office has been focused on we've worked directly with police precincts to do these operations but we're really excited that this is a whole wide effort I want to thank chief Williams who has come in to clean south and has really led this effort it's definitely something as you've heard from everybody else that is very important to our district not only seeing the trucks but the trucks also leave trash I just spoke to a woman just right outside of this press conference that said it's not even just the truck is that when they leave they leave a whole bunch of trash and so not only do we have to work with the department of department of transportation or the police precinct we also then have to reach out to the department of sanitation to come clean the trash so we know this is an issue we know what the solutions are we just all have to put our heads together to really solve the problem and following up to what council member Lee said because we have had a lot of conversations as Queens delegation co-chairs around one how can we increase fines increase enforcement but how can we be strategic in finding places more places for these truck drivers to park so I look forward to working with everyone here as well as our state colleagues because they have a role in this as well to really find a core core solution for this problem thank you you know task force leader you work doing this forward for this hello everybody and thank you for coming out and thank you for inviting me I was with mrs. Perkins so I'm a little late but just a little bit of background we started a task force my name is Bill Perkins I live in rosedale former president of rosedale civic association and with the eastern queens alliance so we started a task force back at the end of may because one of the issues that collectively we saw as civic organizations was there's just a lot of truck parking and it the problem had increased over the COVID period so we got together and we said what can we do about it so long story short we wrote a letter to you mr. Mayor and we then were engaged with our elected officials so I looked to to my left here so being a books powers we work with council member on president borough president Richards and then our other council members here and their staff and we meet biweekly really to make sure we are identifying kind of where the locations are where the hot spots are we keep the civics informed chief williams here I talked to him I think his first day on the job which was memorial day and he I introduced myself and he says I know about the truck issue we're going to get to it and and I applaud him for it he sent me an email last thursday about this initiative that he put together really a SWAT team of towing trucks but what we look for is a holistic solution it's not just you know towing the trucks and ticketing the trucks we recognize there is a capacity issue with parking of vehicles we recognize the economic situations where more people are in the trucking industry so our whole holistic solution at least for this area is to make sure that we find capacity for trucks to park we inform the truckers where they can park and you know we get the trucks out of our open spaces our parks and around our neighborhoods so man I'm glad to be here today with this force of city agencies and our mayor out to really kind of move this forward Mr. Mayor what we do want is we hear you're you're organizing the citywide task force and we think that our task force would be a great pilot so as you're looking at you know someone to to kind of work through and test this out the our task force is ready for the charge thank you thank you please attention open to a few questions before we get to work and and there are we want to find easier locations for them while we're working out this long-term problem but there are parking parking facilities around the city where they can park that can accommodate trucks but when you say it's easier just to park in a residential area because everyone is ignoring it then you are ignoring the possibility they're allowing their convenience to inconvenience everyday residents so there are places around the city that we can look at and then we as a city can find locations such as the marine terminal in brooklyn and sunset park we can look at potential using spaces in a navy yard there are other sites that are more suitable to park trucks than on a block where you have residential communities yes yes you can so i just want to also add that the task force in collaboration with our council officers and the n e d c have met recently with the port authority in terms of the southeast queens community to look and explore other solutions possibly on airport where there's a lot of land that's there so we are working with the city agencies that are working to get it done so that we can find that that happy thank you good question how much research has it gotten one of you well i mean we all can i can tell you just from just in southeastern queens we have to uh i can tell you from southeastern queens in my neighborhood brookville park four or five years ago there would be two or three trucks park so it would just be a matter of just you know calling up the 150 precinct and then working through that now they're 30 trucks park and in some locations if you go down springfield boulevard you'll see 50 trucks park we had a task force member actually take down the license plate's number of 50 trucks and we filed 311 complaints so it is not just arithmetically increase it's exponentially increase want to also thank our amazing dlt commissioner for being here donis rodriguez for the coordination of this initiative other questions yes ladies one of you ladies want to tackle that i mean the simple answer is yes so again one of the operations we do in our office with the precincts directly is tagged until operations usually for derelict or abandoned vehicles and that has also exponentially increase so the short answer is yes and let me just add on the on as uh councilwoman alluded to and as you alluded to mr mayor the convenience part and you know i'm being anecdotal but some of the folks who drive these trucks and i think the nypd could give you more info on that live right here so it's convenient for them to also park and go into their home and that's not right you know you you should be responsible to your community you know your community has fought hard to become homeowners to preserve the quality of life that we have and it's unfortunate that we have people here who also are part of the problem as well so if you're a part of the problem you're definitely not a part of the solution and you need to also for those of you who listening out there we want to work with you but you can not use our streets as a parking lot okay look at these trucks these things say what is eric doing where they normally park all right so we're gonna we're gonna go to one of the locations all right ready to go you can follow us those who want to be a part of this