Traffic enforcement remains a priority of the Garden City Police Department. In October, officers issued 1,097 traffic tickets, including 208 for excessive speed offenses. The department would also like to remind all motorists of the requirement to stop for school buses when their red lights are flashing. Officers are actively monitoring various school bus stop locations throughout the village and have charged 20 motorists during the months of September and October for passing school buses as they were discharging or picking up students.
The Street Department has begun leaf collection. Check the village’s website regularly for updates as to where crews are in the village. The Parks Department is responsible for leaf removal in the Central Section, and supplemented by Recreation Maintenance help, typically has four crews doing leaf pick up each day. One crew works First Street to Third Street, the second works Fourth to Sixth, and the third works back from Old Country Road down to Ninth Street. Crew number four does the short streets, dead ends, commercial areas and Franklin Court. When a crew finishes their section, they revert back to the starting point and repeat the process over again. Residents are asked to observe the following guidelines:
- Place only leaves in the street. Other items such as sticks and old plant material may damage machinery and slow down operation.
- Do not place leaves on medians and malls as this will kill or damage the grass. For reasons of safety, our streets are cleaned of leaves on a more frequent schedule than are the medians.
- Avoid parking cars over leaves as this slows our operation considerably and is also a fire hazard. Cars can be damaged or destroyed by fire as a result of their being parked on dry leaves.
- Please do not obscure fire hydrants by piling leaves around them.
- Landscapers can place leaves in the street from properties worked on up until the time the village stops collecting leaves, which is usually early December.
- Contractors cannot dump leaves from their trucks in the street.
PSEG Long Island is scheduling to perform storm hardening work through an initiative called Power On. This program will help strengthen 50 miles of distribution lines per year over the next five years, targeting the most vulnerable circuits across Long Island and the Rockaways. The project includes:
- Upgrading and replacing existing electric wire with more resilient and durable wire.
- Installing new and more durable poles. The poles will be similar in height and have a stronger base. In addition, PSEG Long Island will actively coordinate the removal of old poles with other utilities.
- Installing shorter cross arms atop some poles to help deflect falling limbs instead of catching them.
The work on this circuit is scheduled to begin the week of Nov. 15. Customers are being sent a letter explaining the work that will be done.
—Submitted by the Village of Garden City