Health Department Forms Folder 0065, 1999-2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

SEP-13-2000 13:31 MAYOR'S PRESS OFFICE 1 212 788 2975 P.04/06

THE CITY OF NEW YORK OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 13OROUGH OF MANHATTAN

C. VtacusnA FrsnDs BOROUGH PRPSIDENT

September 12, 2000

Rudolph Giuliani Mayor City Hall New York, New York 10007

Dear Mayor Giuliani:

As you may already know, on July 18 I launched the Manhattan Borough Presidents Rat Complaint Hotline. Through this hotline my staff has been collecting information c ffered by constituents about public areas infested with rats. As of September 8, 2000 my Rat Complaint Hotline has received a total of 640 calls from throughout the Borough or Manhattan.

Four hundred of these calls were logged into our systems as complaints. A total of 365 complaints were forwarded to the Department of Health (158 on July 17th, 51 on July 19 and 115 on August 10'I'). My Director of Constituents Services spoke with Ms. Fran Paris, Director, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, regarding the handling of com plaints and requested that DOH assign a number to the individual cases forwarded from th.s office. On August 21 , after numerous requests to Ms. Paris, my office received complaint numbers for 185 of the total 365 of complaints forwarded to the Departs gent of Health. To date, my office has not received confirmation as to the status of these requests; a clear description of the procedure for processing the information; or whether our constituents can get a report from DOH using their complaint number.

I understand that during the past few months the agency's efforts have been concentrated on preventing the spread of the West Nile-Like Virus. However, our constituents d•_serve a comprehensive and coordinated plan for dealing with this infestation.

Since 1985 there has been no community outreach to educate residents in neighbor roods throughout the city about ways to reduce rattinfestation. From the early 1970s thro'.gh the 1980s, New York City had a strong, comprehensive program that allowed it to targ:t specific rat infested areas- Furthermore, there existed a cooperative program betwe :n DOH and the Buildings Department whereby applicants for building permits had tc

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