FTA
The Big Apple’s “Citizen Idling Complaint Program” was launched in 2019, with the cityrecruiting ’80s punk rocker Billy Idol to promote the effort. “Billy never idles. Neither should you. Idling is polluting. Cut your engine off,” the rock star urged in an ad campaign. Under the program, citizen enforcers are awarded 25% of the fines pursued by the Environmental agency and substantiated by the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, or OATH. If the tattletales go to OATH directly, they can receive 50 percent of any substantiated offense.
<><>Some street snitches are raking in close to $1 million apiece just by recording videos of idling trucks and buses spewing air pollution, prompting local pols to try to curb the staggering payouts.
<><>“The days of the six-figure bounty hunters are over,” Queens City Councilman James Gennaro, who chairs the Environmental Committee, told The NY Post.
<><>“We’re not doing that anymore,” he said. “The program has become an occupation. The program was not intended to be an occupation.”
Sounds to me paying bounties work.
The city council just wants all the money for themselves.