Posted on 11/03/2025 2:33:32 AM PST by Libloather
Some street snitches are raking in close to $1 million apiece from the city 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 Post.
“We’re not doing that anymore,” he said. “The program has become an occupation. The program was not intended to be an occupation.”
The Big Apple’s Citizen Idling Complaint Program was launched in 2019, with the city even recruiting ’80s punk rocker Billy Idol to promote the effort the next year.
“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 Department of Environmental 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.
With fines ranging from $350 to $2,000 for idling and 95% of the complaints substantiated, the rewards add up and have turned the streets into gold for the Big Apple’s citizen enforcers.
According to DEP records obtained by The Post, here are the top-earning enviro-enforcers who have earned an “assumed” total amount of more than $500,000 and approaching $1 million:
Ernest Welde of the East Village, Manhattan: $895,737
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
What happens if an illegal alien is the driver?
“The Big Apple’s Citizen Idling Complaint Program”
Another Stuck on Stupid enviro-weenie program hitting the taxpayers right in the wallet.
Nope, he pretty much hit the nail on the head there. Having a 4th generation business now when women left the office and started on the shop floor the difference was startling.
I'm certainly not sexist in any way, but women by nature are not the same as men at all in an industrial setting whatsoever, and just like a wife to get mad at a husband for doing something that they don't approve of, it was the same way at out shop too. Jumping on a skid and going up 20' to change a lightbulb with the forklift was not even given a second thought, but then OSHA comes in and lists it being witnessed by employees, all of which had worked there forever except for the new hires we brought in.
Please stop. I already have enough reasons not to go to NYC.
People making money off govt programs is a no-no.
The city council wants all the money for themselves.
New York Marxist Commissars find a new way to make Ratting Out your fellow Communists bring in millions!
Govt does not like to share their theft. And they promise to put a stop to it.
“Another Stuck on Stupid enviro-weenie program hitting the taxpayers right in the wallet.”
zero taxpayer money involved ... NYC makes a profit on the fines that result from private citizens providing the necessary evidence to levy said fines ... their real complaint is that they’re not getting 100% of the fines ... of course, if there’s no reward for citizens to provide the evidence, the amount of fines received drops close to zero ...
Bingo
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