New Inspectors to Scout Out Potholes, Graffiti

WNYC News | Jul 12, 2010

A new team of city street observers - or "Scouts" as they're called, plan to inspect every city street once a month to check for unsightly neighborhood conditions like potholes, graffiti, and street dumping.

REPORTER: The inspectors will drive three wheeled scooters and use blackberry's that are specially programmed to report the conditions they discover to 311.

Mayor Bloomberg says New Yorkers are still encouraged to report on quality of life conditions near where they live - but the burden shouldn't be on the public:

BLOOMBERG: You shouldn't have to do that, we'd love to have you do it but its government's responsibility to find the problems and fix them - not to sit there and say DUH...we didn't know."

REPORTER: The first" Scouts" began their inspections earlier this month. Eventually, the fifteen street observers are expected to generate between one-thousand and and three thousand reports a day.

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