Sandy Rayburn Testimony: Lower East Side Resident

Sandy, you're unmuted.

Okay, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay.

Uh good morning.

I'm a resident.

Uh, Peter references us as references, uh, as residents.

We uh of 80 of New York City for 80 years.

I strongly oppose hospitality alliance's proposal to make outdoor dining permanent and year-round on our public streets and sidewalks.

Public space is not a perk for paying customers, it's a shared right.

They are a lobbying group for private and corporate interests, and their proposal is exclusion dressed as inclusion and deregulation disguised as reform.

This is not about supporting small business, it is about the permanent privatization of public space.

Sidewalks and roadways belong to all New Yorkers, including residents like me.

Turning them into commercial real estate violates the public trust doctrine and undermines accessibility, mobility, and equity.

It is not our responsibility to be de facto investors in their business success and to ensure that they quote break even.

The alliance wants to reduce clearances and expand year-round operations, but the existing program already showed us the consequences of over five years, blocked sidewalks, rodent infestations, harmful oppressive noise entering into our homes after long days' work, and serious violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

These dying sheds turned the city into an obstacle course, impossible to navigate safely for wheelchair users, seniors, or parents with strollers.

And let's not forget the Department of Transportation, which is tasked with the oversight, has failed to steward this program responsibly since its inception.

They are the alleged inspectors, yet a force enforcement was lax.

Commun complaints were unanswered, and non time has expired to continue to proliferate.

Next we'll hear from Elizabeth Adams, followed by Michael Cooper Smith, followed by Samir Lavinga Lavingia.

You may begin.

Hi, good afternoon.

I'm Elizabeth Adams with Transportation Alternatives.

The Dining Out NYC program is at a crisis point.