Tenants of crime-ridden NYCHA projects are trapped in a bureaucratic swamp that greatly slows the process of installing much-needed security cameras, a new report revealed Friday.
The city Department of Investigation (DOI) found the process for installing cameras in public housing is seriously hampered by built-in delays, according to a 20-page report, released Friday.
DOI launched its examination in June after it was revealed that cameras funded a year earlier had yet to be installed in a Brooklyn development where two children were stabbed in an elevator.
DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said an overly complicated system unnecessarily lengthens the time between when cameras are funded and when they can be installed and activated.
“You’ve got a process that has 12 different steps and five different governmental entities, and that is usually a design that invites delays,” he said.
The report states: “In the past it has generally taken many months and sometimes years for security improvements to move from a city council member’s funding allocation to installation.”
Case in point was the June 2 stabbing attack in which a crazed man killed P.J. Avitto, 6, and wounded his 7-year-old playmate, Mikayla Capers, inside an elevator in the Boulevard Houses. Nearly a year earlier, $500,000 had been allotted for cameras at Boulevard, but on the day of the attack, they had yet to be installed.
An angry Mayor de Blasio subsequently ordered NYCHA to get its act together. Suddenly, several city agencies managed to make sure cameras were installed at the Boulevard Houses, DOI found.
NYCHA approved the necessary paperwork in less than two weeks — “far shorter than the usual processing time,” DOI found.
DOI concluded that the fast response to the mayor’s anger proved it was possible to greatly accelerate the process: “The quick processing time raised questions as to why camera contracts had not been processed as expeditiously in prior years and whether the faster turnaround time could be sustained going forward.”
Dean Fuleihan, head of the Office of Management & Budget, conceded that before de Blasio interceded, “Choreography was not what it was.”
“There were hurdles that were unacceptable and there were obstacles that were unacceptable,” he said. “The mayor jumped and said this is unacceptable both from the prior administration and his own team. And then there was choreography.”
Recently, DOI found, several city agencies were able to accelerate other aspects of the snail-like process. All of this occurred after The Daily News in 2012 exposed the fact that the authority had been sitting for years on $42 million intended to fund new cameras.
Since then, NYCHA has greatly sped up the average time it took to consult with tenants about where to locate cameras in specific developments. The average dropped from 90 to 45 days.
The city’s Office of Management & Budget, which must approve all expenditures, used to take on average three months to approve NYCHA camera spending. After the mayor’s angry reaction to the June stabbing, OMB put NYCHA’s camera requests at “the front of the line” and green-lighted two NYCHA security contracts in just three weeks.
And DOI found that because NYCHA is not a city agency it’s not part of the city’s computer system, and still must hand-deliver documents to the comptroller. Comptroller officials say only NYCHA and the Department of Education do this.
Peters said the city’s reaction to the horrendous attack in the Boulevard Houses proves things can get better.
“What we saw in the wake of the tragedy at Boulevard Houses is all of those entities coming together to speed up the process,” he said. “But what we need to do is to make sure that faster streamlined process becomes permanent and institutionalized.”
NYCHA spokeswoman Joan Lebow said the authority was already moving to improve the camera installation process when the June attacks occurred.
“It was really helpful for the mayor to spotlight this issue and to help streamline the process further to continue something NYCHA had begun,” she said. “Now DOI is adding even more of a spotlight on the issue and in the end people will have more safety.”
