City Council Member Robert Holden. (John McCarten/NYC Council )
May 15, 2019 By Laura Hanrahan
City Council Member Robert Holden announced today that the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) will be bringing its neighborhood pop-up court for City-issued summonses to the Council Member’s Middle Village office next Wednesday.
OATH, the administrative law court where city enforcement agencies file their summonses, has held more than a dozen similar events in the outer boroughs. The upcoming Middle Village event marks OATH’s second pop-up court in Queens.
The goal of the pop-up events is to allow residents to fight summonses given to them by the city agencies without having to travel outside of their neighborhood.
Summonses that will be eligible to fight at the pop-ups include all Sanitation Department and Parks Department summonses; summonses issued by the Health Department for pest control and rodent violations; and non-criminal, quality of life summonses issued by the NYPD, such as public urination, being in the park after dark, littering, spitting, excessive noise, and having an open container of alcohol.
Parking, traffic or speeding tickets, red light camera tickets or MTA turnstile violations cannot be fought at the pop-up event.
“Giving people the opportunity to adjudicate summonses in their own back yard is a win-win,” Holden said. “This is an excellent idea by OATH, an agency that cares about New Yorkers and their quality of life. I look forward to hosting this pop-up court and many more events that benefit our constituents in the future.”
The pop-up court will be held at Holden’s office, located at 64-69 Dry Harbor Rd., on Wednesday, May 22 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
To make sure eligible residents are aware of the event, OATH will send out letters to all residents with relevant summonses. The agency sent out 1,295 letters to eligible residents last month for a similar pop-up court in East New York.
On Wednesday, OATH staff and Hearing Officers will be on site to check in respondents and hold hearings. Full translation services will be available in up to 250 languages.
Residents who attend the event will be sent the Hearing Officer’s decision in the mail within seven days.
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