STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New York City streets are immaculate, according ratings in the Mayor's Management report.

The report released recently, said 95 percent of city streets and 97 percent of city sidewalks are "acceptably clean." The report said just 0.2 percent of sidewalks and streets in the city are "filthy."

But Staten Islanders the Advance spoke to on streets around the borough, as well as local officials, disagree with the city's assessment.

"Absolutely not," said South Shore resident Arianna Davila, when asked if she agreed with the city's ratings. "Somebody always has something they're throwing on the floor, whether it's a cigarette butt or something else."

Davila said she thinks "no one cares" about the cleanliness of the streets on the North Shore and believes that part of the Island has the dirtiest streets.

Some Islanders laughed when told about the ratings.

Michael Christensen of Pleasant Plains, an avid runner who runs about 40 miles a week around the borough, said he thinks the city's cleanliness ratings of city streets are too high.

"It seems to vary drastically from place to place," Christensen said. "The numbers seem pretty high to me."

HOW STREETS ARE RATED

According to the mayor's office, inspectors are from its Office of Operations are responsible for measuring the cleanliness of city streets.

The cleanliness ratings are based on both "rigorous photographic standards of cleanliness" for streets and sidewalks, in addition to inspectors rating different segments of streets and sidewalks, periodically going over community board ratings, and by performing at least 17,000 street inspections each month.

Additionally, local community boards in each borough also put together cleanliness ratings of their own on a monthly basis.

In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2018, Island Community Board's 1, 2, and 3 said between 95 to 97 percent of the borough's streets were acceptably clean, while the boards rated 97 to 99 percent of Island sidewalks acceptably clean.

In an effort to crack down on litter around the Island, all of the Island's three council members and Borough President James Oddo have run "clean teams" of their own for the past several years.

They too, questioned the city's metrics.

ODDO CALLS IT 'FICTION'

"If this Mayor's Management Report - like every other Mayor's Management Report of the last 20 years - were a novel in a bookstore, you would find it in the 'Fiction' section," Oddo said. "Spend a day out of New York City and then come back and look around and ask yourself if what you see would be considered 'acceptably clean' by any rational standard. If the barometer is inherently flawed, no reading of that barometer is accurate, and anyone affirming any such reading is deluding themselves and the public."

Dennis McKeon, who runs Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore), Minority Leader Steven Matteo (R-Mid Island) and Oddo's clean teams, said he has overseen 400 clean-ups in the Mid-Island and South Shore in 2018 alone.

Although he says the Island litter problem is getting better, he thinks much more work is needed.

"In my opinion it's nowhere near 90 to 95 or whatever that is," McKeon said. "You can take a look around anywhere, that's why we have the clean teams."

The fiscal 2019 budget sent $11.22 million -- or $220,000 to each Island council district -- for the annual NYC Cleanup program. The funding was more than triple the amount of funding received when the initiative was launched back in fiscal year 2016.

"I think we have made big strides in removing unsightly litter and debris from our communities with our Clean Team and other resources we have dedicated to the task, but the people who compiled this report must be looking at our streets with rose-colored lenses if they feel that 95 percent are "acceptably clean," Matteo said. "We certainly have more work to do, which is why our Clean Team is working every day to clean Staten Island."

Borelli said his team is always looking for new locations and urged property owners to report illegal dumping activities.

Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore) said: "I'm pleased to see that our efforts to make New York City a cleaner, healthier place are reflected in this report. I know from my own eyes and from constituent reports that we still have work to do, which is why I frequently tell residents on social media to report stretches of public land that need to be cleaned. With our City Council-funded clean team, I have been able to dispatch manual litter pickups as well as street sweepers to make the North Shore cleaner, healthier and more beautiful."

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