By Karen Yi | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Newark residents want to know: When will their streets be cleaned?

Down some roads, the dirt, dampened by rain, has muddied into a thick paste of leaves and broken bottles. There are crushed coffee cups, plastic bags and discarded feminine hygiene products. On other blocks, there's a trail of dirt about a foot from the curb, even after street sweepers have gone by, according to photos and videos showed to NJ Advance Media in the last week.

"It's really dirty. Leaves, dirt and trash," South Ward resident Yolanda Johnson said.

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A Newark resident sent in a photo of Dayton Street last week. (Courtesy: James Spilatro)

Newark brought its street sweeping services in-house this month after ending its contract with a private company in December. The transition has been rough. For weeks, the complaints -- and the filth -- have piled up.

Dejana Industries handled most of the city's street cleaning for the last 15 years. The city opted not to renew Dejana's contract when it expired Dec. 31, citing resident complaints and dissatisfaction with its services.

After a failed bid process, the city in February leased eight street cleaning vehicles to do the cleaning itself. The city already owns three such trucks. But, some residents say it has been weeks since they've seen a street sweeper on their block. Others say even if a sweeper went by, the roads remain gross.

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"It appears to be much worse than we've even seen it," South Ward district leader Maggie Freeman said.

Johnson, 41, said she received two tickets for not moving her car on alternate side parking days even though street cleaners were not coming by.

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Newark residents still upset with street cleaning on their block. Even when trucks pass by, they seem to leave more dirt behind based on this video sent to me by a resident. pic.twitter.com/fUmsqlTSTl — Karen Yi (@karen_yi) February 27, 2018

Courtesy: Donald Jackson

On Tuesday, Khalif Thomas, Director of Public Works, told the City Council it would take some time as workers catch up with dirty streets that had not been cleaned for weeks.

"These streets are filthy. Stuff is not going to get done with a snap of a finger," he said. "We are doing an excellent job of trying to catch up ... we made a lot of progress, we have a lot more to go."

Thomas said the department is training drivers, created new routes and equipped each truck with GPS.

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Another video on Dayton St. pic.twitter.com/n9OxktSPsA — Karen Yi (@karen_yi) February 27, 2018

Courtesy: James Spilatro

Philip Livecchi, a consultant for the city's public works department, said drivers have run through 32 of 38 routes in the city so there may be streets that have not yet been swept.

"We are not 100 percent operational, we are 90 percent," he told the council. In other cases, additional street sweeping will help clean up the debris that piled up in the last month.

"It will improve as they make numerous passes," he said. Livecchi estimated Dejana cost the city about $2 million a year; bringing the service in-house will cost the city about $1.6 million. The cost will be lower once the city owns the trucks, he said.

Roy Arena, a manager with Dejana, disputed those numbers on Tuesday. "The costs are completely inaccurate," he told the council. He questioned whether the trucks the city had leased were the right ones for the job. "They shouldn't have been used," he said, urging the council to conduct a cost comparison between privatizing cleaning services and doing it in-house.

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Honestly the City of Newark really should do a better job...the garbage still hasnt gotten picked up!! Streets covered with dirty slush...disgusting..Shame on you. Posted by Ana P Jorge on Monday, January 8, 2018

Central Ward Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield Jenkins, who is running for mayor in the May election, questioned why some of the new sweeping trucks were leaving a trail of dirt.

"You keep saying that we're doing better than what we used to do. Obviously, we're not," she told director Thomas.

Thomas said there was nothing wrong with the equipment and he was fixing operational issues. Livecchi added it was a problem with who was driving the trucks. "Drivers are still learning their equipment and still learning the routes," he said.

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South Ward Councilman John Sharpe James said the city was trying something they hadn't done before and there would be "hiccups" in the process.

"The initial problem was we were paying outside vendors an exorbitant amount of money. So city said, 'Let's do a pilot program, let's lease our own,' and they've never done that before," he said.

The city has released another bid to purchase street sweeping trucks. The current eight leased trucks were obtained through an emergency contract that does not need approval from the council.

The contract for the leased trucks expires in April.

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Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.