City Officials Say Businesses Could Benefit From ECB Changes
The city's Environmental Control Board is hurting local businesses and needs to be reformed, city officials are saying.
The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, and representatives of the mayor's office announced plans yesterday to introduce legislation that they said would speed up the handling of the hundreds of thousands of cases that pass through the board each year.
Small business owners are fined by the Environmental Control Board for a variety of violations, such as excessive noise or failing to keep a clean storefront. Many owners have complained that the appeals process can take years under the current system, requiring them to make repeated visits to court.
Under the new proposal, the city would remove the ECB from the Department of Environmental Protection's jurisdiction and place it under the control of the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, which city officials say would be better equipped to handle the workload. Business owners would be allowed to schedule some ECB hearings and pay fines via the Internet to save time. The bill would also let business owners challenge ECB decisions in state court if their appeals are not heard within 180 days.
"We heard too many times from businesspeople that the old process took too long and cost them too much money," Ms. Quinn said yesterday at a press conference announcing the plan. "Our goal is to make the process swifter, more efficient, more user-friendly, and, in doing that, hopefully save small businesses more money."
Asked whether the bill might encourage misdeeds by businesses by reducing the consequences of violations, Ms. Quinn said the plan would free up the ECB to devote more time and energy to investigating and enforcing laws by reducing its workload.
"No one should confuse efficiency with going easy on people," Ms. Quinn said. "I really believe this will help us focus resources more significantly on where they should be — on violations that could be the underpinning of something more serious."
