Playbooks — a guided experience
Advocate for street cleaning on your block.
You keep noticing your block doesn't get cleaned the way it should. Here's how to turn that hunch into a documented case the people with authority will take seriously — using public sources, in the order you'd actually use them.
The path: Document with 311 → pull the data to prove a pattern → check what neighbors already raised → bring it to the community board → escalate to your Council member.
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The question
How do I put this on the record?
The source to reach for
Official APIReport problems (litter, potholes, noise), request services, and look up agencies. Every request becomes a 311 Service Request in Open Data.
File a request and pick the category that matches what you see — typically a Sanitation / Street Condition complaint type. Save the Service Request (SR) number. That number is your evidence and how the rest of the trail finds your report.What you'll find
After you submit, you get a Service Request number and a status you can track. Each report is timestamped and geocoded to your address, which is exactly what makes it usable later.
Honest limit, straight from the source: 311 data reflects what's reported, not what exists — reporting rates differ by neighborhood. One report is an anecdote; a consistent record is a pattern.
Handoff: your reports (and your neighbors') now live in the city's 311 data. Next, pull that data back out to see whether your block is an outlier.
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The question
Is my block actually an outlier — and how does it compare?
The source to reach for
Official APIThe central catalog of thousands of datasets with Socrata APIs, maps, and visualizations — the backbone for civic hackers.
Open the 311 Service Requests dataset and filter by Complaint Type (Sanitation / Street Condition) and by your area. Group by date and location to see whether complaints cluster on your block versus the district around it.Then set the benchmark
DMMR — Dynamic Mayor's Management Report
Official Bulk downloadThe interactive version of the Charter-mandated Mayor's Management Report: 1,000+ performance indicators across ~45 agencies, with multi-year comparisons, all downloadable.
Look up the sanitation / street-cleanliness indicators to see the city's own performance target and how your district trends against it. This turns "my block is dirty" into "we're below the city's stated benchmark."What the data looks like
The 311 dataset is one row per service request. You're working with column shapes like these (no need to invent values):
- Counts of complaints over time, grouped by block or community district.
- Resolution times — the gap between Created Date and Closed Date — as a fairness signal.
- From the DMMR: a citywide / per-district cleanliness rating you can cite as the official benchmark.
Stay conservative: describe the shape and the trend, and read DMMR indicators as performance signals, not the whole story.
Handoff: you now have a pattern and a benchmark. Before you bring it to a meeting, find out whether neighbors already raised this — so you arrive informed, not redundant.
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The question
Has anyone on my community board already raised this?
The source to reach for
Independent Bulk downloadA public archive of community-board meeting transcripts from YouTube captions (roughly 2015 onward), topic-tagged using a taxonomy from DCP Community District Profiles, with highlights, an address→district lookup, and a per-board weekly email.
Use the address→district lookup to confirm your board, then search transcripts for "sanitation" or "street cleaning" to see if and when it came up. Subscribe to the per-board weekly email so you don't miss the next mention.Cross-check the official record
Official Web onlyPer-board calendars, agendas and minutes, committee structure, district needs statements and budget requests, ULURP reviews, and local permits.
Check the agendas, minutes, and district needs statement for sanitation items, and find the committee that covers it (often Sanitation or Environment). Note the next meeting date and how to testify.What you'll find
- From Block Party: searchable transcript moments where sanitation was discussed, with dates and links to the video — fast way to find the right meeting.
- From the board's own site: the committee that owns the topic, recent minutes, the district needs statement, and the meeting schedule with sign-up details.
Both have caveats worth knowing: Block Party's accuracy is bounded by caption quality, and board websites vary widely in quality and freshness. Treat them as leads, then confirm dates on the official site.
Handoff: you know the right committee, the meeting date, and whether this is new or recurring. Time to show up with your evidence.
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The question
How do I raise it where it can lead to action?
The source to reach for
Official Web onlyPer-board calendars, agendas and minutes, committee structure, district needs statements and budget requests, ULURP reviews, and local permits.
Sign up for the public comment period at the relevant committee or full-board meeting. Bring your 311 pattern and the DMMR benchmark, and ask that it be reflected in the district needs statement / budget request so it carries forward.What this gets you
- Your concern, on the record in the board's minutes — a citable public reference.
- A chance to have it included in the district needs statement, the board's formal annual ask to the agencies and the budget process.
- Allies: board members and neighbors who care about the same blocks.
A community board is advisory — it can't order DSNY to do anything. That's exactly why the next step matters: you want someone with a vote and a budget line.
Handoff: with the board's record behind you, escalate to the office that can move money and lean on the agency.
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The question
Who has the authority to actually fix it?
Where to take it
Bring the same case — your 311 pattern, the DMMR benchmark, and the community board's record — to your City Council member's office. A Council office can press the agency directly, raise it in oversight, and steer discretionary or budget funding toward cleaning and basket service on the blocks you've documented.
We don't name the officeholder here on purpose — who represents your district changes, so look up your current Council member rather than relying on a name baked into a page. Use the same evidence packet; you've already done the hard part.
What makes the ask land
- A short pattern, not a single complaint: counts and resolution times from 311, by block.
- A benchmark they can't argue with: the city's own DMMR cleanliness target.
- A paper trail: the SR numbers and the community board minutes where it's recorded.
That's the trail. You moved from a hunch to a documented, benchmarked, on-the-record case in the hands of someone who can act.
You now have…
- A documented record — 311 Service Request numbers that put the problem in the city's own data.
- A pattern, not an anecdote — Open Data showing how your block compares, against the DMMR's official cleanliness benchmark.
- Situational awareness — what your community board has already said, via Block Party and the board's own minutes.
- A formal footprint — your concern on the record at the board, with a path into the district needs statement.
- An escalation — the same evidence in front of your Council member, who can move money and the agency.
Keep going
Conservative by design: source descriptions are quoted from the verified Directory, program and agency names are checked, and no eligibility rules or figures are invented. Officeholders are deliberately left out so this stays accurate as people change.