On June 8, 2016 Fidel F Del Valle who is the Chief Administrative Law Judge and Commissioner of the NYC Office of Administrative Trials & Hearings (OATH) hosted a small business seminar at the Bulova conference center. Citywide Fire Sprinkler covers these types of events on behalf of our customers.
The Judge explained that OATH is a municipal tribunal where all 26 agencies’ tickets are adjudicated. (i.e. Fire Dept, Building Dept, Sanitation Dept, Housing Dept, etc.)
The Judge further noted that in the past, the public has learned through a series of scandals and arrests how things worked really worked. Judges/hearing officers who presided over the hearing of these tickets/violations, took the liberty to fill in gaps in the issuing officer’s testimony when officers failed short in presenting their cases and helped them make the case against the property owner. Each agency was a fiefdom, as every agency had different policies. In addition, agency computers were not able to communicate with the court, this lead to delays which created problems for property owners who sought answers to their questions.
Judge Del Valle, who now heads the institution, gave a detailed history of these problems and his vision for the future. He explained that he is working to bring honesty and fairness to the system. Unfortunately, even today agencies use techniques to torture and discourage people from challenging the system. The technique they currently use, as he explained, is to schedule 100 tickets all on the same day and all at 8:30 am, sending only 4 agency representatives to handle them. Sadly, some people are waiting there until the late hours of the afternoon and their case has still not even been heard. He explained that the court could have dozens of hearing officers available if the issuing agency would stop manipulating the system and instead send more representatives for quick hearings. He also explained that 40% of owners that receive tickets just ignore them.