The inspectors of Community Improvement Division cited council president Ruby Cotton for allegedly having garbage in the rear of her East 27th Street house, according to municipal records.
“I was changing some doors on my house and had piled up,” she said on Monday when asked about the violation notice issued on May 16th, 2017. She said construction debris from the house was piled up in the backyard of the property.
Cotton said inspectors were conducting a sweep of her block when she was ensnared.
When asked whether the violation issued constitute a disconnect between her actions and her repeated message to residents to keep their city clean, she replied: “It isn’t like it was in front of my house. It was in my yard, way in the back. It wasn’t where you could see it from the street.”
She said inspectors came into her yard while conducting their sweep and spotted the debris. “My yard was not a filthy yard. You could come to my house and see my yard,” she said. She will have to go through the same process as every resident in the city, she said.
Cotton has to appear before a judge in Passaic City to answer for the violation. Her case was moved from the Paterson Municipal Court to the neighboring town.
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