Assemblyman Joe Lentol and Fidel F. Del Valle, Commissioner and Chief Administrative Law Judge of the City’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) kicked off OATH’s CourtESy (Court’s Education for Seniors) Program at Swinging Sixties Senior Center (211 Ainslie Street). Through the new CourtESy program, OATH aims to bring information about the hearing process directly to senior citizens.
The forum highlighted OATH’s Remote Hearing Methods, which gives residents who receive summonses the ability to fight the tickets at their convenience and without having to travel to attend the OATH hearing in person.
“OATH’s new program does wonders to ensure that seniors have the ability to plead their case during enforcement actions. I applaud Commissioner and Chief Administrative Judge Del Valle for creating this innovative program and announcing it right here at one of the best senior centers New York City has to offer,” said Lentol.
OATH Commissioner and Chief Administrative Law Judge, Fidel F. Del Valle said, “OATH recognizes that there are many reasons why it may be difficult to attend a hearing in person so we have worked diligently to make it possible for recipients of the most commonly issued summonses to fight those summonses remotely by using OATH’s Hearings Online, Hearings by Mail, Hearings by Phone or Video (webcam) Hearings. Through our CourtESy program, OATH is working to make sure that the City’s senior residents know about these convenient hearing methods and how to utilize them effectively.”
OATH is the independent administrative law court where nearly all City enforcement agencies- such as the Departments of Sanitation, Buildings, Health, Parks, Environmental Protection and Consumer Affairs, among many others- file their summonses for hearings. Last year, OATH received approximately 850,000 summonses from the City’s various enforcement agencies.
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