Norwalkers line up to query Rilling, department heads at Mayor’s Night Out

NORWALK, Conn. – A plea for more athletic space for low income Norwalk children and complaints that varied from not enough dog parks to unhappy feelings about a Norwalk Traffic Authority decision that was made without input from the residents who will be affected marked Mayor Harry Rilling’s latest Mayor’s Night Out on Wednesday, the best attended such event in recent months.

The occasion drew about 30 people to the City Hall community room, at least a third of whom were from Olmstead Place. Others getting to speak to Rilling face to face included a man who has not been able to get an appointment with the mayor, a former firefighter upset by recent news reports of a shift in hiring practices at the Norwalk Fire Department, and a woman complaining about brown water coming out of her spigot. John Mosby asked for help with noise in his neighborhood and Martha Dumas wanted to know which sidewalks would be repaired in the city’s new program.

Diane Cece led the Olmstead Place crowd, asking for “the facts” behind the Traffic Authority’s recent endorsement of a proposed Don’t Block the Box on East Avenue at the southbound Interstate 95 exit. Cece, Kathy Levine and other residents said they were unhappy that the traffic measure includes prohibiting left turns from Olmstead Place during peak traffic periods.

Rilling explained that the Common Council Ordinance Committee will work on an ordinance to authorize the Don’t Block the Box, and a public hearing will be held. But he offered to meet with them in advance of any Ordinance Committee action.

Ellen Tully said all the talk about Don’t Block the Box was interesting, but it’s important to think outside the box.

Tully said she moved to Norwalk 17 years ago because it was dog friendly and she liked the diversity, but the dog parks are being closed. Rilling and Recreation and Parks Department Director Mike Mocciae asked her where she had seen dog parks closed and she demurred – if she told them they’d come catch her going in with a dog, she said.

Mocciae said nothing had been shut down. She did volunteer a location, but Mocciae said only two city parks are authorized for dog use, and that is done by the Common Council.

“I think we should change that,” she said. “If you look the number of dogs, if you look at the amount of money that is spent on dogs, if you look at the things that people will buy for their dogs, it would be very much nicer for the dogs If they had open space instead of a birthday party with dog cupcakes.”

“We’ll be glad to hear your out-of-the-box thinking on that,” Rilling said.

Dumas asked about sidewalks, expressing concern about South Main Street. Department of Public Works Principal Engineer Dick Linnartz said a study had been done of sidewalks in the urban core – basically the 1^st and 2^nd Taxing Districts, he said – and the results were being studied.

Finance Director Thomas Hamilton said $1 million is being appropriated in this year’s capital budget, far more than has been spent before, and Linnartz drove that home when he said that it is the first time in his 19-year career with Norwalk that DPW will be able to fix sidewalks without there being a road paving project going on in conjunction with that.

But, he said, “not everybody is going to be happy” because the sidewalks have been rated good, fair, poor and terrible and guess what? The terrible ones will get done first.

No decisions have been made yet, he said.

John Sabia said that he, as a Norwalk resident, cannot get a job interview with the city, but younger people who live 70 to 90 miles away get hired. “I believe my age is a factor,” said Sabia, who appeared to be in his early 50s.

Sabia said he couldn’t get an appointment with Rilling, but Rilling and Human Relations and Fair Rent Department Director Adam Bovilsky said there’s a simple reason for that – Sabia has a legal action pending against the city and everything must go through lawyers now.

Bovilisky said he could speak in general terms, and agreed it would be illegal to not hire someone because of their age, that his office would be very concerned about that if it were occurring.

“It is also illegal for the city only to hire city residents,” Bovilisky said. “You can do point systems and give people advantages for having a local residency, which is something the city can consider sometime, but you cannot do set-asides or requirements for only city employees. You cannot say you’re only going to hire city residents.”

Sabia told Rilling, “There are so many people protecting you that you don’t have to hear my case.”

“No, I was made aware of your case, I was made very aware of your case,” Rilling said.

Dawn Calle suggested that it would have been nice if the city had sent her a text when the water main broke at Brien McMahon High School this week, as the water from her faucet was brown and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t the first time the water was brown, which is of particular concern as her husband had a kidney transplant recently.

Rilling said an alert sent to a very targeted area would be a good idea, that he’d look into it.

Tim Lyons said he used to fight fires in the South Bronx and questioned the recent announcement that Norwalk will use New Haven has a model to follow in an attempt to get more minority firefighters. Norwalk Fire Chief Denis McCarthy assured Lyons that neither he nor any of his junior officers would allow unqualified people to become firefighters on the way to more diversity in the department (see separate story).

Mosby said trucks are waking him up. He said he had gone to the police department and then to see DPW, but “they didn’t do anything for me.” He went to the mayor’s office but a “lady (who) was very nice to me” said the mayor’s ball was happening that evening and he decided not to bother the mayor because he wanted him to have fun at the mayor’s ball.

“We did have fun,” Rilling replied.

“Well, I didn’t have a good time, trucks waking me up at 4 in the morning,” Mosby said with a half-smile.

Rilling said he had never gotten the message, apologized, and told Mosby to speak to Deputy Police Chief David Wrinn about the trucks.

Norwalk Soccer Club President George Caceres said there aren’t enough city gymnasiums available for athletic games.

“This past winter it’s been really terrible. We got only one gym. We have an average of 200 kids basically with nothing to do in the winter. They are low-income families and they cannot afford to go to very fancy indoor facilities,” Caceres said.

With 16 schools in Norwalk open five days a week, there ought to be 80 hours of gym time available, he said. But if you go to the schools at night the gymnasium is empty and it’s embarrassing, he said.

“You can go to any school and the principal has the idea that they own the school. That’ my feeling about it. They don’t want anybody to use these schools,” Caceres said.

Mocciae said that city programs take precedence for gym usage, but can be pre-empted if a PTO wants to use them. Outside programs are last in line. “I go to the Board of Ed and I go through the pain that you go through, George, as far as booking the gym,” Mocciae said.

“Sometimes the gym may not being used but nothing is happening at the school and it’s not open,” Rilling said. “So you may get a false sense of ‘OK, this gym is available,’ but there’s nothing happening at the school that night and you’re not going to be able to use it anyway because you have to pay for the school to be open and to have a custodian there because there are certain regulations.”

BoE member Sherelle Harris suggested that Caceres go to a Board of Ed meeting and voice his concerns. Caceres said that was a good idea, but he also had a complaint about Veteran’s Park.

There’s inadequate parking and the bathrooms aren’t open early in the season, he said. Mocciae said he would look at those issues, but often parents are trying to park right at an athletic field and the spaces further away get ignored.

Rilling said after the meeting that he thought it was a good turnout of “people coming out in the middle winter,” with snow still on the ground. “I think that, for the most part, everybody brought up some good issues that we felt we need to address or would be addressed,” he said.

After giving credit to the department heads and city government volunteers who came out on their own time to hear what people think, Rilling said, “This is just a good example of government listening to the people, and I think people find that refreshing but really unusual, because I don’t know of any other city – there probably are, I’m sure, but I don’t know of any city that does it on a monthly basis where we invite people to come out and address their concerns to us. We want them to talk to us. A lot of times people shy away from complaints that the people make. We want to hear them because we want to know what we are doing right and we want to know what we are doing wrong.”

Dumas said she was “somewhat” satisfied by the answers she got to her sidewalk questions. She said she would follow up by going to the March Ordinance Committee meeting, where sidewalks will be discussed, and send Rilling an email Thursday. She said, “I am going to call customer service about the snow in the area that I see, the snow and ice with these kids.”