|
|
|
|
Health Welfare and Public
Safety Committee Actions
|
JULY 26TH, 2007
ATTENDANCE: Rev. Phyllis Bolden, Chair; Doug Sutton; Kevin Poruban
STAFF: Chief Harry Rilling, Norwalk Police; Hal Alvord, Department of Public Works Director; Tim Callahan, Health Department Director
OTHERS: Jennifer Lord, Norwalk Hospital
1. CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 7:47 p.m. by the Chair.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF JUNE 28th, 2007
There was no quorum and so Minutes could not be approved.
3. POLICE DEPARTMENT
a. Justice Assistance Grant
Chief Rilling said that he understood that the amount of the grant is approximately $78,000 and that it is a recurring grant that is awarded every couple of years. He said that the funds are used to increase patrols in areas that the Police Department feels it is appropriate and a lot of the money goes toward selective enforcement, meaning areas where complaints are made about speeding motor vehicles and other motor vehicle activity. He added that the funds could also be used to increase the Police Department’s robbery patrol so more officers can be stationed watching certain areas. Chief Rilling assured the Committee that there is very little cost attached to the grant, saying that the Finance Department indicates that there may be additional Workers Compensation costs but that the Police Department finds that to be more of a paper cost than anything else and they’ve never really experience any added costs. He said that they’ve applied for the grant and received approval, and now all that was needed was for the Mayor to sign the agreement
Rev. Bolden said that this item will be moved onto Council and there could be no motion for lack of quorum.
4. HEALTH DEPARTMENT
a. Chestnut Street Dumping
Mr. Callahan gave a brief history of the item, saying that the first group to handle it was the Zoning Department who issued a cease and desist order which was violated. The item then went before Corporation Counsel but no action was taken. On July 9th, the Health Department issued a cease and desist order to Richard Aron, the property owner (as opposed to the carting company, All Star Carting) and instructed the Mr. Aron to go to the Planning and Zoning Department. Mr. Callahan continued, saying that the week before this meeting, Keith Brown, a local developer representing the owner came into the Health Department and said that he’d started taking care of this for the owner. Mr. Callahan then distributed copies of a letter he received from the owner’s attorney, R. Richard Roina saying that the owner had begun removing the dumpsters from the property the day before the letter was written and that all dumpsters will be removed by August 1st or Atty. Roina will commence the appropriate eviction action. Mr. Callahan said that he’d passed the property the day of this meeting and that there were still five full dumpsters there. He added that he’d also talked to the prosecutor at the State Attorney’s Office and that she said that she’d move it right along so there’s probably an end in sight for this item and that end could be by the beginning of August, but could also be an additional month.
Chief Rilling left the meeting at 7:50 p.m.
b. North Taylor Ave Standing Water
Mr. Callahan said that the Health Department’s approach to dealing with this
issue has been to apply larvicide to the standing water to stop the breeding
of mosquitoes and that they’ve done that this year. He said that the Health
Department stages its larvicide efforts to coincide with the West Nile virus
and that over time it has been noticed that incidents of West Nile increase
towards the end of the summer. There is about enough money in the budget to
apply larvicide twice around the city, so there will be one application right
now and perhaps another in mid-August which should improve the mosquito situation.
Rev. Bolden asked Mr. Alvord to speak about the drainage efforts for the standing
water and the phragmites growing out of control at North Taylor Ave.
Mr. Alvord said that this item had become a Public Works issue about five years ago. He said that the issue from the Public Works standpoint is that the whole area drains down to a culvert just north of a set of apartment buildings owned by a gentleman named Malcolm MacGregor. What used to be a twelve inch corrugated metal pipe went underneath his property, through those apartments and condos and came out on the south side and entered a gully which carried it off under Connecticut Avenue and down to I-95. Mr. Alvord said that there was a lot of blockage at the upper culvert on the north side of the apartment complexes which prevented drainage down to the harbor and that the blockage was due to two things. The first was that the twelve inch corrugated metal pipe had collapsed in several places and the second was that the mouth of the pipe was constantly being clogged up with debris. He said that this was not just regular yard debris, but volleyballs, soccer balls, inflatable swimming pools, radios and other junk that had been thrown out by residents and would float down when the water built up. He said that Public Works did two things, the first of which was temporarily replacing the 12 inch pipe with another piece of 12 inch pipe. That was done with in-house resources just to get the pipe unplugged and the replacement of the pipe drained the area pretty well. The second thing Public Works did was to have a contractor replace the 12 inch pipe with a 24 inch pipe and that is what is there now. Mr. Alvord said that based on hydraulic analysis that this would be more than sufficient to carry normal flow. He added that it would not carry that kind of flow generated by the three storms that have occurred in the past year: August 27th, March 2nd and April 15th but that there was nothing in the city that could carry that kind of rain. An analysis was conducted that indicated that it would have been favorable to move that pipe farther north from it’s current position and put in a new culvert and this would drain the area better, but this could not be done as the area is in fact classified as a wetland by the Conservation Commission and no excavation or construction would be allowed there and so the project was limited to only replacing the existing pipe. Mr. Albert continued, saying that there is no jurisdiction, authority or obligation of the city to maintain the property and that he’d spoken with Alexis Cherichetti the morning of this meeting because I wanted to clarify the limits of the wetland and what restrictions the Conservation Commission would put on clearing that property. Alexis’ said that because the property is registered as a wetland, the Conservation Committee would want the residents to get a permit from the Conservation Commission. She was fairly confident in having talked with the Commission Members that they would waive any fees that would normally be associated with that permit but the Commission wants the residents to have a permit so that the Commission understands what exactly will be done in the wetland. The Conservation Commission clearly understands that phragmites is an invasive species and it is not a plant that the Conservation Commission is looking to preserve so there will be no problem with residents cutting the phragmites, mowing them or even using an herbicide to prevent them from growing back or clearing down trees and other debris in the area as those are not things that are contributing to a healthy wetland.
Mr. Poruban passed around pictures of the area of discussion taken in 2004 after the temporary pipe replacement was done showing the debris left after drainage.
Mr. Alvord said that he’d be willing to schedule a special pick up of yard debris or garbage found in the wetland area even on a weekend in addition to the regularly scheduled annual bulk trash pick up if needed.
Ms. Lord asked if the lowering of the water level reduced risk of mosquitoes carrying West Nile Virus breeding.
Mr. Alvord said that there was still standing water there, it was just lower now. He said that this water course, like every water course in the city that is part of the storm drainage system, is silted in almost completely with the road sand that used to be used to sand the roads during the winter time. Salt only will be used going forward so that sand won’t be added to waterways but that the existing sedimentation is an issue from a carrying capacity for that area if the sand could be dredged there were no longer be an issue of standing water.
Mr. Callahan asked what it would take to get that done.
Mr. Alvord said that it would be battle with the Conservation Commission because they object to any digging in the wetland at all but that once the phragmites and other undergrowth in the area are removed the homeowners need only mow once a week to keep it under control.
c. Water Tank Storage
Rev. Bolden stated that the Commission was going to hold a public meeting on this item and that she’d spoken with Darlene Young. She said that she was trying to find a spot to do hold a hearing and that Mayor Moccia was not happy about it as he felt that there’d been an overreaction to the water tank storage but that didn’t stop the meeting. Rev. Bolden said that the Mayor asked her to educate herself on this item including the function of the Siting Council. Rev. Bolden said that she did try to hold a meeting but kept running into obstacles, including a very important meeting being held at the same time as this meeting. Rev. Bolden expressed her displeasure at the scheduling of that meeting, saying that it was regarding her district and that the meeting was discussing a Health, Welfare and Public Safety issue and she was not in attendance. She said that the Mayor asked her to check with Mr. Alvord to make sure that the water tank storage and question is on private property and approved by the State Siting Council. Mayor Moccia has said that he has no authority to overrule state or private property decisions. Rev. Bolden said that she was also afraid that the concerns have been exaggerated. She addressed the committee saying that she owed them an explanation for why there was no meeting held and that it was partly due to not having a decent night to hold it. She said that the decision made was just and that she had a list of names of all the people who expressed concern about this issue and planned to call them and ask them if they had a problem. She said that this was the least she could do. She said that she’d spoken to Mr. Alvord and so far there have been no complaints from the business owners or residents to his knowledge which was a comfort to her. Speaking directly to Mr. Alvord, she said she felt the biggest concern was the possibility of noise pollution and of the water being toxic and asked Mr. Alvord to tell the Committee what he told her about this item.
Mr. Alvord said that whenever excavation is being done where groundwater is encountered, the state DEP requires the contractor to pump the water out of the excavation and put it into what is commonly called a frack tank. They pump the water into these tanks, they test the water to determine if there are any contaminates in it and what the concentrations of those contaminates are. If the contaminates fall within certain parameters then they are allowed to discharge that water into the sanitary sewer system. Under no circumstances can they ever discharge into the storm water system so under no circumstances will untreated water go back into streams, rivers, harbors or Long Island Sound. The contractor will normally place these frack tanks as close to the excavation as they can so they can pump right out of the ground and into the frack tank. Mr. Alvord explained that, for the past 15 months there has been a moratorium on the sewer system on Westport Avenue because the system is at capacity and it floods in even a moderate rain causing the pumping station to fail and sewage to escape the system so there are no new connections allowed to the Westport Avenue sewer system. Bond Brothers took core samples all along their route to determine how much water they might encounter and estimated the amount to be up to 200,000 gallons per day. Public Works could not allow that amount of discharge into the Westport Avenue system and so Bond Brothers was told (and the WPCA has a program for this) that they would have to be charged by the gallon for each gallon they discharged into the sanitary sewer system but that couldn’t allow them to discharge into the Westport Avenue area so they had to find another location for these tanks. Bond Brothers then found 12 potential locations and visited each site, talked to the owners and then went to the Department of Public Works and asked the size and location of the sewer main at each site and by a process of elimination they ended up with one site that would work, and that was the Smith Street site. Public Works went through their spill protection control plan and operational plan and agreed that the Smith Street site was the best because it would be the shortest turnaround time. He said that there would not be large vacuum trucks barreling through half the city of Norwalk in the middle of the night and that they would go from Westport Avenue down to East Avenue and to Hubble’s Lane. He said that the site is right next to the asphalt plant so it’s not destroying the ambience of the neighborhood. The Department of Public Works suggested to CL&P that they contact the coalition of Norwalk Neighborhood Associations to make every neighborhood that might have a concern aware of what the plan was before they started and CL&P complied. Pulic Works then we suggested that CL&P coordinate with the Norwalk Historical Commission, specifically because the Historical Commission runs Mill Hill and they have school kids there are almost on a daily basis, particularly in the summertime. CL&P did this as well and they also talked to area business owners. Mr. Alvord said that he in fact spoke to these same groups. Mr. Alvord said that at this point, the project satisfied all environmental concerns as well as all concerns of the Public Works Department and was now a private property matter and the city had no jurisdiction. The DEP, DPUC and the Connecticut Siting Council inspected the site by the week prior to this meeting and they are all comfortable with. Mr. Alvord said that the only thing accomplished by raising concern on this issue was delaying construction by three months. CL&P had hoped to begin construction in the first week of May and be done with that part of the project well before the holidays. Mr. Alvord said that there was no doubt in his mind now that they will still be digging after Christmas.
Rev. Bolden asked if the Commission had any questions
Mr. Poruban said that there were people at hearings who had only heard about this issue for the first time and that the commission did not know about this issue when it was first brought to them. He said that the Commission was caught off guard and was not prepared or educated about this item to answer any questions about it
Mr. Alvord replied that normally he would not have heard about this issue as it was a private matter out of the city’s jurisdiction. He said that this was standard, routine construction activity. He said that Mr. Callahan probably handled this issue more directly than anyone in trying to do everything required of him under the city’s noise ordinance including holding a public hearing. He said that CL&P came in with their attorneys and welcomed them to hold a hearing but said that Connecticut Siting Council had already overruled every town’s noise ordinance which they have the authority to do. Mr. Alvord said that the approach of the Department of Public Work’s with CL&P was to get them through the city of Norwalk in the fastest possible manner and to get the most out of it as possible. He said that once CL&P turns up Main Street, the city is getting all new sidewalks, all new curbs and curb to curb repaving. He added that the city would get video detectors for all of the city’s traffic signals on both CL&P routes and would also get trees planted on Main Street. He said that on Riverside Avenue there would be another section of bike trail added and that CL&P had already constructed one section for the city. He continued, saying that CL&P would also be installing underground fiber-optic conduit for the city so fiber optics could be installed for the traffic system. He said that working with CL&P instead of against them not only gets them through the city faster, but the city could also get a lot of things they couldn’t otherwise afford.
Mr. Poruban said that they were not aware of the situation and became aware in the worst possible way.
Mr. Alvord said that when he did become aware of the situation, the professional city staff had the appropriate answers.
Mr. Sutton said that in general it is not unusual for citizens to call about issues that Council Members do not know about and when he doesn’t fully understand the issue at hand, he will tell the citizen that he will look into it and get back to them.
Rev. Bolden said that at this juncture, she would take the authority as chair to say that the Committee would in dissolve any thought of a public hearing unless the Committee still wanted to hold one. She then asked Mr. Alvord to send her an email explaining the situation and that the Siting Council has authority and there is nothing more to be done by the city. She said that that would conclude their involvement with this item and thanked Mr. Alvord for his time and professionalism, saying that it was helpful to be educated on the item.
Mr. Poruban said that having been through three Council Committees, a sufficient amount of Council Members have seen and are aware of this item.
5. FIRE DEPARTMENT
There was no representation or discussion of the Fire Department.
6. OTHER BUSINESS
Rev. Bolton asked Mr. Alvord about the fence being taken down behind the houses on Berkeley Street and if the fences would be going back up.
Mr. Alvord replied that they would not go back up but added that Berkeley Street looks 1000 times better than it did when the project began. He said that the chain-link fence on the Super Seven side was actually a DOT fence and was much closer to the homes than it is now. Public Works took that fence out and installed a new one as far up the roadway as the DOT would allow. Mr. Alvord said that there will be three sections of privacy fence on the residential there side but that would not be a continuous fence along that side of that bikeway to avoid the creation of a wind tunnel.
Rev. Bolden said that she had written to Mr. Alvord about the terrible garbage mess in her district on the corner of Mulvoy Street and Ely Avenue which seemed to be getting worse.
Mr. Alvord said that he gone by the area the day of this meeting to look into the issue. He said that his concern was who to cite for this problem, adding that the business closest to the mess is a leather or stonework business and so would not be generating bags of food waste. He said that he suspects that someone is coming from elsewhere to dump their garbage at this site and suggested an undercover police officer should be stationed across the street to catch whoever was dumping garbage there.
Mr. Callahan said that the defense of the Health Department is to cite the owner of the property unless someone else is found dumping there.
Mr. Alvord said that it would help tremendously if there were a neighborhood association that volunteered to clean this up.
Mr. Callahan agreed saying that children should be taught in schools to keep their environment clean and to recycle.
Mr. Alvord reported that two representatives from the Public Works Department met with the schools yesterday to start developing a program for recycling at the elementary and middle school level saying that the goal is to have kids stop their parents from throwing away recyclables with the regular trash. He said that the city’s recycling agreement for next year will generate $10 for the City of Norwalk for every ton of recycling material dropped off at the intermediate processing center in Stratford which will generate an extra $100,000 per year. He said that the city now delivers about 9000 tons of recycling per year to the Stratford facility and 100,000 tons of garbage.
Health Department Grants Review
Mr. Callahan reviewed his report for the Committee Members, which included explanations of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Grant and the Per Capita Grant.
Reverend Bolden said that this item could be moved to the council agenda and asked if there was any other business that anyone wanting to discuss.
Mr. Poruban spoke about the Reverse 911 project and brought up several potential problems with the system including fiber-optic telephone lines, out of area telephone numbers, and lack of funding for all required elements. He said that there should be a meeting about this issue.
7. ADJOURNMENT
This meeting was adjourned at 9:27 p.m. by the Chair.
Respectfully submitted,
Jessica Schroder
Telesco Secretarial Services
 |
 |