New Haven Independent

“Where’s my mayor? There are some questions I wanted to ask him!” complained Debbie Brooks of Washington Avenue. She wanted to ask Mayor DeStefano about the “Thomas Ude situation” and “what’s going to happen with the youth this summer?” DeStefano was out of town campaigning for governor Wednesday night. “He was at Mayor’s Night In last week,” noted campaign spokesman Derek Slap. “He’s been at every Mayor’s Night In this year.”

Otherwise, Wednesday night was a dramatic exercise in government accountability. All of the city’s top department heads (including the police chief and school superintendent) showed up. They and staffers set up tables around the Truman gym. Citizens walked up, discussed problems on their blocks, and received specific promises of action as well as information on how to follow up. Public works chief Bob Levine promised Shirley Foster of Adeline Street (in picture) to look into a city tree whose branches are falling on cars and worrying the humans. “We don’t remove live trees, but we can prune the heck out of it,” Levine said.

Kelly Moye (pictured) told another public works staffer about a sidewalk the city promised to fix five years ago on Truman Street, but never did. “It’s ugly, ” Moye said, Plus, “the right person comes and trips, and you have a lawsuit.”

The reason Gail Batts (center) showed up with Linda Hammer (left): They live on the nicest end of Frank Street. They moved into newly built houses in 1982. They watched other older but well built houses fall into disrepair as longtime owners moved out and rented to unscreened tenants.

Batts’ and Hammer’s houses still look like this.

The house next door, now abandoned, looks like this. Actually, it looked worse; the neighbors and Eyzaguirre of the Livable City Initiative (LCI) have been after Weichert Realty, which is selling the house, to board it up and clean up trash. At Wednesday night’s event, Eyzaguirre promised to keep after the realtor. Ultimately, he said, “we will clean it up and put a lien on the house.” But usually he can work out the quicker, less expensive alternative of convincing the property owner to do the job.