New Haven Independent

She was at a meeting called by the Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills (WEB) management team to chart the long-range future of their neighborhoods.

The larger audience broke out into smaller focus groups (pictured), who were asked to put their visions for what needs to change and how it can be done into print.

Tawnna Woolfolk, a WEB organizer who works at Hill Health Center branch on Dixwell, said this approach should offer a “snapshot of what the community feels as a whole.”

Peaches Quinn, the event’s organizer, said the strength of her community is in its racial and economic integration.

As she cleaned up after the meeting, Hobson said she was surprised to hear every break-out group list diversity and integration as priorities for their community.

“We’re meeting now with a lot of our Jewish brothers and sisters, but it’s not like we really share a lot of other spaces,” Hobson said. “The expectation that we are all acting like one, single community: that is a vision, that is not a reality.”

Hobson, who serves on the Civilian Review Board and is a drug counselor at state jail on Whalley Avenue, said the WEB management team needs to sit down and have a difficult conversation about disparities and disenfranchisement.

Some wanted more police walking the beat “to take back the streets.” Others wanted decent litter removal, a ban on all-terrain vehicles, speed humps, and more trees. These ideas, put under the umbrella of quality of life and public safety, are sure to make it to the next round of public debate on March 22.