New Haven Independent

They told the stories to their neighborhood’s top cop at Thursday night’s vehicular-centric Fair Haven Community Management Team meeting. Neighbors got some good news: After complaining about motorcycles and cars clocked at 60 miles an hour racing up narrow Perkins Street, they soon will be rewarded with their very own traffic-calming speed “hump” here.

That’s not to be confused with a “bump.”

District Manager Sgt. Luis Casanova (shown here with the city’s chief traffic-calming champion, Alderwoman Erin Sturgis-Pascale) reported an 11 percent general drop in crime citywide. He acknowledged a rise in motor vehicle theft, including 20 vehicles stolen in the Fair Haven area alone in the past three weeks. To combat this, he said, officers shut down a chop shop at 362 Poplar.

That hasn’t solved the problem for residents like Deirdre Casteel of Saltonstall Street (pictured at the top of this story). She said that stolen trucks are being deposited right near her house at the corner of Saltonstall and Lloyd — in fact three that she has been aware of. “And not only do the kids drop them off there and take parts or whatever. They also stole the rims of my son’s car from our yard.”

Casanova said the NHPD is addressing this. Many of the three dozen concerned Fair Haveners, such as Anselmo Santero, who attended the meeting, expressed ongoing concern for the loitering of substantial numbers of young people late at night near his Chapel Street home and the drag racing taking place nearby and on many of Fair Haven’s wider thoroughfares. Casanova said that the department focused on just such issues in the past month, particularly on River Street, Middletown Avenue, and Long Wharf. “I brought this drag racing issue downtown,” he said, “and it is going to be addressed on a citywide basis.”

When Casanova said that substantial traffic enforcement was taking place in Fair Haven, even if it might not always be visible to residents, a ripple of skepticism moved through the polite but concerned audience.

On the plus side of the traffic-calming ledger, Sturgis Pascale reported the speed hump, defined as a seven to 24-foot wide strip, as opposed to a one-foot wide bump, is to be installed on Perkins in the coming weeks. When Casanova said that humps and bumps would not be permitted on highly traveled streets such as Middletown Avenue and River, that elicited a mini-speech of knowledgeable frustration from Sturgis-Pascale. “Humps and bumps are not the way to go. Design is the way to go. Look at River Street. The city built that quickly, a straightaway. No one gave any thought to how this might be abused by speeders. The city could have put a curve in it, for example, or other calming elements in the design. Now, they have to go in there and spend more money for calming. It makes no sense.”

In other news, the woman on the right, Judy Petrillo, of United Illuminating, disseminated information about UI’s Light the Night program, an inexpensive approach to promote safety by lighting up parking lots, public areas, and residences in order to reduce crime. Customers pay for leasing bulbs and a utility pole, if it’s necessary, and then UI pays for the installation, maintenance, as well as the monthly utility cost. Rufina Durazzo, treasurer of the management team, and an employee at the Mary Wade Home, said the installation of floods and other lighting around Mary Wade had dispelled drug dealers from the area. The lights have been installed at River and Lloyd, by the city, to protect new businesses moving in, and they are in use at the Fair Haven Community Health Clinic, and other spots. For information, contact Petrillo at: 499-2078.

And last but not least, the management team passed a motion for the local branch library to seek a license from the city in order to mount cinema entertainments for the public, both indoors and outside in area parks. Inspired by the upcoming screening (maybe) of a movie on Sept. 15 as part of the Chatham Square Neighborhood Association first-ever park festival, the license is possibly the first step in the Fair Haven Film Festival. Imagine the tall screen unveiled, the aroma of the popcorn, the crescendo of music, and those 30-foot images rising along the banks of the Quinnipiac River. But, please, no motorcycle movies.

The next meeting of the Fair Haven Community Management Team will be on Sept. 6.