Allan Appel Photo
Luz Otero & Gabe Santiago.
Luz Otero has a coronary heart problem so that she must rest after walking only two blocks. She lives on one side of the Grand Avenue Bridge; her daughter lives on the other. If the bridge is completely closed during upcoming repairs, she won’t be able to make it around on foot any other way.
That’s why she signed her name to a petition, along with 374 others, that two east side aldermanic candidates delivered to City Hall on Wednesday.
One of those candidates, Gabe Santiago, who lives on Bright Street, is challenging incumbent Stephanie Bauer in Tuesday’s Democratic Party aldermanic primary election, in Fair Haven’s Ward 14. The other candidate, Brenda Jones Barnes, is competing against David Baker and Josue Vega for the seat Alderman Alex Rhodeen is vacating in Fair Haven Heights’ Ward 13.
Both wards are served by the lifeline of the century-old Grand Avenue Bridge. Both wards suffered when the Ferry Street Bridge reconstruction took six long years, and both wards’ businesses and residents are frustrated by the protracted Quinnipiac Avenue “redo.”
So Barnes is making the long-delayed major rehab of the iconic bridge the centerpiece of her aldermanic campaign. Even though major work is scheduled to begin in 2014, after a year and a half of design, Barnes said she was alarmed by the sudden July 20 closure of the bridge for electrical problems.
She termed it a “warning” and a wake-up call that spurred her to begin gathering signatures petitioning for the city to truly partner with Fair Havenites in the Grand Avenue Bridge renovation project.
Candidates G. Santiago and Brenda Jones Barnes.
Having gathered 370 signatures in person and online and the support of Santiago, on Wednesday afternoon she brought the petition to City Hall.
Neither City Engineer Richard Miller nor Traffic & Parking Department Director Jim Travers were in their offices. So Barnes left the signatures with mayoral aide Rosemary Lemley and with transportation department staffer Madeline Dundy.
Click here to read the full petition.
It calls for full funding of the $27 million project to be secured in order to avoid infamous Ferry Street Bridge-style delays. The money is 80 percent federal with the city and state each pitching in 10 percent.
Thus far only $l.4 million has been secured for the design phase. Approval to submit to the state for those federally funneled funds was approved unanimously by the Board of Aldermen last month.
“The city is committed to working with residents and addressing their concerns as we begin the process of replacing the Grand Avenue Bridge,” mayoral spokesman Adam Joseph said.
Barnes’ petition also calls for the Q redo and other disrupting traffic conditions to be finished or alleviated before work starts; for a “first class” and historically appropriate appearance for the Fair Haven icon; and for traffic-calming measures on and as part of the approaches to the rehabbed bridge.
One of her opponents in the race, Democratic Town Committee-endorsed candidate David Baker, said in a phone conversation that he essentially agreed with Barnes.
He said he was the second person to sign the petition online, but it was a slightly different version.
“Honestly, I would be more interested in the logistics of how candidate Barnes intends to make a city/state scale project like that be coordinated.”
“What’s missing in our ward is communication,” Barnes said as she traipsed from one city government office to another, trailed by a half-dozen constituents, to deliver the documents.
Citing a May 17 meeting, the first public forum on the bridge design, Barnes said she was not informed of the gathering directly even though she lives on Clifton Street, close to the bridge. In her canvassing she said, “a lot of businesses and residents have not been informed” either.
The introduction to her petition cites this lapse as a warning: “If we are to avoid another 6‑year Ferry Street fiasco, it’s important that we connect to clearly communicate our neighborhood’s needs.”
For Luz Otero that means trying to keep at least a lane of the bridge open during the work so she can continue to visit her daughter. Her aldermanic choice in the upcoming contest, Santiago, also questioned if one lane open would be safe for traffic or would result in accidents.
Barnes delivers petition to traffic department’s Madeline Dundy.
Barnes wondered if the repairs would be made with the bridge in the open position, in which case no lanes would be available for local people like Otero to cross.
None of these questions was resolved in the May meeting.
Barnes cited of particular concern that businesses too don’t know what to expect.
Baker echoed that sentiment in a follow-up email message.
“The primary concerns are the businesses upstream and nearby that are suffering in this economy, traffic flow, and how ward 13 and 14 are going to help secure funding,” he wrote.
He also raised the possibility of a temporary span to be built while repairs are commenced.
If there was a distinction to be found between these two candidates on the matter, it was perhaps one more of style than substance.
Barnes said the back and forth between the city and the residents has been wanting at a time when anxieties are beginning to run high even though the design phase has barely begun.
“There shouldn’t be a black abyss about communication,” she said.
For his part, Baker wrote, “I would prefer more brainstorming and ideas and fewer demands for obvious civilities.”
Neither Bauer nor Engineer Miller’s office responded to a request for comment. Vega could not be reached.
Great work, neighbors!