Paul Bass Photo
The rotting metal drum lay on the grass near the curb. How did it get there?
Cynthia Rivera vowed to find out — and get it removed.
Rivera (pictured above), a city public space inspector, found the drum Friday morning across from the Whalley jail on Hudson Street. She and other government workers were conducting a monthly multi-department neighborhood sweep in search of code violations.
She crouched closer to the barrel for clues. “Look at that chain. You can tell it’s been there a long time,” she said. Through cracks in the drum she could see it was filled with concrete.
Rivera, who’s 39, loves hunting down quality-of-life mysteries. She did it for 10 years as a police officer assigned to code enforcement in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria destroyed her home, Rivera relocated to New Haven, where her mother already lived. Nine months ago she landed the inspection post with New Haven’s public works department; she has been thrilled, she said, to return to doing work she loves.
“Once I get on a case like this,” she said, “I stay on it until I solve it.”
Haba Comes Home To Visitors
On Friday Rivera was joined by Livable City Initiative (LCI) code enforcement inspector Mark Stroud (pictured above) and Mayor Justin Elicker to scout the blocks around the Whalley jail on Hudson and County Streets.
Some monthly sweeps focus on commercial properties. Friday’s focus was primarily residential.
On the two streets, Stroud found eight properties whose owners he plans to cite for violations …
… like the above-pictured rotting railing …
… and broken porch at 69 County, along with a missing downspout and overgrown vegetation at next-door Ocean management-owned multi-family rental properties.
Pepe Haba was surprised to encounter the crew when he pulled into his County Street home. While cautious, he was also excited to meet the mayor.
“The bars on the bedroom windows need to come off,” Stroud informed him.
“We’ve got to make sure people can get out” in case of a fire, Elicker added.
Haba, who immigrated here from Guinea, said the bars were there when he bought the home in 2019. He promised to remove them. “You may need a saw,” Stroud advised. He told Haba he can find removable “breakaway” versions of the bars at Home Depot.
Before the crew moved on, Haba had two other matters to discuss. One: He’s currently working as a substitute teacher in West Haven. Does New Haven have openings?
“We need people,” Elicker informed him.
“You do?”
Elicker suggested he check the public schools website.
Matter number two: he wanted a photo with the mayor, who obliged.
Elicker said he enjoys accompanying inspectors on these sweeps. He gets to hear people’s concerns and see block-by-block conditions. The city gets to fix important quality-of-life problems as well.
For instance: “That sidewalk’s looking bad,” he remarked while passing a well-kept-up house on Hudson. He pulled out his cellphone and snapped a photo to email to the heads of public works and engineering. “If it’s a small fix, it’s Jeff [Pescosolido at public works]. If it’s a new sidewalk, it’s Giovanni” Zinn, the city engineer, he said.
The block-by-block walks also reveal oases of beauty tucked amid blight, like this Hudson Street rain garden.
While Friday’s sweep focused on residential property, the crew did encounter a couple of commercial concerns to address, like five vehicles spilling out onto the sidewalk outside BIM Auto Repair.
“We need to keep the sidewalk clear, especially for anyone who is handicapped,” Stroud told owner Emerson Armstrong (above, at right).
“No problem,” Armstrong responded. He claimed that he doesn’t usually have cars out there, and said he’d have them removed promptly.
Quick Results
About that metal drum … The crew encountered it on Hudson Street outside Dynamic Auto, which is responsible for keeping the sidewalk and median grassy area clear.
The crew first noticed that the grass was overgrown.
The shop wasn’t open yet. Stroud called LCI inspector, Rick Mazzadra, who knows the owner. He asked Mazzadra to instruct the owner to cut the overgrown grass.
Then Cynthia Rivera (pictured above) noticed the drum. She said she would return later to ask the owner about it. If it’s his, she’ll ask him to remove it immediately. If he lacks the equipment, the city can do it and forward the bill.
When the crews aren’t on monthly sweeps, they follow up on complaints sent in by residents. That’s how Rivera stumbled upon her favorite case so far, involving piles of TVs and furniture that were reported outside a home on Adeline Street.
When she arrived on Adeline Street that day, no one was home. She poked around in the piles for clues. She left a notice with her contact information and a request to clean it up.
Meanwhile, cops from West Haven were investigating an even larger illegal pile dumped nearby across the town line. They found an address on a piece of paper there leading them to Adeline Street. They went to the home there, found Rivera’s note, and contacted her.
It was like being back on the force in Puerto Rico: She and the West Haven cops worked together to determine that one dumper was responsible for both piles, located the dumper, and got it cleaned up. Six truckloads of trash in all were carted away.
On Hudson Street Friday, at the corner of Whalley Avenue, Rivera returned to Dynamic Auto following the sweep and indeed found other similar metal drums on the premises. So it appeared that the one by the street may indeed belong to the business rather than having been dumped by someone else.
Rivera returned again and met up with the owners later when the shop opened for the day. The family running the shop has a history of working well with the city, including once receiving a “hero” award from the police department. On Friday they immediately removed the barrel, which had been used as a counterbalance to a machine; and promised to clean up the rest of the property promptly.
Contributed
By afternoon, a five-person landscaping crew was on scene, and tires were removed.
The corner (originally looking like the above photo at left) ended up (at right) with a fresh haircut and clean shave. There was no need for Stroud or Rivera to send a letter or issue a citation — what began as a metal barrel mystery turned into a swift tale of government working.
Great Paul Bass story.