“We are going to discuss noise … Can we do something about people driving by with blaring radios?”
So said Diane Ecton, co-chair of the Fair Haven Community Management Team, to 60 fellow members during a monthly Zoom meeting Thursday night.
As if on eerie cue, in the background, there it was: pounding, loud, vibrating speakers zooming to fill up all the Zoom space.
The sound came from yet another noisy vehicle racing past Ecton’s house.
Top Fair Haven Cop Sgt. Michael Fumiatti responded simply, “Yes, let us know if there’s a pattern, and that would be a way to do some enforcement.”
There followed a wide-ranging discussion of the whole range of loud noises that are returning, post-pandemic, to the streets of Fair Haven. In addition to garden-variety blasting music from cars and late-night parties, they include loud cracks that might be mufflers or fireworks, or gun shots.
The topic was a familiar one. This time two neighbors — Nathalie Bonafe and Donald Harvey — came with a pitch for a proactive response.
“The city is doing a reasonable job responding to the complaints, but there’s responsiveness that’s reactive and (responsiveness that is) proactive. And that’s what we’re asking you to consider.
They propose that some portion of the millions of dollars coming to New Haven through the federal pandemic-stimulus American Rescue Act go toward citywide enforcement of the noise ordinance.
Harvey said, in an email after the meeting, that Fair Haven’s was the first community management team to which they brought the resolution and request for support for a city resolution to that effect. They plan to hit other CMTs.
The full text of the proposed resolution:
WHEREAS, we recognize that intentionally loud noise is a violation of the City’s Code of Ordinances, a detriment to the quality of civic life and a threat to citizens’ health, we, the Board of Alders resolve that the City Administration shall seek to abate such noise with a well-designed, carefully articulated, and publicly promoted campaign and staff to be adequately funded as a part of the City’s share of the American Rescue Plan, specifically in connection with Mayor Elicker’s “Clean and Safe” ($1.5M) and “Safe Summer” ($2.M) initiatives. Specifically, such an effort should:
• Develop City-wide awareness of this City-wide problem – and City-wide commitment to curbing it –through a well-designed and well-executed public relations campaign.
• Encourage and ensure the support of NHPD.
• Establish a system of unadvertised and randomly-chosen noise checkpoints to be con-ducted regularly by the NHPD.
• Collect data regularly to measure the effectiveness of the checkpoint program. Such data-collection should include anecdotal responses from the neighborhoods.
• Regularly publish the results of checkpoint activity through reports to the Board of Alders and the neighborhood CMTs.
• Develop, train, and equip a small group of City employees and citizens as a Noise-Control Patrol (NCP). Some members could and probably should be New Haven teens, whose training and experience could provide a form of neighborhood-level modeling.
• Support the actions of the NCP with a graduated system of official notices, warnings, and fines or other penalties as allowed by the Code.
Click here for a story by the New Haven Register’s Mary O’Leary about citizen efforts citywide, including this one, to tame excessive neighborhood noise.
I have been following this on Nextdoor, just read the NHR article, and like most of us live this daily.
How will this get better without more police staffing? Noise ordinance infractions are enforced on weekends unless those officers are pulled away by a.shooting, MVA, etc. These events are regular occurrences in the City. Thus we're left with little to no enforcement.
Mayor Elicker, we need more (not less) police staffing for routine patrols and for enforcememt of quality of life issues. Many of us voted for you based on your promises to actively address such issues. Now, in the leadup to the election, you're giving these issues lip service again while blaming too much on COVID.
Where is the tangible plan to consistently, systematically, and PROACTIVELY deal with these issues?
I fear we're being duped again. Where was enforcement of the ATV/ dirtbike ordinance last weekend when hundreds of vehicles traveled en masse from town to town? On Whalley Ave, video and witness comments on On Scene Media New Haven County mentioned a squad car blocking traffic to let the ATVs and dirt bikers by, as they stood up, popped wheelies, and.filmed themselves.
Pardon me for being intensely skeptical. I hope you prove me wrong, Mr. Mayor.