Butterflies, Fish, Safe Streets On Ballot

Traffic calming on dangerously fast Quinnipiac Avenue came in first by a length. Storm-drain art placed second. Boat-launch improvements and butterfly gardens tied for third.

Those were the preliminary results a friendly horse race of pet projects, to be decided through ranked-choice voting, for how to spend $20,000 in public money to improve Fair Haven Heights.

Twenty-five neighbors cast those votes Thursday night at a special meeting of the Quinnipiac East Management Team (QEMT) convened at the New Haven Friends (Quaker) Meeting house on East Grand Avenue.

The subject had hand was ​“budget democracy” — how to spend the $20,000 that city government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI) grants each neighborhood community management team to spend as it wishes through a Neighborhood Public Improvement Program (NPIP).

In the Heights, budget democracy met deliberative democracy, as neighbors tapped into the growing interest in ranked-choice voting, in which people choose a list of options in order rather than cast a single winner-take-all vote. (Click here and here for stories on how the process works.)

The meeting ended with a list of approved projects to appear next month on a ballot for the ranked-choice vote.

A scramble is on because all the funds must be spent by the end of the city’s fiscal year, June 30. So decisions must be submitted as soon as possible to LCI for approval.

In the Heights, the decision-making process was organized by QEMT Chairs Kurtis Kearney and Donald Spencer, who were not able to attend the meeting Thursday night. Local activist Chris Ozyck oversaw the voting. The selected projects ended up reflecting the major concerns of this riverine and historic neighborhood: dealing with a too-fast cut-through road plagued by accidents and a beautiful waterway that needs a lot of TLC and far more public appreciation.

“Originally we received proposals totaling $40,000,” said Ozyck, ​“but we’ve winnowed it down to $19,000.”

That’s because $1,000 had already been earmarked for the work of Guns Down, Books Up, a young peoples’ mentorship program operating out of the Bishop Woods School.

The other proposed projects included an array of temporary traffic calming measures — pedestrian markings, roundabouts, and other signs — that local developer and Q Avenue landlord Fereshteh Bekhrad had presented at a previous QEMT meeting. The pricetag for this project is $5,000.

Bekhrad was followed by Kat Calhoun, a resident of the condos near Eastern Street and Hemingway. Calhoun proposed three butterfly gardens, one in each of the three political wards encompassed by the QEMT.

Wearing what she was preaching — a butterfly-themed blouse, scarf, and hairpin — Calhoun informed the group that there 20 butterflies native to Connecticut. The Monarchs need our help. Also, the gardens could nurture and lure Red Admirals and Viceroys.

Calhoun reported that she has three volunteers from her condo complex already lined up to do the watering and maintenance of the gardens. Urban Resources Initiative will provide the inaugural butterfly-attracting plantings. The pricetag: $2,500

Ozyck predicted that this project, because it benefits different geographical areas of the management team’s neighborhoods, would particularly please LCI; LCI ultimately must approve each proposed project, making sure that it meets, at minimum, the requirement of serving a public, not private, purpose.

That requirement was easily met by artist JoAnn Moran’s storm-drain art proposal. It called for working with three local schools — provisionalliy, Bishop Woods, Benjamin Jepson, and Quinnipiac — to research, design, and then paint storm drains near the schools. The goal is not only art education but environmental education. And, of course, fun.

}Neighbor Jane Coppock asked Moran how long the paint will last. That query triggered a lengthy and erudite conversation about different kinds of paint and a cost/benefit analysis and whether particles of paint going into the river through the drains painted precisely to help educate about the river’s vulnerabilities is a plus or minus.

The paint mavens resolved to get together after the meeting and the projects’ approval. Total cost for storm drain/school zone art: $5,000.

Patricia Kane proposed two enhancements for one of the area’s potentially most attractive sites, currently in bad shape: Power-washing and cleaning of the benches at the Clifton Street canoe launch on the river. And a kiosk with a laminated or protected window with info on the tides for paddlers as well as community announcements.

“This will be the best place to watch the [Grand Avenue] bridge construction,” said Bekhrad.

In the spirit of allowing enough funding for as many projects as possible, Kane withdrew two other modest proposals from consideration: a blight study and a Little Free Library box. Those could be accomplished for volunteer effort alone, she said..

Other projects approved for this preliminary recommended list included a memorial marker at the Dom Aitro baseball park in approciation of Mark Gambardella.

Until his death to cancer two years ago,Aitro was one of the stalwarts keeping the league and Fairmont Park together, said Artie Natalino, whose dad was the founder of the little kids’ baseball league. Cost: $500.

Kane also pitched a $500 request towards historic markers in the Fair Haven Heights area. These would be placed at yet to be determined locations at the (Copps Island/Bloom) oyster farm; the Quinnipiac River; the Grand Avenue Bridge (noting an early name for the area, and the crossing Dragon Bridge); and Christian Hill, the stretch of Grand just as the hill rises from the avenue that features Pilgrim Church and St.. James Church.

Kane’s request: $500. The total cost of the project is $2,000, she explained, but $1,500 has been pledged by the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, and the $500 is for the cost of historic photographs to be obtained from the New Haven Museum, she added.

And so it went, all the projects rank choice voted adding up to $16,000. ​“This is a nice sweet spot,” concluded Ozyck. The amount allows for the inclusion of newer projects — local artist Bill Meddick preliminarily proposed welcome and other signs featuring as a kind of logo, the sharpie or oyster boat — as well as other projects that may emerge between now and the February meeting of the QEMT, when the final and official vote will be taken.

After the meeting, Ozyck and others gathered with Tracey Blanford, treasurer of the New Haven Friends Meeting, whichhas agreed to be the fiduciary for all the QEMT projects.