Alderman Sergio Rodriguez walked into the gym at the Davis Street School bearing two large boxes filled with coffee and dozens of doughnut holes.
Nearly two hours later, he walked back out into the damp, dark night — carrying two large boxes filled with coffee and dozens of doughnut holes, and wearing a slightly puzzled expression.
Rodriguez, who represents Westville’s 26th Ward, had come face to face with the question: “What if you call a neighborhood community meeting and almost nobody comes?”
The answer: You listen to the two interested citizens who show up. And listen. And listen.
Rodriguez, who is president pro tempore of the Board of Aldermen, had called the meeting for 6:30 Wednesday night. For the next 15 minutes, it was Rodriguez and a reporter in the gym where voters have come since 2003 to elect and re-elect him to the board. Tables had been set up, with stools to hold scores of people.
Then Ilona Naczi walked in. She wasn’t a constituent, but wanted to be. She said she lives across the street from the school, but her house is in the 27th Ward. Instead of walking across the street to vote, as she had done in the years before redistricting, she needed to get into her car and drive all the way to Barnard School in order to cast her ballot.
Rodriguez said he understood her pique. If there were ever another redistricting, he said, she should call him and he would see what he can do.
“Call me.” That was his theme for the rest of his night (to this soundtrack):
Call me.
Don’t be reluctant to call me
Call me and I’ll fix your woe
I can’t help you if I don’t know
Call me when it’s going on
By 7:15 p.m. or so, there were four people in the Davis Street School gym. Don Dimenstein, the city’s acting director of elderly services, was there to answer questions about seniors. There were none.
A woman came in, sat at a table a third of the way across the gym from where the others were gathered. She texted on her cell phone, took a couple of calls and then spoke for the first time. She had to go pick up her child, she said — and was gone.
The second person in the door was Betty Goodwin, a neighborhood resident. She had questions. Lots of questions.
Rodriguez’s refrain: Call me.
Goodwin said she was concerned about two houses, one on Whittier Road and one on Ray Road, that had been boarded up. She said they were an eyesore, and owned by the housing authority.
Rodriguez said that because of a court decision, it is difficult to find out about houses in the process of sale or rental by the housing authority.
This wouldn’t happen on Prospect Street, Goodwin said.
Then she brought up another concern: One evening she received a telephone sales call that didn’t feel right. She called the police. It took many calls before her message was directed to an officer, who reassured her the caller was indeed a vendor.
If it happens again, Rodriguez told her — call me.
Then Goodwin turned her, and his, attention to the time she saw youths smoking near some brush. The police response to her concern was less than she thought proper.
Rodriguez: If it happens again, call me.
The sidewalks near the Yale Golf Course are in bad shape, Goodwin said.
Rodriguez: Call me.
Other sidewalks are pitted.
Rodriguez: Call me.
Seven fire department vehicles responding to an alarm made a lot of noise.
Rodriquez: Call me when the event is going on.
Goodwin did get a rise out of Rodriguez when she complained about the condition of some roads in his ward. He responded with a litany of newly paved roads in the ward.
She said she was talking about roads in other wards.
That, he said, was out of his hands.
She had other concerns, some of which elicited the “Call me” response, while others he just listened to politely. She also told the reporter in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want her picture taken, even from the back.
As 8:30 rolled around, the clearly tired alderman asked the reporter if he had been there long enough. The reporter said he had. Rodriguez said was concerned about the meeting not being publicized. He would look into that.
He offered some of the coffee to the school employee who had come to fold up the unneeded tables and chairs. The man didn’t want any.
Rodriguez headed back into the dark, damp night, carrying most of the coffee and all but one of the dozens of doughnut holes.
Later, the reporter called him to ask whether he had brought the doughnuts home and how his wife had reacted to it.
She wasn’t home, he said, his smile radiating through the phone line.
Everyone in that section of Town is bored of talking to the WALL!!!!!!!!