Fire Officials Urged to Consider Ambulance Service

At Monday's meeting of the Public Safety Commission, members of the commission in reviewing the proposed budget variations submitted by fire department chief Gary Oullette, suggested that the department consider creating an ambulance service to provide an income stream for the department.

Oullette, in presenting his four budget scenarios demanded by Mayor Sebastian Giuliano of all departments (ideal, level service, level spending, 3% cut), suggested that a 3% cut in budget was impossible.

Commission member David Bauer suggested that the Common Council would be asking "hard questions" of all departments and that department heads, like the chief should be ready with real answers if a 3% cut is needed across the board.

Commission Chair Bob Santangelo suggested resurrecting an idea which has been around for at least 10 years, an ambulance service run by the Fire Department. The Fire Deparment currently has an EMT service which costs money, according to Oulette, but an anbulance service would make money, according to the chief.

Deputy Chief Robert Kronenberger, who wrote a study about creating a public ambulance service 5 years ago, suggested that it would take 5-10 years before such a service would show a positive revenue stream after start-up costs were covered.

Other obstacles stand in the way of creating an ambulance service. The town's only state-registered ambulance service is Hunter Ambulance, and the city would need to convince state authorities that an additional service was necessary.

Oullette, who initially said he was reluctant to make reports for the sake of making reports, agreed with the commission to explore the idea.

A $60,000 solution

The Middletown Press reports that the Public Safety Commission has settled on a $60,00o solution to a parking controversy on Long Hill Rd.

The commission voted to send its proposal to widen the road with "parking stalls." The proposal will be sent to the Public Works Commission for a public hearing and then onto the Common Council for a vote.

Ticket us all!

The folks on Long Hill Road are not happy, and they brought their concerns to the Public Safety Commission meeting Monday night.

Several residents from Long Hill Rd addressed the committee about a parking controversy that they claim is two years old.

The stretch of Long Hill Road which fronts condominiums between Wesleyan Hills Road and Brush Hill Road has been declared off limits for parking on either side of the thoroughfare. The no parking zone is now marked by yellow lines on both sides of the road, and tickets are regularly issued to any and all who test the parking ban.

The residents complain that until recently, parking was allowed along one side of the road, and that the recent parking ban has caused hardships during visits from family and friends. Several of these residents linked the parking ban with the arrival of Police chief Lynn Baldoni as a resident in one of the condos.

"As far as comments about this happening because I live there, I resent those comments," Chief Baldoni said forcefully. "They are not true. I'm doing my job. This is not an overnight decision. In my opinion it's a safety issue. The street is not wide enough to support parking."

According to the chief, ticketing began after complaints to a district officer about parking. Once safety studies were completed, the chief, as the ultimate parking authority by state statute, decided that parking had to be banned or the city was unnecessarily exposed to liability in case of an accident.

These explanations did not satisfy Long Hill Road residents. Louise Astin called it "selective enforcement," considering the many narrow roads in town.

"We ask for little, but we've lost much," she said. "We can no longer have our families over. In over 30 years there has not been one parking accident. The simple solution is to paint the curbs black again."

Resident Bill Arrigoni asked, "Why are we being singled out when you can go to many streets in Middletown and find the same problem. Ticket us, but ticket Vine Street. Ticket Broad Street. Ticket, ticket, ticket. Then we'll all be happy."

Baldoni countered by saying that "I don't think anyone in this room expects us to put a yellow line on every curb, on every street in the city."

When asked by commission member, Vinny Loffredo, why after all these years, parking is now banned, the chief explained that once her department discovers a problem, she must act in accordance with the law, and doesn't have lenience to do otherwise. The chief reported that to allow parking on one side, road width needs to be a minimum of 29 feet, and that Long Hill is 24 feet wide at its widest, and 21 feet wide at its narrowest.

The commission decided to ask the Public Works department if a sheath coat of blacktop could extend the road over buried utilities to provide for more parking. They also indicated they had no authority to ask the chief of police to do anything but what she had decided to do.

High School Fire Lane

In other business, the Fire Department reported on enforcement of a fire lane at the new high school. In the first months of school, the fire lane has been blocked by parents dropping off and picking up their teenagers. Commission members deemed the issue a "management" problem at the high school and suggested that those in charge at the school find alternative areas for pickup and dropoff.

Round Hill Road

Residents also complained about a hazardous curve on Round Hill Road, where it was reported at the meeting, a city snow plow was "lost" during a storm a few years back. "Shame on us," commission chairman Robert Santangelo mused when he heard about the plow accident two years ago, and considered that the problem still existed. The commission voted to recommend immediate attention to the issue by the Public Works Department.

Asbestos Removal at Dispatch Headquarters

Fire chief Gary Oulette that asbestos removal, and the problems with solvent irritants which sent dispatchers to the hospital for treatment, was complete. He indicated that the catalyst for the complaints was an adhesive used to contain affected areas. When asked what the service interruption cost the city, Oulette estimated that between overtime and equipment costs, the total is well over $10,000. The cost for the original asbestos abatement was $11, 385.

Incident on Fountain Avenue

In reviewing the report issued by the Police Department on the controversial clash of student and police after a Wesleyan party on Fountain Avenue, Chief Baldoni, and Deputy Chief McMahon explained the proper use of Tazers, pepper balls and other "less-lethal" enforcement techniques. Commission member Thomas Serra suggested that the city follow a resolution passed in 1990 which requires a monthly meeting between the city, represented by the mayor, the majority council leader, the minority council leader, the president of Wesleyan, the student assembly leader and a member of the public.

A new direction for Miller & Bridge?

Last night was the gathering of the Redevelopment Agency and the Public Safety Commission on the topic of Miller & Bridge.  It should be noted that this was not an official meeting -- it was sort of a workshop, since addressing the topic separately led to a stalemate.  

First some facts, which were prepared by Michiel Wackers.  Since the 1999 adoption of the Redevelopment Plan, there have been 12 acquisitions by the City in this neighborhood, and those properties have been demolished.  There are 16 pieces of private property remaining, which include about 27 housing units and there are 40 cars registered at those addresses.  The only business -- Alfredo's Riverside -- is closed but could potentially be re-opened.  To finish the plan, it is projected that it would cost just under $3 million buy those properties, relocate the people, and demolish the buildings.

We also discussed the option of connecting Miller Street to North Main Street, and then closing off the Route 9 entrance and leaving Portland Street alone.  The challenge here is the cost -- which was estimated by the State DOT as just under $3 million (coincidentally the same cost as demolishing the whole place!)   Of course, that's just a first estimate and there was lots of debate on how adding 300 ft. of road could cost that much...but it does mean acquiring an easement from Providence and Worcester Rail, and getting state legislature approval for at-grade crossings on the tracks.

And finally, we discussed the option of opening Portland Street -- the police did a count and gave an estimate of 100 trips a day, primarily between 5 and 8 pm, but personally, I am entirely unclear about what that means -- whether that is one car making two trips (which could easily be residents) or whether there are a lot of people turning in there when traffic is bad, and then making a u-turn.  Also, the narrowness of Portland Street, the need to eliminate some of their on-street parking, and the potential disruption to their neighborhood were issues -- and eventually, that option took last place, only to be pursued if the other two options fail.

So, I believe the next step is to have a full, public review of this at both the Redevelopment and Public Safety meetings.  Each group will be considering whether they can endorse the following request to our state legislators:  For approximately $3 million in funding to pursue either option one (demolish the neighborhood) or option two (connect it to North Main).   Any members of the public who care about this issue will have their chance to speak at both of those meetings.

The feeling is that giving them both options makes it easier for the legislators to find a way to get this funding.  But of course, they may be unsuccessful.  I should note that both Representative Serra and Senator Doyle did meet with Redevelopment last year, and they agreed to champion this cause at the legislature last year, whether for approval to open Portland St. or funding for some other plan, but that first we needed to agree on what we wanted (including approval from the Council).

So now we have a long-term plan on the table, but no short-term relief for the people on Miller & Bridge.  If we can actually get funding within the next year, then this is a positive step.  If not, we have to go back to the Portland Street option.

The one thing everyone agreed on -- there are no easy solutions for this situation.

What to do about Miller & Bridge?

What to do for the neighborhood known as "Miller & Bridge"? That's the tiny section of town that has it's own entrance from Route 9, just north of Exit 16, where the former Alfredo's Riverside Restaurant did business until earlier this year.

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As a Redevelopment commissioner, I was part of the process in the late 1990's that designated this area as a "Redevelopment Zone", including a plan to purchase and demolish all the structures in the area, by eminent domain if necessary. At the time, I spoke against the plan to demolish and I remember Catherine Johnson speaking eloquently about the importance of the area as an "architectural billboard" for our town, as the historic, wood-frame, working class houses are the first glimpse of Middletown as you arrive from the North -- she felt they could be restored and the highway access might be a positive instead of a negative, if the right owners and uses could be found. But there was an assumption that as the state looked at eliminating Exit 16 and connecting directly to the Arrigoni Bridge to Portland (that should be the subject for another post), there would likely be a buy-out of this neighborhood by the State D.O.T. And we all agreed that the status-quo was not good -- because of the isolation of the neighborhood, it had become a source of blight and the easy highway access provided a sort of "drive-thru" for drug dealers from outside the neighborhood, making life miserable for residents. In addition to other problems, unprotected train tracks run right through the neighborhood and lead paint falling from the bridge had contaminated a number of properties. And so it became the official policy of the City to eliminate the neighborhood through Redevelopment.

Whether for good or for worse, the State D.O.T. never came up with money to purchase Miller & Bridge. Meanwhile, the City spent hundreds of thousands of federal grant dollars buying certain properties and demolishing them, before they ran out of money and decided instead to focus the City's resources to demolishing historic houses on Ferry Street to create the Richman/Wharfside Commons apartments.

So, it's 10 years later and the Miller & Bridge neighborhood is in limbo, as the Redevelopment plan is still in effect, yet action on that plan has ceased and there is no intention to move forward with funding it. Some properties were purchased and demolished, and the quality of life did improve somewhat, but the remaining residents continue to feel that they do not receive the same level of city services, and property values must be affected by the fact that -- officially -- the neighborhood has no future. The people who live there would like to see us either lift the Redevelopment designation, or find the funding to finish the job. Either way, they would like immediate improvements to the traffic safety problem (one resident suggested to the Police that they should be exempt from tickets when they are involved in accidents on Route 9, since they frequently have to take risks just to get in or out of their neighborhood.)

The North End Action Team (NEAT) and Lydia Brewster raised this issue in the first place and have kept it on the Redevelopment agenda all these years, with repeated meetings to try to push it forward. This year, a compromise solution was approved at Redevelopment: ask the State to open the rail crossing at Portland Street for a few years, and to close the Route 9 entrance. In the meantime, perhaps try to find State funding to build a proper connection for the neighborhood from Miller Street to North Main, across the land controlled by the Providence and Worcester Railroad.

This temporary solution of opening Portland Street is understood to be a complicated proposal for two reasons -- first, it requires a special act of the state legislature, since opening Portland Street will require Miller & Bridge residents to cross the railroad tracks (which of course they already do within their own neighborhood -- and without any safety signals.) And second, St. John's Church and Portland Street residents are concerned about the social and traffic problems which might result from connecting to Miller & Bridge.

When this motion from Redevelopment made the necessary stop at the Public Safety Commission before going on to the Common Council, it was denied -- Public Safety doesn't want to open Portland Street. And Miller & Bridge remains in limbo.

And so I come to the reason for today's post on this topic: Tomorrow (June 24th) at 5:30 pm in Room 208 at City Hall, there will be a joint meeting of the Redevelopment Agency and the Public Safety Commission. I don't actually know if there will be a public session, but it should be interesting to see if we can't find a solution that brings some justice to the people in this neighborhood -- and if we can't, why not?