Allan appel Photo
Clifton Graves (right) & Fair Haven “Angel” Taxi
As Democratic mayoral hopeful Clifton Graves launched a citywide listening tour, he joined Fair Haven neighbors in arguing the city should do more to keep kids occupied at night. Late at night.
The idea emerged Thursday evening at a dialogue convened by Community Mediation between Police Chief Frank Limon and about 30 neighbors from the East Shore and Fair Haven who gathered in the Fair Haven branch library to discuss community-police relations.
Limon said one common thread at Thursday’s meeting and in previous ones in West River and most recently Newhallville is the contention that there isn’t enough for young people to do. “The youth population is part of the puzzle [to make the community safer]. If you don’t keep ‘em busy, someone else will,” Limon said.
To that end, he announced that the Police Athletic League will have 60 teens in its programs this summer, as well as two new grant-funded programs to intervene with hard-to-reach kids, one in Newhallville and one in Fair Haven this summer.
Graves, who’s facing DeStefano in a Sept. 13 Democratic primary, joined neighbors in break-out discussions with police.
Graves suggested a back-to-the-future solution that would reach kids not in specific programs or areas but throughout the city.
“What I hear from young people is they have nothing to do. We used to have midnight basketball, with police and firefighters involved. Between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.: this is when crimes occur.”
Graves called for the gyms across town to be open for this purpose. “Not just more youth programs but at the right hours.”
The involvement of the police and firemen would have additional benefit. “It’s a way to build relationships.”
David Morales (at right in photo), who has been a street outreach worker in Fair Haven for three years, agreed. He said there are two things police could do to improve the safety of the neighborhood. “First, sit on the hot spots,” that is, the corners like Poplar and Saltonstall where more of a physical police presence could deter crime.
The second: “Open the gyms more. A lot.”
Morales was speaking with 76-year-old Al Glazer, who is still living in the house where he grew up on Peck Street. Morales said that to his knowledge the only gym in the neighborhood open in the evening is at the Clinton Avenue School. That would be only Friday nights and only from 5 to 7. It’s organized under the auspices of the New Haven Family Alliance, which supervises the street outreach workers.
Morales said kids come there from all over the city. “Get more gyms open. We’re limited in time,” he said.
East Shore top cop Sgt. Vincent Anastasio (right with Officer Reginald McGlotten) suggested that if gyms were open, it’d be better if kids’ parents were in there as well. “I’d like to see it back to 40 or 50 years ago, when kids used to go to cops. Now they run away. Youth programs are fine and good, but parents need to supervise the kids too, while they play.”
Reached Friday morning, DeStefano Campaign Manager Danny Kedem said the mayor is already doing a lot to keep kids out of trouble.
” I think what Mr. Graves is talking about is a larger issue, offering opportunities to make positive choices,” Kedem said. “The mayor has always been committed to that, whether pre‑K for all, the Promise program, [or] creating thousands of summer jobs so kids can stay out of trouble.”
This summer, the city will offer 60 summer camps, Kedem said. There are currently 179 youth programs in the city open at different sites from 4 to 8 p.m., he added.
The city does have a Midnight Basketball Association League, too, Kedem noted. The league, now in its 11th season, runs Fridays and Saturdays at the Ralph Walker Rink on State Street.
Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation Bill Dixon said the rink, which opens for the summer season in June, will have hundreds of kids and run until about eleven at night.
In addition, both during the school year and this summer the city keeps open eight gyms including at the five schools with pools (Martinez, Cross, Hillhouse, Conte, and Career). “They are packed,” he said.
Regarding the “midnight” in the name of the rink’s program, Dixon said in the first five or six years there was a focus on older at-risk kids, with police and firemen involved and the games did indeed go to midnight and beyond. Largely no more. That now is being carried on in part at the Clinton Avenue School and funded by the New Haven Family Alliance
Would he recommend expanding that program? “It’s hard to say if it should be reinstated. I get tired of people saying we don’t have programs. If they come out of the house, they’ll see there are programs.”
Would there be the participation of many at risk kids, of the kind that participants in the dialogue suggested were in need of things to do?
“You can open the schools but you can’t make ‘em come in,” said Dixon.
Asked what he thought of the idea of a curfew, which Chief Limon endorsed at the Newhallville meeting, Graves said the idea is “worth exploring”: “Desperate times deserve desperate measures.”
“The ACLU will probably challenge and the police will have a hard time enforcing,” he added. “Even with a curfew, the kids will say, ‘Where we gonna go?’”
The meeting split up on the suggestion that some teens be recruited for a follow-up session — there were none Thursday night.
Long-time Quinnipiac Meadows neighbor Barbara Paige said of Graves: “If he becomes mayor we need programs in East Shore and Fair Haven, not on the other side of town. I definitely will remind him.”