Christopher Peak Photo
Health Department’s Roslyn Hamilton and fellow crew members in Newhallville operation.
New Haven government rule-enforcers plan to “sweep” into Fair Haven next week.
Or “canvass.”
Or some other verb that they’re not telling us yet.
While the verb is uncertain, the “clean-city” mission isn’t: The Harp administration is enlisting its cops, housing code inspectors, building inspectors, health workers, and other front-like people to work together, fanning out in one neighborhood at a time, to identify unsafe buildings, dark and unsafe streetcorners, and other quality-of-life problems; fix the problems; enlist neighbors to report future problems; and share the information on a new one-stop-shopping government database.
They first did that in Newhallville last October. They called it a neighborhood “sweep.” (Read about it here, here, and here.)
The crew plans to hit Fair Haven next, in mid-March, Mayor Toni Harp said on her latest appearance on WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday” program.
But the crew won’t call it a “sweep” this time. The city heard from neighbors that the word carried too negative a connotation, like a drug sweep. So it’s searching for a new term.
Harp said her staff has tentatively settled on a new term. She declined to reveal it just yet. First she would like to hear from Independent readers for a suggestion.
Some people in Newhallville started using the term “canvass” on day two of that two-day operation. Harp said that’s not the term her crew tentatively chose, but it, and all other suggestions, remain in the mix.
Put your suggestion in the comments section below, and/or take our “True Vote” survey.