Gerald Antunes has a name for his neighborhood — and a mission for the neighbors.
Some parts of the city have strong neighborhood identities, often coalescing around specific physical attributes like Wooster Square Park or Westville Village. Ward 12, which stretches out along Foxon Boulevard to the North Haven line, is not one of those. Antunes, the ward’s alderman, told his neighbors Tuesday night that he wants to change that, with their help.
He said he identified his neighborhood as Quinnipiac Meadows at a Mayor’s Night Out, and the mayor said he’d never heard of it. Antunes found the name on a city map.
At Tuesday’s night’s gathering, his quarterly meeting at Ross Woodward School on Barnes Avenue, Antunes (pictured) ran down issues facing Quinnipiac Meadows for the 25 neighbors gathered. He began by passing around a list of all the members of the city’s dozens of boards and commissions, with those from Ward 12 highlighted. There were only three. And there are many vacancies. So he urged people to look them over, pick one or two that interest them, and put their names in for consideration. It’s one way to become more involved in the life of the city, and to glean valuable information.
Antunes said he also had a conversation recently with someone affiliated with Yale. He talked about all Yale offers to people in wards closer to its campus, especially in Dixwell. “But Yale’s pockets are very deep, and we don’t have as much on the east side of town, so I asked what Yale can do for us.” He was given a pretty thick book of programs the university offers citywide, especially for kids.
“There are a lot of things we don’t know about,” he said. “I ask around as much as I can, especially when I feel my neighborhood is being left out.” He also mentioned all that libraries have to offer, although the closest city library is in Fair Haven, across Route 80 and in some ways a world away.
Antunes said his ward has 11 block watches, “but we should have many more.”
Two neighbors who came to the meeting, including Annie Price (pictured) said they plan to get a block watch started on Smith Avenue. They said they see a lot of drug activity on their street, and they’re concerned for their kids and grandkids.
Traffic issues loom large in the ward. Dominic Falcone (pictured at top of story) said the No Turn on Red signs should be hanging right by the relevant traffic light, but sometimes they’re so far away from the light people don’t notice them.
Since many of the roads are state roads (Middletown, Foxon and Quinnipiac avenues all run through there), Antunes said the city can’t undertake traffic-calming measures, so he’s asked for better traffic enforcement. From the stories many people told at the meeting, it sounds like that hasn’t happened yet to a significant degree, although the alderman mentioned that police, at the request of residents of Barnes Avenue (where Ross Woodward is located) conducted traffic stops for speeding. “It turned out 75 percent of the people caught were the neighbors themselves,” he said.
Several residents complained of speeding by “a punky kid driving a red car.”
“He gave me the finger,” said Cheryl Amorin (pictured). She’s out on the street a lot, picking up trash around her condo at Ellis and Quinnipiac Avenue.
Antunes ended the meeting suggesting that residents could be “a little nosy,” to get to know their neighbors and what’s going on around them. He urged them to join a block watch and “be part of the solution — be a good neighbor.”