NORWICH – According to Sixth Ward Alderman Robert Jeffrey, the issue of littering in the city needs to be addressed.
At the January meeting of the Finance and Personnel Committee, Jeffrey discussed the possibility of purchasing signs that state the possible fines for the crime in an attempt to deter people from littering.
“Birdsall Street is a pass route for traffic, and for a lot of people it’s turning into an easy way to dispose of their water bottles,” Jeffrey said.
Jeffrey also pointed out the high number of shopping carts that are seen littering the streets. “There is a lot of garbage being thrown around, and to turn the city around we need a clean city,” Jeffrey said.
Police Chief Joseph Angelino explained that people can be written up for littering under both traffic laws and city ordinance laws, and both have been done in the past; however the amount of the fine is at the discretion of the judge.
While the committee was not certain that these signs would be necessary, they did agree on the importance of enforcing the ordinances.
‘We’re trying to do something to make progress forward, not backward. This is important to having nice neighborhoods,” Alderman Walter Schermerhorn said.
Angelino told the committee he would talk to the officers at the department and put a program together. He added that since the department had recently gone to a new scheduling system that allows more officers to be on duty at the same time, without a major increase in costs, manpower should not be an issue. “We should be able to have one of the officers go out and handle quality of life issues,” Angelino said; however he warned the committee that there is usually public criticism when the department focuses their attention on quality of life issues.
“I’d like to see residents maintaining their properties and keeping the city clean,” Jeffrey said.
Schermerhorn agreed. “People should take pride in the community,” he said.