A totally revolutionary idea

[MadVlad]

How about the City Council members do something really crazy like do something to make the livability of the city better instead of going off on irrelevant tangents like immigration or having some Imam pray before their meetings. Park Street is a disgrace, I'm sitting here right now near the corner of Park Terrace and Park Street, looking at this multi-million dollar streetscape that the Ex-Mayor floated to his buddies and guess what: it's covered in trash. Garbage floating around while a bunch of people mill about doing basically nothing. "Nothing" to me constitutes sitting on the stoop and watching cars drive by, or walking back and forth by my truck about 5 times with no destination. Call me crazy, but even if I was renting, if there was trash floating around in front of my place of residence, I'd pick it up and throw it in one of the trash cans that populates the street every 100 feet or so. All within a 2 minute walk of one of the Council members, maybe more, since I really don't know where they all live. Call me crazy, but aren't the council members elected to help create a better city, not waste the city's time, money, and effort in something that has no relevance like immigration? Until this city gets its act together, it truly will be a second-rate city with no hope or future...

[The Voice of Reason]

How about the City Council members do something really crazy like do something to make the livability of the city better instead of going off on irrelevant tangents like immigration or having some Imam pray before their meetings. Park Street is a disgrace, I'm sitting here right now near the corner of Park Terrace and Park Street, looking at this multi-million dollar streetscape that the Ex-Mayor floated to his buddies and guess what: it's covered in trash. Garbage floating around while a bunch of people mill about doing basically nothing. "Nothing" to me constitutes sitting on the stoop and watching cars drive by, or walking back and forth by my truck about 5 times with no destination. Call me crazy, but even if I was renting, if there was trash floating around in front of my place of residence, I'd pick it up and throw it in one of the trash cans that populates the street every 100 feet or so. All within a 2 minute walk of one of the Council members, maybe more, since I really don't know where they all live. Call me crazy, but aren't the council members elected to help create a better city, not waste the city's time, money, and effort in something that has no relevance like immigration? Until this city gets its act together, it truly will be a second-rate city with no hope or future...

the solution and yes it is a stretch, is to create a park street BID. if there were a park street BID, they would clean up all that litter and continually work at making the street better and marketing it as well. Downtown BID has done wonders, and most decent sized cities have many different BID's for each and every part of the city.

you see, in todays world most people apparently are not like you or I and will not pick up litter on their own property let alond on the street. in fact they will even litter blatently while standing just 5 feet from a garbage can.

the biggest obsticle is selling the idea of an additional tak on all of these properties, many owned by allready overtaxed small business owners.

if... IF somehow a large development could come to fruition at the Plaza Mayor location, and anchor that end of park street, and IF that developer would participate or even spearhead a BID, there is hald a chance of it happening. Otherwise, litter will happen and continue to do so for quite some time.

but thats my solution.

[HartfordTycoon]

I've had this crazy idea for a litter reward program for a while now where the city can provide interested parties with litter collection bags and give them a couple bucks for each bag full of litter that they collect. I think something like that could possibly work though as it essentially would be the same thing as having a city-wide BID that would hire people to do this. I know there are kids who beg or seek donations or whatever on Westbourne Parkway who could certainly use a few extra bucks and maybe would keep the median clean instead of messing it up if something like this was implemented. Has anything like that been tried anywhere before to anyone's knowledge? If we could convince some area corporations to donate to help fund it I think it would be worth trying out.

[Bill Mocarsky]

I've played several "gigs" in Hartford neighborhoods.

What comes to mind is Sigourney Square Park. Litter all over the place. It wasn't that the garbage cans were full either.

I remember doing an event on Garden Street. Litter lining the gutter of the street. What I observed was, it looked very natural for "good people" to open a candy bar and just let the wrapper fall where it may. You'd probably stick out if you went out of your way to find the trash can.

I see a cultural problem here.

[MadVlad]

I agree, Bill, so let's attack the culture, no? Instead, we're worried about stuff that has no relevance to the city. Misplaced priorities, etc...

[Luca Brasi]

I agree. Rudy Giuliani cleaned up NYC by attacking the small quality of life problems. The same needs to happen in Hartford. Clean up trash, get rid of panhandlers, arrest loiterers, prevent car break ins, etc. and you instantly make the city better and give the impression of safety. Give tickets to the multitudes of people who ride their bikes on the sidewalk, arrest the scum who harrass women on the street, clean up the bus stops, etc.

Start enforcing the small things and the big things take care of themselves.

[Bill Mocarsky]

I agree. Rudy Giuliani cleaned up NYC by attacking the small quality of life problems. The same needs to happen in Hartford. Clean up trash, get rid of panhandlers, arrest loiterers, prevent car break ins, etc. and you instantly make the city better and give the impression of safety. Give tickets to the multitudes of people who ride their bikes on the sidewalk, arrest the scum who harrass women on the street, clean up the bus stops, etc.

Start enforcing the small things and the big things take care of themselves.

It looks to me like Hartford focuses on responding to the "big things", after they happen. Meanwhile, seeds continue to be planted. This stuff needs to be nipped in the bud. How do we get started?

[beerbeer]

Although Rudy gets credit, David Dinkins actually started the" fare beater" program. NYC cops started arresting the guys who jumped over the fare gates in the subway - a very small crime.Guess what, about 50% these guys were felons, a healthy percentage of which had outstanding warrants.

Punishing small crimes harshly, like arresting graffiti artists helped clean the city both crime-wise and visually. Start handing out littering fines and behavior will change rapidly.

[HartfordTycoon]

Although Rudy gets credit, David Dinkins actually started the" fare beater" program. NYC cops started arresting the guys who jumped over the fare gates in the subway - a very small crime.Guess what, about 50% these guys were felons, a healthy percentage of which had outstanding warrants.

Punishing small crimes harshly, like arresting graffiti artists helped clean the city both crime-wise and visually. Start handing out littering fines and behavior will change rapidly.

I agree but in order for that to happen the cops would actually have to be watching people and catch them in the act. Sometimes it seems like the cops are invisible in Hartford unless there is a huge crowd or they are responding to an incident. You never see them just patrolling making sure everything is OK.

[zimbu1228]

I agree but in order for that to happen the cops would actually have to be watching people and catch them in the act. Sometimes is seems like the cops are invisible in Hartford unless there is a huge crowd or they are responding to an incident. You never see them just patrolling making sure everything is OK.

i go to boston alot, rather go to hartford but way more to do in Boston, you see cops all the time, day night whenever, downtown hartford only cops i ever see are directing xl center event traffic

[HartfordTycoon]

i go to boston alot, rather go to hartford but way more to do in Boston, you see cops all the time, day night whenever, downtown hartford only cops i ever see are directing xl center event traffic

Exactly. I don't see what is so hard about developing a policing policy where police actually have to be visible all over the city and especially Downtown pretty much all the time.