It seems that someone (or maybe multiple someones) cleaned the area known as the Corridor of Hope AKA Stretch of Sketch AKA Captiol Avenue between Forest Street and Laurel Street. It looks nice. Some tree branches have been moved to visually block the array of garbage behind the fence in one spot. Nobody appeared to be hardcore enough to hop the fence and remove the major piles of debris.
That surprises me since so much of what I see daily appears to be centered on acts of bravado — riding street illegal vehicles the wrong way down one way streets, carrying weapons, talking smack. The logical trajectory of that, in my mind anyway, is for these kids to show their peers how truly gangsta they are by dragging illegally dumped toilets and tires out of the woods and into bags for the Department of Public Works to pick up.
Speaking of the DPW, myself and other community members have contacted 311 about the dozens of bags of garbage left behind from this clean up.
While I am willing to give props for the litter pick-up that this group did, I feel compelled to remind that there is a difference between litter pick-up and litter removal. Bags left for days are prone to being ripped open by animals (or humans, even) and bust open by buses, as well as posing a danger to cyclists when left in the bike lane, as several were.
As a friend pointed out, leaving bags of garbage in a lily bed sends the signal that dumping trash is okay. Please, folks, don’t half-ass it! If you’re going to clean up an area, either remove the bags yourselves or wait until a truck from the DPW has come by to pick up the junk. As of 9:30 Monday morning, the bags remained on the sidewalk, on the lily bed, and on the street.
Anyway, if you are looking for another way to represent, this Saturday (Oct 3rd, 11am) you can show some love for Hartford by helping to pick up trash in and along the Connecticut River. The Source to Sea Cleanup event. Beat Bike Blog, Bill Phillips & Judy Preston/Tidewaters Institute, Boy Scout Troop 260, Boy Scout Troop 66, CDM, East Hartford Hockanum River Commission, Ed Sopneski & Jennifer Hillhouse, NRG Middletown Power, Enfield Conservation Commission, Farmington River Watershed Association, Friends of the Canal, Friends of the River, Glastonbury Boy Scout Troop 540, Glastonbury High School Environmental Club, Glastonbury High School Inter-act Club, Grade 6 Language Arts Volunteers, Haddam Land Trust, Higganum Cub Scout Pack 40, Old Saybrook Land Trust, Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative, REI West Hartford, Rocky Hill High School Lend-a-Paw, Rotary Club of Cromwell, Save the Sound, Scantic River Watershed Association, Suffield Meadows Condo Assoc, The Academy School, The Jonah Center for Earth and Art, the MDC, The Nature Conservancy, Town of Windsor, Trinity College Green Campus, Two Rivers Magnet Middle School, Wethersfield Greenup, and Windsor Locks Conservation Commission all participated in Connecticut last year. Folks over at the Beat Bike Blog are once again organizing a group to clean up where the Connecticut and Park Rivers come together. You can reach this spot via trail that runs along the river; it’s between Charter Oak Landing and Riverfront Plaza.
UPDATE: as of 10:30 pm, 9/28, the garbage bags were still on Capitol Avenue
UPDATE: as of 3pm, 9/29, the garbage bags remained.
UPDATE: as of 7:20am, 9/30, the bags are still here. This is a main thoroughfare. Are people really driving so fast that they are not seeing the bags of garbage both piled up and strewn about? Does 311 never check their email alerts?
UPDATE: The trash has been picked up (10/1). Woot!
queerartist
Thanks Kerri. I just called 311 again. Is there really anyone there living and understanding. Then I called Luis office. THe corridor of Hope. HA! The garbage bags say a lot. There is the community court group that I have noticed in the past do the same. They come to clean, the supervisor sits in the car, and they leave behind the bags. Half ass. Well I am glad that some of us who live here do not accept half ass and I promise I will continue to bug them until they get this job done and any others. Thanks for the super clean up but let’s finish the job.
P.S The bag at the bus stop is spilling more of its contents after several hits by the bus.
kerri provost
My favorite thing was seeing the empty box of Trojans placed next to a garbage bag.
I wonder if there’s a way to get a few of those heavy trash cans placed along this route. I think that’d go at least some way in minimizing the mess once the current larger mess gets picked up.
richard
Oh Art Oh !!!
P.S If they do place heavy trash cans along the route then we will be calling them to empty the cans. All summer we have been doing that with the cans near Park Place Towers drivway.
Brendan
Hello Kerri et al.,
I received an irate phone call about this just now and followed up with 311. I’m not sure the situation with why work orders weren’t created from the emails, but they weren’t. This is a problem that I’ve experienced as well. 311 is the most responsive when called during their business hours. And, please don’t think that I’m trying to act as an apologist here. I’ll do some further investigation to figure out the email issue.
One thing that I’m not certain of is whether or not the organizers of the cleaning event contacted DPW prior to the cleaning. Does anyone know? For my cleanup on Saturday (the beat bike blog one), I talked to DPW and was told that they wouldn’t be able to pick up the trash until Monday. I doubt we’ll picking up much food/putrescent waste, so I don’t think that there will be too many problems.
kerri provost
I’ve noticed that about responsiveness. Perhaps if they don’t intend to use their email regularly, they could disable it? At any rate, the trash is very visible and I can’t believe it’s sat there for this many days.
Brendan
Instead of telling them to get rid of it, why don’t we just press them to be more active in checking it. They do, but sometimes it takes considerably long than something like email should.
kerri provost
🙂
That’s also an option.
I prefer using email for such contacts because there is a written record and the ability to include detail that just would not happen on the phone (without having to repeat myself three times).
richard
Perhaps someone in the city could coordinate these clean ups and make sure that DPW is there that day if it is a weekday or on the next business day. This leaving of the garbage bags has been an on-going problem.
I have seen it with my own eyes that the crew that is sent out to clean by the community court leaves the bags from their efforts. Can someone in the city let the person in charge know that the procedure is one must let DPW know where they are cleaning that day. I see them mostly on week days so that shouldn’t be a problem to get DPW there. A bunch of black garbage bags piled around really are not all that inviting to anyone. Think dump.
The e-mail issue is only a part of the problem. Getting those who do good works to do the good works fully is really the issue here. Branches from a clean up early this summer in Pope Park sat in a piles all summer. As far as calling 311 I did so on early Monday about the bags. I also e-mailed them. So neither worked.
I don’t know Brendan I thought that I was doing a rather good job at hiding how irate I was. I can’t stand half-assed work by anyone.
I am not ready to give up yet and will continue to call the city on any issue that I feel needs addressing. They can expect me to call back until they do the jobs we pay them to do. I don’t want to live in a garbage dump and I am sure that most citizens of Hartford don’t either.
kerri provost
I generally reserve angry phone calls for people trying to scam me out of money, but the second I see a rat hanging out near any of this garbage, I’m lettin’ loose.
Richard
Well each as they may. I can not stand as stated stupidity, half-assed work, and as I said, this on going problem of do-gooders not doing a full good job. They are like those who think they are doing wonders for the hungry when they give them a peanut butter sandwich.
I am irate yes about these problems exp when we can’t get much satisfaction from 311 or from the city. Nothing wrong with lighting a little fire under their ass and hope they will hop to it. Hopping to it is a part of their job as public servants.
I want to see something from my money and when city employees are not working as they should in my opinion they are trying to scam me out of my hard earned dollars payable to this city in taxes.
Brendan
You sounded irate: you cursed.
I don’t think the City needs to hire another person make this someone’s responsibility to coordinate. DPW is over stretched. I think an organization or group of people, who are doing one of these cleanup events, can use common sense and surmise that the garbage bags aren’t just going to transport themselves into a garbage truck. Many groups are on point with this kind of stuff and call the Mayor’s office or the Council office and inquire about getting the trash picked up. When notified, I have yet to see DPW not follow through.
kerri provost
Amen on the common sense! Although, as the days passed, I would not have been at all surprised if whatever was in those bags grew legs and walked away. That was some nasty stuff!
But Brendan, I have to say, some of us curse because it’s as natural as breathing. I wasn’t listening in on the conversation, so maybe in context the cussing was irate, but personally, I drop F-bombs without even knowing it half the time.
qartist
Now wait a minute here. I don’t recall saying any cuss words. Maybe “shit”. But not the F word or anything else. I was very irate and sounded all huffy, since I had just got off the phone with 311 who gave me the “duh.” No it isn’t my policy to prevert the ears of those who work at City Hall. But will say if things in this city continue the way it is going the employee’s at city hall can expect more than a few cuss words from the people. Seen it all before and it is such a shame no one really wants to do their job.
But thank you Brendan for getting right on this problem. Sorry if in my preceived unmanners I offended you.
qartist
Child where have you been all these years? Talk to anyone who has requested that the city get with it and do their job and you will find that more times than not the city hasn’t. Unless something magical has happened in the last few years that we don’t know about then I would gather it still is the same.(Get the city to do their job in removing snow banks from bus stops and I will crown you king. Look how long it took the city to put in a push button for our citizens in wheel chairs, with walkers or having some other problem that made it hard to open the public library FRONT door. Almost a YEAR!)
Again I will say I have seen lots of bags, piles of branches, and all sorts of other debris left from clean ups. I have on occasion check what’s inside the bags and believe me its clean up litter. The pile left in Pope Park all summer was left again by a Knox Park clean up day. I am sure they know better and contacted the city.
Gee come to think of it it was around July when I called the city about an old chair, a white clothes basket, and some other crap dumped in the area of Pope Park the Park Terrace north side. Still there.
Here’s to common sense. Let’s hope more grow some.
Brendan did you check out the community court clean up crew? Do they call DPW each time they are out and about?
Anyway enough of this merry-go-round. I have too many other things to do.
Brendan
I conversed with the Mayor’s office and I was told that we should use the “submit a service request” thing on 311.hartford.gov instead of straight ahead emailing. Here’s the direct link: http://hg-2k3-crmsrp01.hartford.gov:8080/Ef3/General.jsp?form=SSTest2&page=Page1.
Kerri
Good to know! Thanks for following up on this.
Richard
Thanks Brendan. I knew that you or Luis would help to get the job done. That is why I called you. Sorry if I sounded testy.