Good evening everyone and welcome.

Uh thank you for joining in person and those viewing on HBA TV.

Um our public comment uh tonight it's uh November 10th, 10 2025.

The meeting it can be viewed at HPATV.org.

Uh HPA uh TV channel 96 some Comcast Channel 6032 on Comcast and Frontier.

Public comments should be uh conducted in accordance with the following um procedure.

Each person shall give his name, address, and if or she appears as a group, in addition, shall stay for the record the name and address of said group or organization.

Every speaker shall be limited uh to his or her remarks for three minutes.

All remarks shall be addressed to the council as a body and not uh any member thereof during the public comment.

No member of the council may address the council as a member of the public, any person making personal, impertinent or assigned us remarks, or who becomes boisterous shall address the council, shall be for forthwith barred from further audience at said meeting.

During the public comment, there shall be no debate by the council, although questions may be asked by council persons uh making such presentation.

I don't believe we have anyone who signed up online or joining us uh hybrid, I don't believe so we have less of company in person.

Uh the first person to speak is gonna be Mr.

Bill Katz, neighborhood complaints.

I can call them neighborhood complaints.

They're not really two.

I'm sorry.

Speak a little bit louder.

I can say it as loud as you need.

The mic is not working, give us a minute.

Okay, there we go.

Okay, so um the first issue that I wanted to bring to your attention, which I already have in uh individual letter form to each council person and mayor a few months back was the um what occurs when a car crashes into a pole, a utility pole.

Uh often it needs to be replaced.

Um the procedure is uh apparently, I have to say apparently because I'm not an insider, I've only interviewed uh personnel from the um ever source uh that were replacing uh a pole at one time.

So uh electricity has to be dealt with first.

So um Eversource comes out, they apparently hire uh a contractor to bring out a new pole that's put into the ground, and they have to immediately transfer electrical wires to the new pole.

That's the extent of their responsibility.

Or even worse, some pieces of you of uh utility poles that are broken at their base, and the the wood splints are sticking out, and they are very much a danger to children that are playing around there.

I was going to cut one of those uh pieces and bring it in as a gift to you guys just to uh you know uh dramatize it a bit.

But this these poles remain there year after year after year, and nothing is done about it.

What the re one of the reasons that I have discerned is that the cable companies, whether it's Frontier or maybe a previous uh uh cable provider that no longer exists but still has wires up, it's not uh Eversource does not have that responsibility to finish that job.

So it's a bifurcated system.

They do what they have to do, and they're out, they're done.

These things remain unfinished, untended, and it's a danger, and it's a sight to behold.

Now I took pictures of three places close to where I live in the southwest, and I sent, I don't know if you any of you uh council people received it, but I hard copied letters uh with photos of these three places, one being on the corner of Lindmore Street, Maple Avenue, another one on Hillside Avenue close to White Street, and another one on um uh Summit Street across from Trinity College.

Horrible.

It's horrible.

It's it's disgusting, and and I'm just I'm I'm I'm stumped as to why council and people that are in office don't take an avid role in figuring out and and mandating these things to be completed.

Uh all of these that I the three that I met at least the two that I mentioned have been in this condition, sorted sordid condition for several years.

It's nothing is done about it.

Uh it's really long overdue to try to straighten it out.

It might actually involve state, I don't know, because there are separate different entities involved in this.

The electric company has done their business, done their duty, and they're out of there.

They don't care about what what remains.

It's not their apparently their problem.

So I just hope that you guys pay some attention to this.

Um I would hate to think that we'll be writing a story one day about some child that got cut and and poisoned as from one of these uh old utility poles that are sticking out of the ground with with wood splints, and I don't think anybody wants that on their conscience.

So that I hope is is uh addressed.

The other issue is now I'm a resident of Harvard.

I was even born in this town.

I'm not I'm not that uh anyway.

We have had a 911 uh um situation with with fire department.

The fire department took this on somewhere in the 1990s, I don't know what what year they did.

And and that has that seems to have migrated to uh many different municipalities where uh fire apparatus goes out on 911 calls.

Uh West Harford does.

I I interviewed and came out, went over to West Harford.

They have two small vehicles that go out, they have uh medics that go out on call.

We don't have the medic level.

We just have you know, personnel with uh emergency equipment to revive anybody that needs it until an ambulance arrives on the scene and uh and they're taken to a hospital.

But for decades, we have been sending out hook and ladders, and uh from what I discern, hook and ladders, brand new hook and ladders cost anywhere from a half a million to two million dollars to replace.

They're good for about 15 years, but because these hook and ladders are out 24-7, they don't last perhaps more than 10 years.

So we're replacing all of these uh vehicles when from the beginning, there should have been a plan to purchase small compact vehicles, four-wheel drives, so they don't get stuck in in storms in the winter to go out on 9-11 calls.

It makes no sense.

We're wasting millions of dollars, and it and you know, nobody is is dealing with it.

I I know I went went over to the old uh Mike Peters uh firehouse and and interviewed a couple of uh firemen over there, and I they gave me the run low down on it.

Just last week I live on Lindmore Street.

My next door neighbor has uh I don't know if it was because of her son, but suddenly around six or seven o'clock, there were two hooking letters, another uh fire truck, they all came barreling down the street, they knocked on her door two minutes later, they all ran back to their cars, uh trucks and went off to somewhere else.

I guess they had the wrong address.

All of that waste of of equipment when one small vehicle could have gone down to that residence, ascertained what the problem was, and and resolved it and moved on.

Instead, there were three big trucks.

And when uh we'll address this, I don't know, but it's costing the city of Hartford money, it's costing me money because I pay uh taxes in this town, and it's a no-brainer, but it seems to be a brainer because it's not been fixed for several decades.

So thank you for your time.

If you have any questions, three.

Thank you, Mr.

Katz.

Yeah, okay.

Um Mr.

Cass, can I ask you again to send if you still have those pictures regarding the um the utility polls?

Yes, I I have actually a couple more uh sets uh and I I neglected to bring them with me.

I will do so and and send them to your office.

Yeah, if you can send it to us electronically, would appreciate it so we can follow up.

Thank you.

Apologize for not following up before.

That's okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Uh next up to speak is Miss uh Shirley Mims.

Good evening.

My name is Shirley Mims.

I live at 93 Sequence Street in Hartford.

I am a resident of Hartford.

I vote in Hartford.

I work for the recreation department.

I worked for the recreation department over 30 years.

During this time, I have uh supervised games, centers, coach basketball, uh monitor the recreation centers, uh worked in flag football too, and coached basketball.

Recently I feel like I was ambushed on the phone uh with a telephone call from the director of recreation, uh Brian Gallagher, supervisor Troy McCoy, and uh Christina, I think it's his clerk.

Um briefly, they talked to me briefly about a job, then they began to berate me and said that I wasn't fit for the job.

And I'm saying I worked over 30 years in recreation, how I'm not fit.

So um I think I was very surprised about this.

They should have not contacted me without my rep union representative, which they did not, and um is very unprofessional and against our contract.

I need to pay my bills.

I'm behind on my bills because I'm a homeowner, and I'm behind my bills and they're getting behind.

I need to be put back to work.

I've called, I've asked um a couple of times, and uh why is I'm not working, and my conversation for what I got from Troy after the fact that they ambushed me on the phone, and I thought it was really disrespectful to me.

Anyway uh he said that he couldn't.

So I said, Well, why you came?

And um he couldn't give me explanation.

He said, I just came.

So I'll like I said before, um I came back to work, a volunteer at work that day, and I saw people was working, and he said he didn't have the funds.

So it's one thing the next.

I just this need to be addressed.

I need to get back to work.

I'm falling so behind, it scares me right now.

I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep up my house anymore.

And I don't know why I didn't have a nothing was written to say uh nothing was written that I knew of that would uh give me something in writing, why not?

And that's my issue.

You know, hey, my like I said, my parent, my mother was passing away.

Uh she had chronical kidney disease, and I felt that I was the best person to take care of her because it was so much problem with people being on time and coming on time and taking care of her exactly.

So as that said, I've talked to the supervisor and the uh director that was there first, and they said that I could uh don't worry about it, but now I have to worry about it because I have no job.

Gotcha.

You know what I'm saying?

So I'm leaving this up to you.

I hope this can be worked out.

I don't know what, but I'm still falling behind, and I need to go back to work.

Thank you, Miss Sense.

And I think, oh well, I forgot about sexism, racism, and ageism.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

So thank you so very much.

Uh Michael Downs.

I'm Michael Downs, 74 Rosemont Street in Hartford.

I'm a co-worker of Shirley.

I um for the past two years I haven't been put to work by the recreation department.

Uh no reason, no indication.

The procedure is uh they call a meeting, especially for the summer workers.

They call a meeting, everybody comes to the meeting at uh one of the uh recreation centers, and uh they tell us about the jobs that are available and they sign us to a park or to a recreation center.

Uh and uh uh we pass out lunches or uh have games for kids, and uh uh and and uh we we uh move on from there and uh I've never once in the past two years been called to a meeting.

No one ever called me to a meeting, no one called me, no one wrote a letter to me, no one texted me, no one uh emailed me uh concerning this.

And uh uh uh you know I'm I'll admit I I'm 83 years old, but I can still work.

And uh Harper Public Schools seems no problem putting me to work teaching school.

So uh why can't uh I uh be working uh uh uh at least in the summer um uh uh monitoring kids uh recreation centers and um helping uh uh in in the pools, and uh they they saw no reason for that.

I think there's probably a little bit of ageism involved, and uh as uh uh Miss uh Mims has uh indicated probably sexism and racism in her condition, her uh her circumstance.

Um and uh the this is against uh working against our contract.

There's no reason they've written me no reason why I'm not working.

And uh I uh and of course Eddie talking to us now, they need they need to have a union representative.

That to have a union representative is illegal, and uh definitely against the contract, and the city's signed the contract.

So uh and and it's uh it's it's totally unprofessional to ambush somebody on the telephone like they did.

And uh so I I'm uh I I feel that there was there's uh there's a problem there in the recreation department, and it needs to be looked into, and I appreciate it.

And uh I appreciate uh Mr.

Katz coming up.

I always read his articles in the uh Hartford News, and I did mention to him that possibly the telephone company could own those polls because we always call them growing up telephone polls.

Yeah, and uh so I don't know, but maybe maybe not, maybe there are but they could be involved.

Um but uh it is a complex problem because you have all sorts of companies that are involved the electrical company, the the uh the cable companies and and the uh telephone companies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh next up to speak would be Alyssa Peterson.

Good evening, council members.

Uh Alyssa Peterson, Grandview Terrace.

Um, I'm here tonight on two zoning related items.

Uh two weeks ago, uh I submitted a letter on behalf of our NRZ chair Hyacinth to simply postpone an item so it could become before the full group for review.

The request was for a special permit for configuration for 75 seats in the first floor of a small bank building, and a new 160 seats on one half of the second floor of this small uh bank branch.

Now, granted, it was for a church.

We didn't have a problem for that with that, but we didn't understand how you could possibly have 235 people in this small bank branch building with a small parking lot and no parking in front on a very unusual angle on the corner of white and broad.

What was stunning was we simply asked for postponement on this special permit, and we simply said, could it come before the full NRZ?

I was stunned for the first time in a long time.

I was stunned at the comments of commission members, and I was stunned at the comments of Corp Counsel Rich Fasolo.

And essentially the NRZ input didn't matter, and this was a right, and it was going to go forward.

And it was up to the fire department to determine if 235 people were too many for this tiny, you know, building.

Truly, I I was stunned specifically because the comments about that the NRZ's input didn't matter.

And how many years have we done has the Marge NRZ participated so actively and in all the commissions and meetings and council, and you see Hyacinth here.

It was just stunning to me that all of a sudden there was this reversal or this non-acknowledgement that an NRZ input was not needed, and so they just passed the item rather than postpone.

The second item tonight is you've already got the letter, and I understand the item has been withdrawn or will be withdrawn, but this is about the changing citywide the requirements for homeless shelters and rooming houses.

And again, all it is is a request to postpone so that we can discuss, have all the NRZs discuss, have Hartford next discuss, and so that they all can put their input in.

They're all very nice, but we've got to focus on communication and communication between planning and NRZs.

And I really haven't seen it this bad before.

So specifically, what I'm bringing to your attention tonight is, and Council President, I'm focusing on you.

Um apparently several years ago, you and uh the former planning chair at Chambers had the idea that a special permit would require by ordinance change, a special permit would require the NRZ's input to be put into the record.

And it would also require the group requesting the special permit to go before the NRZ or at least have communication with the NRZ.

If the NRZ blew the person off or the group off, or if there was no communication or no meeting, fine.

Then the application went forward, you know, that's it, without commentary.

So I would like to bring this issue back around.

You had a good idea then.

Apparently, you know, the vaunted Charlie Matthews decided that you know we couldn't do this, but he's gone.

Okay.

Ms.

Chambers uh was amenable, it's my understanding.

So I am asking this council to take this issue up again to require NRZ input on a special permit.

And when there is also such a critical zone change, like the text changes for homeless shelters, uh rooming houses and uh group homes citywide, that we really must have.

It's another situation where you must have NRZ input.

In that letter I stated zoning changes were done under former chair Sarah Bronin just a few years ago, those changes were input, and then your own City of Hartford Affordable Housing Plan was approved three years ago by this council.

In that plan, it was quite it, you know, it was quite comprehensive as to what we can do with uh temporary housing, shelters, and the answer was not more shelters, the answer was aggressive support, aggressive services, emergency housing vouchers, plans for helping an applicant plan for housing, apply to housing, veteran services, financial counseling, mental health counseling.

So those ideas were good in that plan.

The proposed changes for the for the homeless shelter, rooming house, didn't have one word from that affordable housing plan about homeless shelters.

I I just think again, there's a chasm between planning and between the mayor's office.

And finally, I'd like to add these changes were being made politically.

It was to facilitate a project of the mayor's, and you don't do a citywide major overhaul of zoning just to accommodate one project of a mayor.

So I will leave it at that.

I am glad to hear the item's been pulled and that we're going to address it next year.

But specifically, counsel, if you could take up the issue of special permits and an ordinance change, special permits require uh an NRZ input, as do citywide changes require NRZ input.

I thank you for the amount of time that you've uh provided tonight.

Have a good evening.

Uh thank you.

Let me do say that um I remember when I became a council person seven years ago and being an NRZ uh member, I certainly required an axe and had several meetings that the uh planning and zoning, special permit, uh just basically overall all DDS to if there are any new business coming into the neighborhood in that um NRC to notify the NRZ group.

I also um and I will try to go back and see if I can find my notes and my emails on that issue, but I do support that the NRZ, which is an integral part of our city, which are very involved in the community and making their decision, you know, what is built or what businesses, you know, is coming to the community to say they can have a yes or a no.

Uh so I will again follow back up with DDS and you know ask them and or we can have um PDNH meeting again.

There you go.

Okay.

Council President, I couldn't I couldn't thank you enough for doing that.

No, it needs to since we have lost it.

Uh yes, um I did get your um MS Yenny's information regarding the zoning text change, and I did inquire on that um today also, and I was told that it will be it will be pulled over, it's gonna be pulled or something like that.

Um so uh and I was planning and um sending to the zoning commission my opinion on that issue.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for considering uh the this possible ordinance change.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Uh that's it.

anybody else would like to make any comment to the council?

Don't see anyone online either.

No.

Well, since we have no one else uh to address us, I am going to call this public comment to close.

Thank everybody for coming.