Norwalk held its first community forum of the year on March 31 with the option of attending in person at Paddison Elementary School or Zoom.
Participants attending in person were allowed to ask questions when they could and those attending via Zoom were suggested to voice their opinions when prompted.
The first presentation kicking off the meeting was in regards to public safety where Dennis Kato, the Interim director of public safety, discussed problems and solutions surrounding the issues.
Traffic Index has positively increased from 49.3 to 22.3, because a higher number would be better.
However, two fatalities where two were killed by a DUI and a red light runner, caused an increase in DUI collisions and the number of citations in 2022.
According to Kato, their solution to issues regarding DUI drivers is to deploy an increase in DUI saturation patrols, move a school officer into evenings to work DUI enforcement (beginning next month) and adding several DUI checkpoints.
Another suggested solution considered having Alcohol Beverage Control monitor bars in the city to ensure local facilities were following rules; cleaning alleyways and refraining from serving guests who were already under the influence, to name a few.
The next important presentation was hosted by Daniela Ojeda, the Government Affairs Manager at Athens Services, who talked about the SB 1383 Law that was put into effect on January 1st of this year.
“Now, all businesses and residents must recycle green waste food scraps,” Ojeda said, “the goal of this law is to reduce methane emissions.”
Instead of normally throwing food scraps and leftovers into black barrels, they are now to be thrown into the green barrel.
The city provides additional information to better explain the bill on their website, with infographics displaying what to put into which barrel.
Clear, plastic trash bags are allowed but other options, like dumping organic waste without a bag, using tin cans to dump out waste, using paper bags and freezing the scraps (if they smell) are suggested to be applied.
The second section of the new law is food recovery, or the donation of food, which has more to do with businesses.
Ojeda talked about how the bigger supermarkets would be required to donate food.
Questions and concerns from the community surrounded curbside dumping, the closure of the city’s Food 4 Less and Walmart, traffic (speeding cars and running stop signs) around the greenbelt area and long wait times for police (in response to crime).
In coming to conclusions to respond to citizen concerns, John Ramirez, the Director of Community Development, said that there has been a 500% increase in online food shopping within the past 8-10 years.
In terms of public safety, officials say that they will work on shorter wait times in the coming months for officers to respond to crime as well as implement traffic light footage to better regulate speeding, DUI tickets and more.
