Form a block watch, get stuff done.
That was the tone of the Ansonia Block Watch meeting last week at the Fountain Hose firehouse on Howard Avenue.
Formed last year with a motto “good neighbors make great alarms,” the partnership between police and west side residents triggered a police raid in August that netted marijuana, brass knuckles and two arrests.
The bust was in an apartment on Hall Street.
The two people arrested — Sheridan McCarthy and Daryl Venson — were scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Derby Oct. 14.
“I don’t want to say that it is a feather in our cap, but it is a type of thing to let everybody know that we are watching,” Ed Norman, the Block Watch founder, said Wednesday.
Narcotic use came up at last week’s meeting. A resident brought a small, empty, plastic baggie to the meeting.
Norman said drug bags are turning up in yards on the west side of town.
“If [the bags] are a chronic issue, report it to the police,” Norman said. “This is a type of thing where we can get it corrected. If you see an accumulation, or it is an ongoing thing, don’t be afraid to call. Get them out of our town, out of our neighborhoods.”
The city recently announced that Jim Tanner is the town’s new blight and zoning officer. Tanner was made a full-time employee during the month of August.
Norman praised the idea of hiring Tanner full time.
“Many of the issues and complaints that we have had were about blight and garbage,” Norman said. “If you take care of the little things, you clean up the trash, you enforce it with the absentee landlords and hopefully everything will follow suit.”
Tanner attended the meeting and told the residents that blight problems are not resolved overnight. State law dictates the property owner be given many chances to address the problem.
Click here to read more about the Valley’s fight against blight.
“When we get calls for blight, people think that tomorrow it will be done. It’s not. Especially with the real big ones,” Tanner said.
Tanner said he has addressed blighted on properties on Hodge Avenue, Howard Avenue, Jewett Street and Platt Street.
Norman asked everyone to report any suspicious activity to the police. If a citizen doesn’t feel comfortable contacting the police, he stated that he would be more than happy to take anonymous reports.
“I live in Ansonia and it is my home. They are not going to chase me out,” Norman said. “We have a police department, we have a blight officer, we have a Board of Alderman. We are going to push them to do their job. When I talk with them, they are all very cooperative.”
Norman can be reached on his cell at (203) 231‑0276. Tanner can be reached at (203) 736‑5990.
