The Board of Aldermen’s Community Relations Subcommittee will spend the next two weeks finalizing a proposal limiting the amount of time for which roadside memorials can stand.
The proposed local law will go to the full Board of Aldermen on Aug. 28, followed by a public hearing in September.
The subcommittee took up the proposal at the urging of Alderman Tony Szewczyk, who worried that roadside memorials — informal memorials to mark the spot where a of a loved one or friend died in a traffic-related accident — worried if the city would become liable if some of the more elaborate memorials were left on city property for too long.
Background information on the proposed local law is available here and here.
While the committee discussed several other limitations, including a ban on glass or the introduction of standardized permanent memorials, a time limit on the displays seemed to have the most support.
The proposal will include a preliminary time frame of 45 days for roadside memorials to remain in place. The 45-day limit was proposed by Alderman Ron Sill.
Board of Aldermen President Ken Hughes said the people he has talked to seem not to mind roadside memorials, with a time limit, but he didn’t think there would be too much debate at a public hearing, since many people don’t want to go on the record against roadside memorials.
“It’s a tough subject,” he said. “You don’t want to appear cold hearted.”
Szewczyk read a prepared statement at the meeting, said he was concerned about “the city’s liability should a future accident happen due to certain items used in some of the memorials,” he said. “Votive candle holders, for example, can break and cause a traffic accident due to glass shards in the street and sidewalk areas.”
“That ought to be self-explanatory. The city gets sued for everything,” Szewczyk said.
Hughes and the other members of the committee also talked about the potential danger such memorials pose. In tending to a roadside memorial for a loved one who has died, a person may distract other drivers, or narrow the road by pulling over in already dangerous places, for instance.
Szewczyk said he knows of only two such memorials in Derby, and that neither has caused any accidents, yet.
In his statement, he wrote that he has no problem with either memorial, and is neutral on the subject of roadside memorials as a whole.
In his research on the subject, Szewczyk said he has come across places that put in standardized, permanent memorials, be they white, wooden crosses or plots of gravel in the shape of a heart.
While the proposal includes just a time limitation for now, Szewczyk said all these potential changes – standardization, changing the time limit, banning certain materials, etc. – will be up for grabs at the public hearing on the subject later this month.
The local law will be reviewed by City Attorney Joseph Coppola before it is presented to the full Board of Aldermen.
