A subcommittee of the Board of Aldermen is considering a local that would regulate roadside memorials.
A discussion on the law is scheduled to take place Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. during a meeting of the Community Relations Committee at City Hall.
UPDATE: Officials said Tuesday morning tonight’s meeting is canceled because several members of the committee cannot attend.
There were at least two long-time, yet informal, roadside memorials in the city.
One spot on Route 34 near the Seymour town line was dotted with stuffed animals. The site, however, has been clear for several weeks.
Another memorial on Derby Avenue outside the Catholic War Veterans building marks the spot where 31-year-old Claudia Woodford was hit by a car while crossing the road in September 2002.
Woodford had a 14-month-old boy in her arms at the time of the crash. She was credited by turning her body so the baby was shielded and her body took the brunt of the impact.
She was honored posthumously for her actions by the South Central Connecticut Chapter of the American Red Cross as a “Hero of New Haven County.”
The vehicle’s driver, Wade Murphy, left the scene. He later received a 30-month prison sentence for evading responsibility.
Ken Hughes, president of the Board of Aldermen, acknowledged roadside memorials are a touchy issue.
The board may explore placing a time limit on memorials — or perhaps creating guidelines to make them uniform.
“What’s happening is, if someone puts glass votive candles, over time the glass breaks. Now you have broken glass on the sidewalk of in the roads,” Hughes said.
Technically, memorials placed along state roads are illegal, as they are considered a “non-permissable use of state property,” as the New Haven Advocate reported last year.
“Our ‘policy’ on roadside memorials on state roads is simple: if we feel they present any kind danger to the public, we remove them immediately,” Department of Transportation spokesman Judd Everhart wrote in an e‑mail.
“If not, we try to be sensitive and leave them for a reasonable time, but eventually we remove them if the family (or whoever) doesn’t do so. Each is an individual judgment call,” he wrote.
Earlier this month the New York Times asked several roadside memorial “experts” to weigh in on the issue.
