Photo credit: City of Norwalk
By Luke Danko
Future plans for the city including paused Johnson & Johnson vaccines, updated roads and sidewalks, and new school renovations were topics at an April 23 meeting of The Common Council of Norwalk.
The meeting commenced with Mayor Harry Rilling reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Following a roll call and approval of previous meeting minutes, Rilling addressed a new appointee to the Historical Commission. The appointee, Jordan Hensley, was motioned for appointment by David Heuvelman of District A and unanimously approved.
In his mayor’s remarks, Rilling said that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Public Health in Connecticut (DPH) has halted the administration of Johnson & Johnson produced Coronavirus vaccines.
“Rather than continue administering the Johnson & Johnson in Norwalk, I have ordered that it be paused,” said Rilling.
According to the mayor, his order comes from CDC and DPH recommendations and is to stay in effect until it becomes safe again.
“We will continue to administer the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines…we’ll continue to have our vaccine clinics and continue to find different ways to bring the vaccine out into the community,” said Rilling.
In addition to vaccine clinics, Rilling said that the City of Norwalk will have access to a Federal Emergency Management van that is intended to be sent throughout the city.
Councilmember George Tsiranides of District D motioned to update roadway standards in Norwalk. According to Tsiranides, the current standards have been in place since 2017. Chief of Operations and Public Works, Anthony Carr, further explained the proposal.
“The revision before the mayor and the common council tonight generally stems from us working to accommodate what’s known as the Complete Streets Transportation System. What this means is that it’s a multi-modal network which basically means walking, biking, running, vehicular driving, etc.,” said Carr.
One of the revisions of the roadway standards is to require traffic engineering analysis for lanes less than 11 feet in width. Carr said that this proposed change is in accordance with the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. The proposed revision was approved unanimously.
Councilmember Tom Livingston of District E motioned to renovate Norwalk High School. With this motion, the subject of a potential South Norwalk elementary school was brought up by another councilmember, Thomas Keegan.
“I cannot support any appropriations for this project,” said Keegan regarding Livingston’s proposal.
Keegan said his decision is mostly for financial reasons and mentioned that a South Norwalk elementary school should be where their focus is at.
“We must remind ourselves that the elementary school in South Norwalk was closed in the seventies, so that was 40 plus years ago. I believe all our efforts to build new schools should include them. An elementary school in South Norwalk should be our priority,” said Keegan.
Rilling informed the council that both projects would be able to move forward.
“We are working very hard to make sure that we do end up with a South Norwalk school because having to transport children from one end of town to the other certainly compromises their educational experience…” said Rilling.
Livingston’s proposal for a new Norwalk High School was approved with one opposition. This council meeting was hosted on Zoom and was open to the public.
Further information about the council’s actions and future meeting information can be found on the City's website here.
Luke Danko is a writer for The Voice newspaper club and course COM 115 Student Newspaper Production. He reported this assignment for his journalism class.