On April 3, Westport’s Parks & Recreation Commission adopted a regulation restricting access to non-school personnel and guests, on schools and adjacent property, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m.
The Board of Selectwomen approved the regulation on April 10.
The Westport Community Gardens, near Long Lots Elementary School, is among the sites impacted by the new rule.
Toni Simonetti — a 23-year town resident, and longtime Gardens member — has petitioned the Westport Representative Town Meeting to reject the regulation, or modify it to restore prior hours of operation for the Community Gardens. (Gardeners were previously restricted from 8-9 a.m. and 3-4 p.m. only, when school was in session.)
The RTM has not published the agenda for its May meeting yet. Simonetti’s petition has 24 signatures.
Simonetti hopes members will examine these points:
— The Westport Community Gardens are “non-school grounds, but rather public town land adjacent to a school but a great distance from the school building and outdoor play area.”
— The garden is fenced and locked. No other part of the property, encompassing the entire perimeter, has a security barrier. Bauer Place is “within a few feet of the school’s’ playground.”
— Only Garden members can unlock the gate. The combination is changed each season.
The Westport Community Gardens gate. (Photo/Peter J. Swift)
— “Members and registered guests, restricted to town residents and employees, are screened by the garden’s Steering Committee; names and addresses are submitted to the town of Westport for sex offender status. Those approved must carry a hand pass while in the garden when school is in session. The town
knows exactly who the gardeners are and where they live. This is a significant security measure that far exceeds any other public space in Westport — including the unrestrained and unrestricted access that Compo provides anyone from anywhere to approach the hundreds of children (and staff) at Camp Compo.”
— There have been no “untoward incidents” in the Gardens’ 20 years at the Hyde Lane location.
— Gardeners can actually serve as “a valuable early notification adjunct for school resource officers and local law enforcement.”
— “Resources are better spent securing the grounds at more exposed school sites such as Greens Farms, Saugatuck and Kings Highway Elementary Schools.”
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How do we sign Toni’s petition?
The petition has the requisite number of elector signatures needed for consideration of being placed on the RTM agenda.
The best thing to do now to support this initiative is to write to your RTM reps; the email for all 36 is
RTM-DL@ Westportct.gov.
Also, when the moderator adds it to a meeting, please show up! Watch for the RTM agendas.
Where can this petition be found? Would like to sign.
Agree the gardens should not be included in this ordinance
I never realized how incredibly secured these, um, “Community” gardens were. I sounds odd to require an advance background check by the town, never mind an appointment to unlock them, to be able to visit a garden on “public town land”. Mr. Simonetti’s petition makes it sound like the Westport Community Gardens are essentially inaccessible to, well, the Westport community due to the present threat it poses to our schoolchildren. Sounds more like an argument for moving the WCG to a less dangerous & more accessible spot in town.
…and Happy Earth Day!
Community Garden rules were petitioned to the RTM when the Gardens were created two decades ago, too.
The irony here is that the Administration wants to re-litigate everything that was already decided, presumably out of spite, because she has to reduce the size of the ballfield that she wanted. So, yeah, this is all part of an attempt to get the Gardeners to accept relocation as the best possible option in a “nibbled to death by ducks” kind of way. I don’t think that is the right way to treat people who have positively contributed to the community for many years. (And, of course, NONE of this has anything to do with the rebuilding of Long Lots School.)
I still find it odd that the Gardeners are treated like a threat when the Gardens are further from LLS than the sidewalk along Post Road is from Kings Highway School. Riverside Ave is probably closer to Saugatuck El, too. If Foti has these concerns about proximity to schools, what is his plans for those locations?
Not sure how long you have been in Town but when the original rules were passed for the Gardens twenty years ago, “safety” was a code word for “homophobia.” Anyone who tells you otherwise is being dishonest. It makes the safety cries ring all the more untrue, now.
This ordinance is silly. Outside of school hours, students and community members co-exist on school property fine with no security issues. If someone seems like a security threat, schools have officers who can assess that. A couple people tending to their tomatoes or walking their dogs around the track at Wakeman are not threats… And if those people are a threat, why are they not banned when any of our many youth sports leagues are using the fields?
Here is an update to the petition process. The new regulation cannot be put into effect while this process is ongoing.
The petition was accepted/Certified by the Town Clerk on April 15 and the RTM Moderator is in possession of it; various RTM Committees have been asked by the Moderator to review it and report out; the matter is expected to go before the full RTM at itsJune meeting.
Here is the relevant town charter section §C-4-6 language
that says until this process is completed, the regulation cannot be enforced:
Any regulation adopted pursuant to this section shall become effective 15 days after publication …. unless, within 7 days after such publication, 2 members of the Representative Town Meeting or 20 electors shall, under the provisions of § C5-6C of Chapter 5 of this Charter, place such regulation on the Representative Town Meeting agenda for review.
What’s more important Toni? A vine ripe tomato or the safety of hundreds of students?
The safety of children, above all. That is an obnoxious question, Jessica.
Dan Woog, meet “Jessica”
What an ignorant question “Jessica”
It will be fascinating when those who say “safety of the children first” begin to actually stop at the stop signs at either end of Hyde Lane.
Jessica – do you know what a false dichotomy is?
As we’ve learned before “shall” is the key word in that language. Town attorney has already interpreted “shall” to mean “at the moderator’s whim.”
The Gardens and Gardeners are being Bulldozed figuratively and literally. To paraphrase the dissident Chinese artist, Ai WeiWei: Everything is Politics.
To many parinoid New York City transplanted parents who are who feel their children are exposed to the same streetside risks in Westport that they were exposed to in NYC. Thank our lucky stars Westport is not and will never be like NYC! The Town has also added security resource officers at the elementary schools this last year. The Gardens and their devotees are a wonderful group of Westporters and this smacks of if we can’t get rid of them with public support they muster we’ll force them out with annoyances! Petty!
I don’t know…I hear it is too dangerous to walk from downtown to the Imperial Ave parking lot so maybe Westport has become the South Bronx. /s
First of all there is NO legal parking lot at imperial.
It is in a residence zone and permission has never been asked of P&Z to rezone it to be a parking lot.
But to your point it is a dark and dangerous long walk to get to the imperial dirt lot. Not yet a parking lot.
And every car jacker and robber would be lying in wait for would be walkers like they are sitting ducks.
In fact I am sure there are nasty individuals just waiting for the opportunity to beat up and rob shoppers, residents and staff.
As to any future plans to establish the imperial dirt town lot as a parking lot, that’s going to be an interesting conversation, because right now that dirt lot wears many hats.
Good hats. We all love the farmers market and the remarkable theatre.
The fair, not to mention parking for the levitt.
And then the plethora of suggestions that it get bathrooms and storage facilities and a covered solar powered open air roof !
This is to facilitate and I quote the DPIC website.
“The renowned farmers market will have a new permanent home, and other markets, swap meets, festivals, private parties, commercial launches, movement classes and movie screenings, will all have an iconic venue to host sheltered gatherings with adjacent parking.”
When exactly is anyone, you think, should walk from there going to find parking available ?
Because that’s a pretty deep and long list of uses for the dirt town lot, and none of it includes merchant/staff/visitor/resident parking unless of course they are attending that long list of activities.
SMH
The narrative provided in the article is full of false claims such as Westport Community Gardens are located adjacent to a school. Fact is that the gardens are located on the same property as the school, and they share the parking lot with the school. The police chief made it clear that the risk comes from not knowing who belongs where, and to make sure the security is the same as in other schools, the town would need to hire someone full time to keep a watch and check IDs, which would be a cost added to the town. Toni Simonetti might find satisfaction in delaying the process for her own personal gains, but this will be at the expense of others.
At this point I really wonder if these tactics are supported and shared by the 100+ Westport Community Gardens WCG members. Fact is the gardens are sharing a property with a school, and the school comes first. The gardens can be moved to a location that would allow it to grow, and not be in conflict with the needs of a public school. Did the WCG steering committee confer with their members on how they want to go forward? If not, now is the time, so we can stop this sort of vigilantism.
I see you have surfaced again to lie about the property, Joe. After vigorous debate, the total parcel was acquired, with the area needed for school parking as school use and the remaining property for future municipal use (not necessarily school use). The Assistant Town Attorney wrote as recently as last year that the Gardens are not on school property. You have stood corrected on other threads. So I don’t understand why you continue to resuscitate your inaccuracy. I guess you think mendacity is a value that the children of Westport should embrace.
There has never been a conflict between the Gardens and Long Lots parents. This was a false conflict by those who preferred a field that would benefit private sports leagues over the Gardeners. When that failed, every excuse (“staging area”) has been pursued to force the Gardeners out. Suddenly a non-existent “safety issue” is a concern – when that matter was considered and addressed by RTM twenty years ago and there has been nary an issue, since. The vigilantism has come from you and yours. I don’t speak for any of the Gardeners, but I doubt any of them are interested in your opinion as is to what is good for them, since it comes from a position of abject selfishness.
The safety of the teachers and chit come first. You. ever k ow when something as horrendous as a school shoot takes place. Let’s keep them safe
Joan – Are you as concerned about Kings Highway El and Saugatuck El, which are closer to public sidewalks than Long Lots is to the Community Gardens?
While I have a difficult time grasping the mind of a school shooter, you would seem to be expecting them to enter a locked Garden area and shoot across cars in a parking lot at the outside of the school? How does that make sense? The public sidewalk on Hyde Lane is way closer to the school than the Gardens. If that is not a “threat” there is no reason to consider the Gardeners (and, namely, the Gardeners) a threat.
There is not a comm gardens next to those schools. Let’s protect those teachers and children
Joan, let’s talk about risk triage.
At Greens Farm, you can watch children play on the jungle gym just feet away from the parking lot of Crate and Barrel. There is no security to speak of, just some tall shrubs.
At Saugatuck and Kings Highway, there are retail properties with people coming and going abutting school buildings and playgrounds much closer to where the children are all day long. There are several residences abutting the property, not to mention the major thoroughfares with well known crazy “Westport” drivers who fail to recognize double yellow lines or bright red stop signs.
At Long Lots, stand at the end of Bauer Place. In addition to just being a public street that ends at the playground, there is a residence or two abutting the playground, mere feet away not yards. Not even a chain link fence, just a wide opening for anyone to breach. Right. Next. To. The. Playground.
Sandy Hook shooter got his parent’s gun in his private home. The The Oxford, MI school shooter was given his gun by his parents at home, parents who are now serving jail time as a result.
I’ll take a community garden with known gardeners three blocks away all day long.
Anything we can do to stop a school shooting takes priority over tve gardens.
Let’s stop behaving like there is any security risk at long lots.
Because in that case why was nothing done about it before ! How has it been perfect for 20 years and without any single incident.
Because it didn’t and doesn’t exist.
This is vindictiveness and nothing more.
But it sounds like kings highway and saugatuck elementary might well have a serious security risk.
Hmmm what’s going to be done about that ?
Should a large wall with barbed wire on the top of it be erected to mitigate the security risk there.
Or do we block the road to traffic between the hours of 7-5 outside both those schools.
And then all school playgrounds within the range of a would be crazy sniper should also be dismantled, as well as ball fields, and the playground at the beach.
Accessible to every Tom, dick or Harry.
Sounds like a very big can of worms is being opened here.
Let us address one school at a time. Twenty years ago there were not these school shootings. We need to do everything possible to eliminate any type of risk. Listen to tbe chief of police. As ai have said before, tve teachers and children come first.
If there’s a security risk anywhere, it’s not a long lots.
But as it is the new stick to beat us with here’s a list of places where children go that pose far greater security threats to their safety.
I’m sure the chief of police will agree
Christ and holy trinity playground by church lane.
Playgrounds at the beach
The compo beach summer camp.
Kings highway and saugatuck elementary school. And every game played on our ball fields any day of the week.
Many of us are getting sick and tired of the double standards here. And the self serving implementation, or not, of same.
No thanks ! Not one school at a time ! That’s a bit like one parking lot at a time.
It causes confusion and a divide and conquer mentality.
Assess the risk level and fix it !
And the gardeners are posing no risk whatsoever.
So the rest of my list will be very interesting to run through.
And far higher security risks to children’s safety.
There is nothing as horrendous as a school shooting. we must be pro active and eliminate any chance we can of that. It only takes one person do do something. Let’s think of the teachers and children before ourselves and what we want.
Do you want us all to go back to living in a Covid bubble ?
Because we will hold the police chief to the same standards on every school playground and camp , and school property !
This rule will apply to all . That is a given !
That means no camp compo, no playgrounds. ! If that rule apply to the gardeners we will make sure it apply’s in all situations.
You might be wary of what your final outcome actually is.
If no gardeners. Then no camp compo !
No playgrounds.. no more school games without maximum security…
Here’s the equalization of the rule .
Not looking so perfect now .
But will there be defibrillators in case a kid has a heart attack ?
Oh only if you all fundraise for them.
Because this town can no longer pay for the safety equipment that should be a given !
Got to pay to vandalize our town green instead.
Teachers and children’s safety vs gardens – you loose
Joan, what do I “lose”please tell me since you seem to see this as a competition !
Only losers here are all the residents and children affected by the security rules which we will ensure are enforced fairly.
I’m sure to tooker and foti’s chagrin.
Here’s the thing Joan, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
So all rules and security measures MUST apply to ALL, no exceptions. Looking forward to the suggestions.
All schools, all places the children are ! Compo, playgrounds etc… they should meanwhile all be closed effective now.
After all it’s about keeping them ALL safe ! Not just the ones at long lots. Surely you care about ALL children ?
So let’s see how that works out for you.
The only losers sadly will be the children you so want to protect. They can all stay home.
No longer town of Westport but the police state of Westport !
Charming….
Good luck with that approach