Maturo Outlines Completed Beach Parking and Safety Improvements

EAST HAVEN, CT - During his state of the town address Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. outlined several town wide improvements that have occurred over the past year.

In his prepared remarks, Maturo outlined steps taken to improve “parking, safety, and congestion problems at the beach that residents had been complaining about for years.”

Maturo also discussed other beautification steps undertaken and advances to the town’s website over the past year.

Here is his remarks:

"Following my push, the Town Council and the Board of Police Commissioners formed a joint task force to walk the area, meet with residents, and draft modifications to the parking plan along our shore.

As a result, new “no parking” zones were enacted along the south side of Cosey Beach Avenue and in other places. At the same time, parking was expanded along a few spots on the north side of Cosey Beach Avenue.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Town Council adopted revised parking regulations that now include hefty fines for violators. Only a few weeks into last year’s summer season, the Police Department had written so many parking tickets that they temporarily ran out of ticket books. Violators finally got the message.

In addition to revising our parking regulations, we also took steps to beautify our shoreline last year by removing the old “Page” link fence and replacing it with a beautiful stone accent wall measuring 470 feet long.

In constructing the wall, Town officials surveyed residents living along the shore to get input on the wall’s color and height to ensure that it would accent their homes.

Additionally, just nine months ago, the Town opened a new police substation at East Farms Village on Messina Drive as part of an effort to improve its ties to the community. I am pleased to report that this new substation has helped increase public safety, promote efficiency, and allowed our officers to be more accessible to residents on a daily basis.

In addition, the Town was able to negotiate its lease for the substation space at no costs to the taxpayers. Perhaps best of all, our seniors feel safer living at Messina Drive.

Moving off the streets into the world of cyberspace, last year the Town spent months redesigning its website. The project, which involved migrating 500 individual web pages and over 1,500 PDF files to the new site, culminated in the Town's July launch of its new, streamlined, and ADA compliant Town website.

In addition to hosting information about each Town Department and important news about Town events, this new “citizen service portal” contains a “How do I?” section and also allows residents to sign up for “E-Alerts.”

Since the site was designed to be mobile-device friendly, residents can access the site on their phones and tablets as well.

In conjunction with the launch of the website, Town Council members were also provided with new Chromebooks and official Town e-mail addresses to facilitate better communication with residents. If you have not seen the new site or wish to contact your local Town Council representatives, I encourage you to visit “http://www.townofeasthavenct.org” to explore all that our new site has to offer."