Light: 'We're going to go after them'

NORWALK — Newton Terrace Apartments needs some TLC. That's the word from several city officials who discussed the issue at a recent city council meeting. Just a quick drive through showed three shopping carts in front of one building and several bags of garbage nowhere near a dumpster. Also some windows appeared to be broken out. City planning and zoning administrator Mitch Loughton told council he was taking some action in regard to Newton Terrace. "I reached out to the property management group for Newton Terrace last week," Loughton said. "I finally heard back from them this morning. We've had some windy days this past week or two so some trash was blowing around over there. So I reached out to them last week. They responded this morning and said they're going to send a crew up there to take care of all the blown-around trash." He also said they're making improvements. "So they did move the dumpsters — they're on a different end of the parking lot now — and they also mentioned to me that they're going to look at putting some kind of fencing around the dumpsters so hopefully stuff doesn't blow around like it has been, but they should be sending a crew this week they said though," Loughton said. Council member Deb Lucal asked about the parking lot, which has several very large potholes in it, especially at the entrance. "Have you heard any more about them trying to fix up the parking lot and potholes and the drain that doesn't drain," Lucal asked. "I don't know if we have the authority to enforce that kind of correction," Loughton said. "I can bring that up to them and just sort of see what they say but I don't know if we have the ability to enforce that." Council member Steve Schumm has said he'd like to see the entrance driveway and parking lot repaired. "When I drove my car down there, they weren't potholes, they were craters," Schumm said at an earlier city council meeting. "Can we do anything about the entrance down there?" Mayor Dave Light has said his administration would be working hard in 2023 to clean up blighted properties, including Newton Terrace and Key Estates mobile home park on Whittlesey Avenue. "We're going to go after them," Light said. "For a lot of these people, this is the only place they can go. We are going to try to come up with some ordinances to help out."