P.O. Box 381
Norwalk, CT 06852-0381
Board of Directors:
Peggy Girard
President
185R West Norwalk Road
203-855-8863
pgirard@westnorwalk.org
Linda Forcellina
Co-Vice President
6 Betmarlea Road
203-838-3444
jforcellina@westnorwalk.org
Gay MacLeod
Co-Vice President
6 Old Rock Lane
203-838-7194
gmacleod@westnorwalk.org
Galen Wells
Secretary
224 West Norwalk Road
866-9045
gwells@westnorwalk.org
Donna Dollé
Treasurer
28 Geneva Rd.
203-838-0125
ddolle@westnorwalk.org
Ron Brown
189 West Norwalk Road
rbrown@westnorwalk.org
Anthony Carrano
23 Huckleberry Drive South
acarrano@westnorwalk.org
Ken D'Arinzo
28 Morehouse Lane
203-838-8663
kdarinzo@westnorwalk.org
Regina Krummel
21 Little Fox Lane
rkrummel@westnorwalk.org
Martin O’Connell
12 Coachmans Court
moconnell@westnorwalk.org
Ron Paladino
14 Redcoat Road
rpaladino@westnorwalk.org
Candide Valadares
6 Styles Lane
cvaladares@westnorwalk.org
Please Support Our Sponsors
Rent the West Norwalk Meeting House for your event. For information contact Kate Johnson – 838-3871.
This is the perfect place to host your next party or event. Parking along West Norwalk Road has never posed a problem to neighbors or the city. Your rental will help support the preservation of this historic gem in West Norwalk. Donations needed and welcome: West Norwalk Meeting House Society c/o Thomas Aikenhead 82 Ledgebrook Drive, Norwalk, CT 06854 (Donations are Tax Deductible)
Autumn 2010 Newsletter
A Letter from the President
Our annual meeting this year is Sunday September 26th, 3-6pm at Dolce International Center, 32 Weed Avenue, West Norwalk. Come hear and meet our local candidates, city officials and speak with your neighbors. We are inviting our district Connecticut State House and Senate candidates as well as our U.S. Congressional candidates to meet the association members (all residents of West Norwalk are automatically members). In addition, the candidates will be given the opportunity to address the meeting for a period of two minutes each. Chief Denis McCarthy of the Norwalk Fire Department will also provide an update of the purchase of new hoses for our community and how it can lead to a re-rating of our fire insurance. Also at the meeting, Mayor Richard Moccia of Norwalk will be answering questions sent in by members and preselected by the board in a section we call "Ask The Mayor". If you have an issue or question you would like the Mayor to respond to please send the question to President@westnorwalk.org. The board will select the issues generating the most interest as questions that I will ask the Mayor at the meeting. There will not be any interaction with the Mayor by the audience during the Ask the Mayor section of the meeting. Residents are free to address the Mayor after the formal part of the meeting during food and cocktails or by follow up email to him. Enjoy light refreshments while we reflect on what our dues were able to contribute to the West Norwalk community in 2010. A few of these include:
WNA sponsored a baseball team in the Norwalk Cal Ripken League –T Ball for age 5. Our team is very sporty in a blue shirt/cap/ with our West Norwalk Association name written on the uniform. Feel free to go cheer our team to win!
WNA in line with supporting our local community elementary school Fox Run made a generous gift of a check to contribute to the purchase of Smart Screens for the classrooms. In addition, several of our board members have donated their time and service as mentors to help tutor and read to students.
We hope you noticed our two” Adopt a Spots” located at Hunter’s Lane and Fillow Street (opposite Fox Run School) filled with pretty summer flowers.
Our participation in Keep Norwalk Beautiful Day resulted in a super turnout of residents and incredible litter cleanup.
The West Norwalk Association in the spirit of being good neighbors and in these tough economic times would like to offer to help clean up yards (only West Norwalk residents). Selection will be based on financial or health needs. Please contact the WNA Board.
Our 2009 Holiday party had its largest turnout ever demonstrating continued neighborhood interest in our organization.
I hope to personally welcome each and every one of you to Dolce for our annual meeting.
All the best,
Joel Zaremby
President
THE FIVE MILE RIVER
By Bob Wagman
Pogo said it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” River flooding is the result of many factors, e.g., pollutants entering the water course, loss of permeable land due to over building, normal silting and dumping of foreign materials. It’s no secret that our efforts to obtain remedial action from the City for the serious flooding conditions from the Five Mile River we have experienced have been unsuccessful. However, we had hoped that we had created awareness among West Norwalkers that the river must be treated with respect and that includes no dumping of materials (including leaves/branches/grass clippings/ paint/garbage) of any kind. We’ve had a very recent event wherein a neighbor (not knowing this was a violation) tried to build up a riverbank by dumping soil into the river. The City’s Conservation Officer was advised of this event, the neighbor was cited for his illegal action and directed to correct the condition. If you have any questions about what actions are legal or not, we suggest that you go to the Norwalk web site at http://www.norwalkct.org/ and go to City Departments/ Conservation Office.
The news is not all bad. The Southwestern Regional Planning Association (SWRPA) has obtained some grant money and has hired a consultant to prepare a Watershed Management Plan for the Saugatuck, Mianus and Five Mile Rivers. The basis of the plan is to study the health of these watersheds and to recommend improvement scenarios. Some of the conditions that cause unhealthy water bodies may also contribute to flooding and hopefully, corrective action will benefit all of us. The target is to complete the plan in 18 months and any follow through on corrective actions will take longer. It’s a start.
KEEP NORWALK BEAUTIFUL CLEAN UP DAY-SPONSORED BY WEST NORWALK ASSOCIATION
The KNB (Keep Norwalk Beautiful) offers a simple mission. Improve your community by litter prevention, beautification, waste reduction and cleaning up litter. On April 24th, the day brought together neighbors, families, school children and politicians to select a street, use our free gloves/garbage bags/litter pickers and clean our streets/ grounds/woods. We collected over 60 bags of garbage and West Norwalk was litter free. A successful example of WNA “Do Good Actions”.
ANOTHER PLEA FOR MEMBERSHIP
-2010
Again, this is an ongoing plea for all of the residents of West Norwalk to pay their annual dues for 2010. As of this writing, fewer than 200 households have actually paid the 2010 dues. Considering that there are nearly 1400 households in the West Norwalk community, the percentage of actual paid members is disturbingly low. Please keep in mind that all of the dues collected go directly into the activities of the Association; the Directors serve without compensation and some even incur Association related expenses without seeking reimbursement. Our sole source of income is the dues. So, please, if you have not yet paid your 2010 dues, do so now by completing the application for membership, included in this newsletter, and mail it as indicated with your check.
Linda Forcellina, Treasurer
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
By Linda Forcellina
As residents of West Norwalk, Jim and I drive daily on Fillow Street, as I am sure many of you do. Have you, like us, ever wondered where the name Fillow originated? Moreover, we have lived on Betmarlea Road for many years –a name we always have to spell and one which hardly anyone understands or knows how to pronounce. Well, the person to ask for answers to these and many other questions about our community is Margaret Fillow Karl, our neighbor.
According to family genealogy, John Fillow, a Huguenot, was the first of his family to settle in this area in the 1700’s. By the time of Margaret’s grandfather, Frederick Gregory Fillow, the family owned property on the front side of Betmarlea; areas where the Congregational Church and rectory are now; houses next to the church on Richards Avenue; the two oldest homes on the other side of Richards Avenue; and some property on West Norwalk Road. Interestingly, Pearl Morehouse Fillow came from the family who owned a farm on West Norwalk Road and that is how Morehouse Lane got its name.
As for Betmarlea, the name was given to honor the girls in Margaret’s family: Betty (Bet); Margaret (mar); Natalie (le); Sarah Jane (a). Each of the children received an acre from their grandfather and three built homes on Betmarlea. Margaret still lives in the home she and her husband Maurice built with their own hands and moved into in 1953.
The other part of Betmarlea was owned by the Sprague family who had a dog boarding kennel in open fields. In fact, Margaret remembers her husband hunting for pheasants where we live now. Mr. Sprague sold the land to Jules Donahue who sold the topsoil and then the gravel, making the street level many feet lower than the original land. The Holy Ghost Fathers’ brook ran through this area all the way to St. John Cemetery and contained spring fed water so clean that it could be drunk. The three ponds on Betmarlea are still fed by these same springs although, needless to say, the water is no longer drinkable.
Margaret Karl has many other fascinating memories of West Norwalk, including traveling to Washington Elementary School on the one bus which held all of the school children who lived in our community. Perhaps, in future Newsletters we can include other stories to give us all more information about the history of this lovely area that we call home.
WNA AMBASSADOR PROGRAM
Your Board of Directors has been discussing means to make our organization more efficient and to communicate with the West Norwalk community in a more personal and less expensive way. Our decision is to ask for volunteers who will serve as neighborhood ambassadors. These people would communicate with families on a street or streets of their choice to encourage membership, attendance at functions of the West Norwalk organization, and activities such as the spring cleanup of our neighborhoods. Won’t you consider becoming an ambassador? You might meet neighbors whom you would otherwise never get to know. At the annual meeting at Dolce on September 26, our president will present some new directions for the association, this program being one of the most important. We will have sign up sheets at that time. Please consider what you can do to help.
West Norwalk Association Annual Meeting
The West Norwalk Association Annual Meeting is on Sunday September 26 from 3-6pm at Dolce located at 32 Weed Avenue, West Norwalk, CT. We are inviting our district Connecticut State House and Senate candidates as well as our U.S. Congressional candidates to meet the association members (all residents of West Norwalk are automatically members). In addition, the candidates will be given the opportunity to address the meeting for a period of two minutes each. Chief Denis McCarthy of the Norwalk Fire Department will also provide an update of the purchase of new hoses for our community and how it can lead to a re-rating of our fire insurance. Also at the meeting, Mayor Richard Moccia of Norwalk will be answering questions sent in by members and preselected by the board in a section we call "Ask The Mayor". If you have an issue or question you would like the Mayor to respond to please send the question to President@westnorwalk.org. The board will select the issues generating the most interest as questions that I will ask the Mayor at the meeting. There will not be any interaction with the Mayor by the audience during the Ask the Mayor section of the meeting. Residents are free to address the Mayor after the formal part of the meeting during food and cocktails or by follow up email to him.
Food and refreshments will be abundant. We hope you can attend.
All the best
Joel Zaremby, President, West Norwalk Association