Family of British war ‘hero’ pays respects at gravesite

WEST HAVEN, June 9, 2023 — The fifth-generation grandson and sixth-generation granddaughter of a “heroic” British army officer who died in West Haven during the Revolutionary War visited the city of his final resting place to pay their respects Thursday afternoon.

George F. Campbell, 70, and his daughter, Miriam Campbell, 17, joined West Haven leaders to retrace the steps of their greatest of grandfathers, Adjutant William Campbell, who died hours after saving the village minister’s life during the British invasion of Colonial New Haven 244 years ago.

“William Campbell is one of the first true ‘American’ heroes and is revered by West Haven,” Mayor Nancy R. Rossi said. “To this day, the adjutant is the only known enemy combatant recognized by the very American town he invaded with both a monument and principal avenue named in his honor.”

Read the full story and see the photo gallery at Adjutant William Campbell.

Beach parking information

WEST HAVEN, June 9, 2023 — Nonresidents must pay to park in all shoreline lots in West Haven by using a “Pay for Parking” smartphone app.

Nonresidents can pay to park by scanning the QR code on the Premium Parking sign in each lot or texting the lot code to 504504. Both options will connect them to the Premium Parking website to complete the transaction. Nonresidents can also download the Premium Parking app on the Apple or Google app stores.

The daily parking fee for nonresidents is $5 per hour, or $30 per day, payable by credit card only. A nonresident seasonal parking pass for $250 is also available.

Parking is free for residents, provided their vehicles, including motorcycles and new, leased or military-exempt vehicles, are registered in West Haven and they are not delinquent on their motor vehicle taxes. A “new” vehicle means it was registered in West Haven after Oct. 1, 2022.

Taxpayers can check if they owe back taxes and make a payment at My Tax Bill.

The city is transitioning from using beach stickers to license plate numbers for proving that vehicles are registered in West Haven. Residents’ license plate numbers are registered in a tax office database. Each parking lot is equipped with a license plate scanner.

Beach parking lots are for use by both residents and nonresidents on a first-come, first-served basis. The lots are: Oyster River, South Street Upper, South Street Lower, Dawson Avenue, Sea Bluff, Bradley Point, Rock Street, Oak Street, Palace Street, Altschuler Boulevard and Sandy Point, as well as the April Street boat launch.

Parking violators will receive an invoice of at least $100 — a $100 citation, plus a fee for the amount of time they were parked — from Premium Parking, the New Orleans-based company contracted with helping West Haven develop a digitally driven paid parking program along the shoreline.

Make Music Day set for Old Grove Park on June 21

WEST HAVEN, June 9, 2023 — Make Music Day will return for a second year and celebrate the first day of summer with live music at the beach.The free event, presented by ArtsWestCT and the West Haven Early Childhood Council, is scheduled from 5-8:30 p.m. June 21 in Old Grove Park on Palace Street.Food trucks will be on-site, and community groups will have tables with educational information and helpful resources.Make Music West Haven is part of the international Make Music Day movement, which brings free communitywide musical celebrations to hundreds of cities worldwide on June 21, the summer solstice.West Haven attendees are encouraged to bring their musical instruments, or they can use one of a limited number made from repurposed materials and offered by ArtsWestCT for community use.Funding for ArtsWestCT's children's activities is provided by Dominate the Day Foundation. Support also comes from the SustainableCT Community Matching Fund. ArtsWestCT's financial sponsor is the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, which is anchoring Make Music Day for the area.To secure a community resource table, contact Elinor Slomba of ArtsWestCT at artswestct@gmail.com or 203-415-8865. Tables are free for organizing groups, but space is limited.Sign up for the ArtsWestCT Newsletter to receive updates.

West Haven Vietnam vets sought for new section of memorial ‘wall’

WEST HAVEN, June 9, 2023 — Current and former city residents who served in the Vietnam War are sought by the West Haven Vietnam Memorial Inc. Committee to have their names inscribed on a new section of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Bradley Point Park.

To qualify for name recognition on the memorial “wall,” Vietnam veterans must apply and meet the following requirements:

— Applicants must live or have lived in West Haven. Veterans living in West Haven must provide proof of residence, such as a utility bill.

— Applicants must have served in-country during the Vietnam War.

— Applicants must have been honorably discharged from military service. A DD214 form (Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty) is required.

— Applicants must share potential costs, if any.

The committee does not have a formal application. Veterans must mail all documents, which are due Oct. 1, to West Haven Vietnam Veterans, City Hall, lower level, 355 Main St., West Haven, CT 06516.

Those with questions can call Bill at 203-521-2356, Steve at 475-655-2993 or Paul at 203-500-2159.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial includes a black granite wall inscribed with the names of those from West Haven who served or gave their lives in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, along with three white flagpoles draped with the American, Connecticut and prisoner-of-war flags.

The memorial, dedicated Nov. 12, 2003, also includes a black granite map of the four battle districts of Vietnam bearing the inscription “All Gave Some, Some Gave All,” as well as five bronze insignia markers atop black granite posts representing each branch of the U.S. armed forces.

In this Sept. 3, 2022, file photo, red, white and blue rockets burst over Long Island Sound off Bradley Point in West Haven at the Savin Rock Fireworks Spectacular. (City Drone Photo/Andrew Kosarko, Courtesy of Jow Films LLC, File)

Savin Rock Fireworks set for July 3 off Bradley Point

WEST HAVEN, June 9, 2023 — Join the Savin Rock Fireworks Committee at 9:15 p.m. July 3 as fireworks blast off Bradley Point and explode over Long Island Sound, dazzling crowds along the city’s 3 miles of public beaches with a display of brilliant lighting and booming sound effects.

The Savin Rock Fireworks Spectacular, billed as “They Will Be Heard on the 3rd,” is the city’s largest one-day event, attracting tens of thousands of residents and visitors to the West Haven shoreline each year.

Get ready for an Independence Day party like no other, featuring horn-powered party hits performed by Rubber City in front of Savin Rock from 7-9 p.m.

During the afternoon and evening, a fleet of food and dessert trucks will dish up eats and sweets on Captain Thomas Boulevard, near Dyke Street.

The rain date is July 5.

West Haven GoHealth Medical Director Dr. Eric Walsh, holding oversize scissors, cuts the ribbon with West Haven Mayor Nancy R. Rossi, center left, to mark the grand opening of the city’s new Hartford HealthCare-GoHealth Urgent Care center at 1 Cellini Place in Allingtown on June 7. With them are, from left, West Haven GoHealth lead physician assistant Jacqueline Braunworth, GoHealth Regional Operations Manager Jessica Viveros-Perez, PACT-Hartford HealthCare CEO Dr. David Simon, GoHealth Vice President of Operations Erin Healer, West Haven City Clerk Patricia C. Horvath, GoHealth Director of Operations Andrea Williams, Acorn Group Chairman David A. Beckerman, Hartford HealthCare President and CEO Jeff Flaks, Hartford HealthCare Chief Strategy Officer Karen Goyette and Simon McDonald, the director of membership and marketing at the Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce. (City Photo/Michael P. Walsh)

GoHealth Urgent Care opens in Shops at Park View

WEST HAVEN, June 8, 2023 — Mayor Nancy R. Rossi cut an orange ribbon with Hartford HealthCare executives to celebrate the grand opening of West Haven’s new Hartford HealthCare-GoHealth Urgent Care center at 1 Cellini Place in Allingtown on June 7.

The GoHealth walk-in center offers year-round treatment for non-life-threatening illnesses and injuries, on-site X-ray services, and COVID-19 evaluation and testing, said Dr. Eric Walsh, the center’s medical director.

The center is off Route 1 in the brand-new Shops at Park View and occupies a portion of the 16,000 square feet of commercial space below 44 University of New Haven student apartments in the 85,000-square-foot Park View, a development by Chairman David A. Beckerman’s Acorn Group of New Haven.

Walsh, standing behind a lectern near the center’s entrance overlooking the Allingtown Green, said the center specializes in “world-class care” that is “done with a smile,” drawing smiles from the crowd of mostly medical professionals.

The West Haven center is located at “the busiest intersection in the state of Connecticut,” according to Walsh, and is Hartford HealthCare’s 25th of 27 GoHealth centers statewide.

Rossi delivered remarks welcoming Hartford HealthCare-GoHealth to West Haven.

“I am excited to be here standing in front of this beautiful facility,” said Rossi, who gave a special shoutout to Beckerman and Acorn Vice President Gary S. Letendre for choosing downtown Allingtown for the group’s budding development projects.

Beckerman called the Park View development “a labor of love,” adding, “We believe in West Haven, we believe in Allingtown!”

The late-morning ribbon-cutting also included remarks by Hartford HealthCare President and CEO Jeff Flaks, PACT-Hartford HealthCare CEO Dr. David Simon and GoHealth Vice President of Operations Erin Healer.

Also marking the half-hour event were City Council Chairman Peter V. Massaro, Councilwoman Colleen O’Connor, R-at large, and City Clerk Patricia C. Horvath.

They were joined by Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce President Michael Moses, Director of Membership and Marketing Simon McDonald and event coordinator Wendy Terenzio, along with chamber members Erin Eberhardt, the owner of West Shore Associates of West Haven, and Robert Creigh, the vice president of Patriot Bank of Milford.

Walsh said the GoHealth center aims to serve nearby residents and students.

The three-story Park View is two blocks from UNH’s main campus on Route 1, which is home to about 6,000 students.

Across the street, Acorn’s Park View is complemented by the developer’s four-story Atwood, an $18 million project consisting of 90,150 square feet of retail space below 67 UNH student apartments at Route 1 and Atwood Place.

The Atwood and Park View mixed-use developments, which opened in 2017 and 2020, respectively, are collectively known as University Commons at Allingtown Green.

The urgent care center operates next to a PACT-Hartford HealthCare Primary Care office and a Hartford HealthCare office in The Shops at Park View and across from The Side Plate restaurant in The Atwood. PACT, the Physicians Alliance of Connecticut, had relocated from 687 Campbell Ave.

The GoHealth center is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends.

Food scrap bags sold at retail sites

WEST HAVEN, Feb. 24, 2023 — Residents who need more green and orange food scrap bags can buy them at the following retail locations ($1.05 for five green bags and $1.55 for five orange bags):

• Krauszer’s Food Store, 10 Jones Hill Road (Babybrook Shopping Center, corner of Ocean Avenue)

• Krauszer’s Food Store, 911 Campbell Ave. (corner of Spring Street)

• Krauszer’s Food Store, 377 Campbell Ave. (corner of Brown Street)

• Krauszer’s Food Store, 191 Platt Ave. (near the WHHS entrance)

• Nazar Halal Meat & Market, 39 Elm St. (West River Plaza)

• Greatway Food Store, 502 Sawmill Road (across from Walmart)

• Best Gas & Food Mart, 161 Boston Post Road (near the Allington Green)

• Noble Gas Station, 941 Boston Post Road (corner of Farwell Street)

City touts launch of state’s largest food-to-clean-energy program

WEST HAVEN, Nov. 14, 2022 — West Haven is the first city in the state to offer a citywide curbside food scrap diversion option to all single-family residents, Mayor Nancy R. Rossi announced.

Rossi said the program allows all single-family homes — one, two and three families — to easily separate food scraps and have them collected at the curb in the same container now used for residents’ trash collection.

The city has received a $1.3 million Sustainable Materials Management grant from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to develop and launch a food-to-clean-energy program.

Grant Coordinator Doug Colter, who secured the funding for the city, said the state is facing a solid waste disposal crisis, as traditional options for disposing of municipal solid waste are diminishing or becoming more expensive. With fewer and rapidly aging disposal options in Connecticut, residents and municipal leaders can expect disposal costs to increase at the remaining waste incineration facilities “as well as out-of-state landfilling,” Colter said.

On Nov. 7, the West Haven Food to Clean Energy program launched a nine-month pilot project for curbside food scrap diversion. Participation in the program comes at no cost to the 16,000 eligible households.

Colter said the funding covers the purchase of special color-coded bags for trash and for food scrap separation for the nine-month pilot. It also covers the cost of educational materials — mailers, a website and a Connect mobile app — along with personnel to sort the bags and the shipment of food scraps to Quantum Biopower in Southington, where the food will be converted into clean electricity, he said.

More details at Food Scrap Recycling.

Informational Materials

The Downsizing Donation Guide: A Resource for Residents of New Haven County (PDF)

What’s In? What’s Out? A Guide to Recycling (PDF)