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Norwalk: A Pandering Politico Rides Again


by turfgrrl


May 5th, 2008 · 35 Comments

Crawling out from under the rock of political oblivion, Alex Knopp is lending his armchair expertise on traffic to gin up support for another mayoral run. Or something like that. How else to explain why he would take advantage of a tragic accident to tout one of his many failed policies that he foisted on unsuspecting taxpayers during his term as mayor.

Let’s just put things in perspective shall we. Alex Knopp decided it would be better to install speed bumps at $6k a bump, than pave a road or fix pot holes. Example numero uno: Quintard ave. Quintard, if you ae not familiar with the street, has a hill and a curve, and under Knopp, rather than fixing the ruts that challenged any driver with severe harm to their vehicles, he chose to install speed bumps. Thankfully, Quintard got repaved this year. Unfortunately the speed bumps remain.

Speed bumps, as studies show, do not deter reckless driving, they just shift that traffic to neighboring roads, creating new problems. It is a classic situation of unintended consequences.  It’s also somewhat ironic that as mayor, Knopp advocated carving up any city wide study into smaller parts, which unintendedly resulted in no citywide master plan for anything in his 4 years as mayor. Which is how Brien McMahon and Brookside school became the first schools to get “renovated” while Jefferson, the school with the most need didn’t get touched.

The burdens of wasteful spending initiated under Knopp still haunt the city. Infrastructure spending is just now working its way through the pipeline. That’s just the pace of government, and the four year absence of any focus on infrastructure has been a high price to pay. Funny how Knopp never mentions that.

Tags: Norwalk

35 Responses so far ↓ “Norwalk: A Pandering Politico Rides Again”


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  • 1 Anon4 // May 5, 2008 at 7:13 am

    OK, but he’s been gone now for 3 years and the roads aren’t any better.

  • 2 Anonymous // May 5, 2008 at 7:31 am

    Read somewhere he got a job at Yale for Social Justice. They can see firsthand what he is about. He’ll probably last about six months when they see the real Knopp that the voters threw out of office.

  • 3 Old timer // May 5, 2008 at 8:07 am

    Actually, he has had a job at Yale Law School teaching for quite a while. The announcement you just heard about is his selection as executive director of the center for public service and social justice at Yale and he doesn’t start there until July. He was “thrown out of office” by a very narrow margin of about 167 votes, probably the result of the firemen campaigning against him in the belief that Moccia would be much better for them. Ask any fireman what they think now.
    Do I detect a little political bias ?

  • 4 lesser of two evils? // May 5, 2008 at 8:47 am

    No need to go crazy over this and get mad at each other. Both of them have issues (Knopp and Moccia). Just as long as neither of them run again we’ll be ok.and someone needs to be accountable for the roads and the fact that children are in danger. Speed bumps are not the answer. They cost close to $9,000 each and are completely useless. They give kids a new toy to speed over. They get damaged easily by snowplows and they are an obstruction to fire and police vehicles. You probably don’t want to ask the firefighters what they think now.

  • 5 Ex-cop // May 5, 2008 at 9:10 am

    Speed bumps don’t cost anywhere near $9000, more like $1500. They are effective, in the right places, and they do not damage snow plows and fire trucks when they are done right. They are a nuisance, and the same money spent on smart law enforcement is more effective. One police car, with radar, moved around every day, is a great traffic calming device, but it needs to be out there every day. A few patrol cars devoted full time to patrol for MV violations would also be effective. Nothing is now devoted full time to pro-active patrol.(too many calls, not enough cops) Speed bumps are not a good substitute for law enforcement, they are cheaper. Better posted speed limits are needed, in many places.

  • 6 of course speed bumps slow traffic // May 5, 2008 at 9:43 am

    Sayng the speeed bumps don’t slow traffic on a street is the silliest thing I ever heard. How many of you don’t drive slower on a street with speed bumps? They may be annoying for the driver but are a blessing to the folks who live there. Grow up. You don’t have a god-given right to drive as fast as you want down my street. This may not be the best traffic calming feature and may not be right for all streets — but it’s perfectly justified in some cases. I’d like to see East Avenue narrowed to slow traffic on that route — and close exit 16. It’s a hazardous entrance and exit and puts too much traffic on a street that can’t handle it.

  • 7 Anonymous // May 5, 2008 at 10:28 am

    Ex Cop-and lesser from the minutes of
    PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES
    FEBRUARY 4, 2003

    Location: Norwalk City Hall

    Community Room

    7:00 PM

    Mr. Linnartz responded that the cost was $4,000 for each speed bump.

    Now that was back in 2003. I imagine that cost has risen dramatically by now. And they don’t calm traffic as some would have hoped. What is the lifespan on a speed bump? What is the cost to replace them? Why not pave the streets properly, put in the necessary signage and hire more police? Better spent money.

  • 8 Ex-cop // May 5, 2008 at 11:14 am

    There are speed bumps and there are speed bumps. They can be purchased, factory made, and installed very quickly, or they can be installed the way the city has done it, as an integral part of the pavement, (most durable). Installation takes several days, a number of men with a lot of equipment, and thousands of dollars. Factory-made units cost about $10/linear ft or $200 for a 2-lane road and can be epoxied to the road surface by two men in an hour or so.
    Linnartz includes the labor cost, as if all speed bumps must be installed by sub-contractors instead of salaried DPW staff.
    Of course speed bumps slow traffic. They also, in some case, divert traffic to other roads. When that happens the speeding isn’t stopped, it is relocated. A little thought is needed locating them in the first place. East Ave gets too much traffic for speed bumps and is very difficult for enforcement because there is no safe place to pull violators and police cars safely off the road. The City might consider automated units for speeding and red light violations with summons being mailed to car owner’s. That might require an ordinance.

  • 9 Lindsay // May 5, 2008 at 9:32 pm

    I live right off Quintard and drive on it every single day.. as annoying as they are, Im glad there are speed bumps there. People around here love to gun their engines and drive like idiots. And speaking of idiots, there is a family who lives on Quintard who seems to have no problem allowing their young children to play IN the road. Quintard is a very hilly street, the last thing we need is for someone to go airborne and fly into my neighbors front yard or worse, kill a dog walking pedestrian. I think spoeedbumps are just a necessary evil.

  • 10 Diane Cece - Pesky Unaffiliated // May 5, 2008 at 9:33 pm

    Acutally, we don’t even need more manned patrol cars to deter speeding. Just park an empty cruiser on randomly selected streets. You can put a dummy in the driver seat. Even if a speeding jerk passes the decoy car and realizes the “cop” is not following him or her, they are bound to slow down figuring they just lucked out!
    I’d love an empty car at Olmstead and East to deter idiots who block the intersection here. By the way, aren’t potholes really nature’s speed humps?

  • 11 barnstorm // May 5, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    #5,
    what good is a cop doing MV enforcement when most of the cops I see are driving and talking on their cell phones?

    Forget the empty car at East & Olmstead. There need to be a whole bunch of cars there, occupied and giving out major tickets for the idiots who clog up the area around the exit ramps to 95.

    TG, I see you feel the same way about Alex as I do for his predecessor (King Frank). Neither one did much good for the city, and Moccia hasn’t exactly been a dynamo in playing catch up. I wouldn’t sweat Alex making a comeback.

  • 12 Anonymous // May 5, 2008 at 11:09 pm

    #11 I’m from NY City originally and the best traffic calming feature of City streets is allowing on-street parking on both sides of one-way streets. Amazing what a narrow travel lane does visually to a passing motorist. Ever wonder why traffic on I95N bottle-necks on the narrow lanes before Exit 15 and then speeds up on the wider lanes past that exit, and then really speeds up in Westport around the Sherwood Island Connector and then slows down just after Southport?

  • 13 ex-cop // May 6, 2008 at 8:46 am

    Best traffic calming in the world, and the safest, is the belief you can’t get away with it. The City already has cameras in a lot of places. Setting up a system where a camera based device records speeding and results in tickets being sent to vehicle owners and publishing the numbers of tickets issued would very soon slow down traffic. If we had an ordinance making the violations and the collected fines strictly local, like parking tickets, this could generate some revenue. It does in New York City.

  • 14 USE THE TROOPS WHERE THEY ARE NEEDED // May 6, 2008 at 8:55 am

    Norwalk is going to Hell in a hand basket with felony crimes now a daily occurrence, yet last year we had a police car stationed at the beach whose sole claim to fame is that he hands out muffler violations to motorcycle riders. No DB sound meter, no engineering degree in automotive exhaust systems, he can just look at the exhaust system even if the bike is parked and give you a ticket. It is called guilty until proven innocent, or profiling certain vehicles. At the same time during car shows there are dozens of cars that have straight pipes coming right out of the manifolds, but none NOT ONE has ever been given a ticket for a loud exhaust system while it was parked. Let’s see if we can use this police car to catch someone who is a danger to life and limb to the taxpayers of this city and not parked at the beach looking for some one who is just taking a ride and not breaking the law with a moving violation or stabbing or shooting some innocent bystander. It’s time we re assessed our thoughts on the location of this waste of manpower. I think a good place for a cruiser would to be stationed in South Norwalk looking for drug dealers, shooters and suspicious activity. The beach would be safer if this car was there from midnight to eight AM. The chief should note that every car should be in a high crime area, before we are overrun with criminals who figure that the NPD has some of it’s manpower out of an area where there is a chance that it might actually find a serious crime. The men of the NPD should not be handicapped by having their force spread out over areas that have no danger of felony crime, at the same time endangering themselves and the taxpayer. This is the chiefs’ job and he should start to review his decisions on manpower allocation.

  • 15 Anonymous // May 6, 2008 at 9:52 am

    I smell Mr. G…

  • 16 Anonymous // May 6, 2008 at 10:38 am

    Doesn’t sound like Mr. G to me. No rambling and straight to the point. looks like mr.g is away from the puter. Kinda miss the daily rants.Where did ya go Mr. G?

  • 17 dawn // May 6, 2008 at 10:57 am

    Thank you #14. Put the police where they are needed. And i see no reason the jail should not be full every night. There are enough people out there doing the wrong thing, Any wrong thing, round em up.

  • 18 USE THE TROOPS WHERE THEY ARE NEEDED // May 6, 2008 at 11:39 am

    It is obvious that the jail is filled with a number of the wrong people if there is anyone in there at all. The people who should be in jail seem to be running around with impunity, shooting, beating, mugging, robbing, and stabbing anyone who they please. I feel that no one ever died from a loud vehicle but they sure as hell die from a gunshot or knife wound, let alone getting beaten to death with bare hands. I wonder if the folks from Detroit or Chicago had their choice of what they wanted to see enforced and eliminated, would it be hot air or hot lead. We need to get our priorities straight in the town from the top to the bottom. The taxpayer is at this point at the very bottom of the pile.

  • 19 Pandora // May 6, 2008 at 3:31 pm

    #9 - You are absolutely correct about people driving like idiots on and around Quintard Avenue. I know first hand as I live on that street. It would be a tragedy to have someone’s front yard plowed down or even worse to hit a dog walking pedestrian! In regard to the “idiots” who let their children play in the road - did it ever dawn on you that maybe you should say something either to the children themselves or in the event that their parents might be home to them directly?

    It must be on the other end of the street as I for one have not seen little ones on the road because knowing how everyone speeds I would never wait for an accident to happen and then be a Monday morning quarterback.

    #15 & #16 - Don’t you know Mr. Greenpeace got kicked off the blog? Yes he had his rants & raves and god knows spelling mistakes galore but his honesty hit too close too home. Turfgirl has her own agenda.

  • 20 turfgrrl // May 6, 2008 at 5:20 pm

    Pandora: No one has ever been kicked off the blog, as tempting as it may be. All I asked was that crime posts not be posted in every single thread, and that any plagiarism would be removed. Mr. Greenpeace comes and goes as he wants.

    As for Quintard, I know it well. The real traffic is on Burritt, and the speed bumps on Quintard were a total waste at the expense of paving the road. The kids play on the Quintard near Lowndes but mostly on Lowndes.

    Of course I have my own agenda, posted each day, it’s my blog.

  • 21 Ex-cop // May 6, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    #14 Let me guess, You ride a bike that you are very proud of and it has a modified exhaust that you believe makes it run better, look better, and sound better. Some officer, at the beach, gave you a ticket for that illegal exhaust system and you think his time would be better spent doing almost anything else. You are not alone, people have been modfying exhaust systems for a long, long time, for similar reasons, and getting tickets, from time to time. Usually after there have been numerous complaints about the vehicles making way too much noise in the same neighborhood every night. That cop was there with orders to take action on modified exhaust systems and did not have much choice. He may ride himself and may even fully understand your position, but the neighbors along the roads to the beach don’t, they complain to his bosses, and he does what he has been told. He probably agrees his time would be better spent elsewhere, but he is not allowed to tell you that.

  • 22 anonymous // May 6, 2008 at 8:26 pm

    #14- I know a lot of cops in Fairfield County and most agree with you. There is one cop in Norwalk that only does tickets and nothing else. All the other cops think it is a joke. He is probably the one giving out the tickets to bikers for exhaust. He is the only one of them who sees it as a problem and makes a lot of overtime because of it. Most of the cops I talk to that ride all have modified exhaust themselves. They are embarassed that this cop wastes taxpayer money on exhaust when there is so much other stuff going on that needs police attention.

  • 23 ITS NOT THE TICKET IT IS THE METHOD // May 6, 2008 at 8:37 pm

    This officer takes pleasure in his so called knowledge which is really non existent, and could be very embarrassing if questioned on his knowledge of Automotive Exhaust Dynamics.” He has come up with some “Creative Law Enforcement.” Using his train of thought here are a few other methods that compare with his. If a Corvette or any sports car has a speedometer that goes up to 160 mph then they must be given a ticket for speeding even if parked because racing on city streets is the only reason that anyone would purchase a car that would do 160 mph. The next time there is an auto show at the beach, I want to see him there giving tickets to all the show cars that are parked there with obviously open manifolds directly into Lakes Pipes on the side or rear. I have heard from a many people who have been given tickets by him that he has the nerve to say that “If you can afford a bike like that you can afford to pay this ticket.” This is a rude statement from a police officer and shows little if any class. That statement is quite interesting coming from an officer who was listed in the Hour as one of the employees of the city of Norwalk with an income over $150,000 and change last year. Not bad when in this economy millions of Americans are making 1/5 of his income, let alone all the overtime they can handle and benefits. No, I did not get a ticket, I do not even own a bike, but several of my friends got tickets from him for no reason other than he thought the bike looked loud. These people were not revving pipes and scaring babies to death, they were taking a ride down the beach which they pay taxes to keep up. I have watched 2 of these gentlemen pull in the clutch when they went by mothers with children so that there was no noise. If you are caught revving pipes or doing wheelies or doughnuts then a ticket is in order. Both of them won in court but it is time that the city of Norwalk finds out that collecting Norwalk’s share of that ticket can start to cost just about 20 times more than it gets especially if the officer gets subpoenaed several times on his days off. The prosecutor is starting to wonder what is going on. I wonder if this officer walks around the parking lot at NPD headquarters and gives tickets to the NPD officers who have the exhaust systems he believes in his mind are noisy. It has to be asked if he has the competence to operate a DB meter which is used in this city to measure any noise that is considered loud. I just find people who profile a certain type of person or vehicle and especially those that are least likely to fight back and complain to an attorney, or to check the state statutes of the DOT, and decide that these citizens are guilty until proven innocent of a violation, to be a black mark on the NPD.

  • 24 ITS NOT THE TICKET IT IS THE METHOD // May 7, 2008 at 8:27 am

    #22 You hit the nail right on the head. When his name and his methods are mentioned to other NPD members they roll their eyes. This to me says it all.

  • 25 ex-cop // May 7, 2008 at 8:32 am

    Hard to believe one cop is pursuing a personal crusade against modified(loud) exhaust systems. With the paperwork, that gets to be a lot of work. Most departments don’t encourage that kind of extreme enforcement and guys like that don’t last long on the job. I’m still inclined to believe he is following orders from his bosses who are reacting to complaints. It happens every year in that neighborhood and seldom lasts long. His bosses may have sent somebody they knew would produce numbers. Cops are human, and don’t all agree on what should be enforced enthusiastically

  • 26 Mike Lamazzo // May 7, 2008 at 8:38 am

    It’s this type of wasted manpower that could be patrolling South Norwalk that brings calls for the “Guardian Angels” to be brought to Norwalk. Once again it appears that the Mayor and the Chief have mis-read how the people in this city feel. Too damn buried in Hyper Development to give a damn what the taxpayer thinks. The NPD is basically a great bunch of officers; the problem is that they are being wasted on misdemeanors when felony crime is getting out of control. This re deployment has to start from the Mayor to the Chief and down to the rookie on the street. If the guys who run this town don’t wake up, the Mayor and the Chief will be embarrassed when the citizens demand the presence of the Guardian Angels, and they can’t say they were not warned. The mayor has the habit of saying “You should have come to me first.”

  • 27 anonymous // May 7, 2008 at 8:40 am

    Should be easy to find out. They must have a system to find out how many tickets were given for exhaust and the officers that gave those out.

  • 28 Anonymous Norwalker // May 8, 2008 at 11:14 am

    Has anyone ever mentioned the fact that these “scooters” are illegal on the roads. Parents need to take responsibility for their kids and keep them out of the road, especially on illegal vehicles.
    Don’t know exactly what happened in this case but maybe enforcement is also an issue. Or, maybe this is a street that needs sidewalks? Kids need to be aware of the dangers of playing in the street especially on low riding vehicles.

  • 29 Louis Layton // May 8, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    Mini scooters the 49cc type are illegal on Norwalk Streets. The problem now is the many young kids and a lot of adults who ride regular Mopeds, Scooters and Dirt Bikes on the streets of Norwalk in broad daylight right through the middle of Norwalk and South Norwalk. 90% of them I see have no license plate so that means that they are not registered with the MVD, they have no Insurance or motorcycle license, and most likely little if any experience. It just takes the NPD a peak at the tail end to know if they have plates and are registered, or a simple look at the person riding the thing to notice how young they are. So why do we still see them going through town with seeming immunity? They have no fear of being stopped by the police, or so it seems.

  • 30 anonymous // May 8, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    Mopeds don’t need plates

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