By Ed Stannard, Community Engagement Editor
estannard@nhregister.com
Twitter: @edstannardnhr, @nhrvoices

Planning to lose 10 pounds next year? Forget it. Too many cookies.

Joining a gym? Will you really get up on those dark mornings?

Quitting smoking? You’ve tried that before, haven’t you?

How about this: For 2012, come up with a resolution that will make a difference in your community — and we’ll help you keep it.

The New Haven Register and SeeClickFix are teaming up for a project called Town Resolutions 2012. (Our sister papers, the Middletown Press and the Register Citizen of Torrington, are participating with their own campaigns.)

All we need you to do is submit ideas for issues and problems in Greater New Haven that you believe need attention. Then we’ll follow up for the rest of the year to see if we can make progress in improving.

“It’s a great opportunity — obviously everybody has new year’s resolutions for themselves,” said Emma Richards, director of media partnerships for SeeClickFix, which is based in New Haven. Town Resolutions 2012 will bring “the power of the media to bring attention to things that should be resolved in the new year.”

This is what SeeClickFix, a Journal Register Co., partner, does really well. Anyone can report an issue, ranging from a downed tree limb to drug-dealing. Others can join in, and SeeClickFix’s partners, which include cities and towns, monitor the reports and respond to them.
So far, several readers have submitted proposals, including one that SeeClickFix has been focusing on for a while: the Interstate 91 underpass over Humphrey Street, which separates the State Street and Jocelyn Square neighborhoods.

“SeeClickFix helped to rally a couple of neighborhood organizations in the area to plant trees … to break up that concrete jungle, as people were calling it,” Richards said.

But there’s more to be done, and if it’s chosen as one of the Register’s 2012 resolutions, we’ll keep on it, highlighting the problems and spotlighting the improvements as they are completed.
This can really be big, but we can’t do it without your help. Here’s what you do. On the form below, click on the Report tab to submit a resolution. Fill out the form, describe the problem — you can even upload a photo — and submit it. This is important: Be sure to put “resolution2012” in the description box.

To vote on a resolution, click on the Issues tab. Click on “Fix It!” or, to see more about it, click the blue link. Then click on “Comment / Change Issue Status” and then on “Vote!” You can also weigh in on the issue.

After the first week of January, we’ll see which issues have the most support and let you know. Then you can make sure WE keep our resolutions for the new year!

Town resolutions can be proposed for any town in Connecticut. The New Haven Register will track issues in New Haven and surrounding towns. The Middletown Press will track issues in the Middletown area. The Register Citizen will track issues in the Torrington area. And we want to encourage all community news outlets and bloggers from around the state to track other proposals and resolutions in their own towns. Our resolution for 2012 is to help make Connecticut a better place to live. SeeClickFix helps make that possible. So use it now, and all year long.

If you're having trouble using the submission form above, check out this easy 3-step tutorial.

If your submitted town resolution is not showing up on the issues map, try zooming out to be sure the area appears on the map. If that doesn't work, or if there is an issue previously reported on SeeClickFix that you'd like to add as a town resolution for 2012, email cmarch@journalregister.com with a link to the reported issue on the SeeClickFix website to have it added.