The first step is outlining some priorities and establishing a good line of communication. What would you like to see to make WH friendlier for pedestrians, cyclists, shoppers and residents?

I share your feelings about this, High Hopes. When you report an issue here on SCF, a long list of WH officials and agencies are listed as recipients of these postings, but you'd never know it based on the complete lack of response. One might conclude that they just don't care. Some of these problems can be traced to the police department, which takes a very dismissive view to anything that's not "cops and robbers", cuffing drug dealers, and that kind of stuff. Enforcement of blight ordinances has dropped considerably. In other cities, citations for violations of city ordinances are handled by other departments, or if it's still the PD, they don't use a full armed and outfitted officer in a patrol car. They can do this because they don't bother with this silly business of knocking on the door, talking it out with the resident, etc. Instead, you get a written warning that gives you 24 hrs to comply, and if you don't, then you get a ticket. When I flagged down a cop on Sunday morning to ask why all the illegally parked cars -- violating the parking ban -- were not being ticketed, I was told that it would take too much time to stand by each car and wait for a tow truck, and that since it's his call, he was deciding not to bother. When I asked why not just ticket them, i was told because that's now how they do it. Why not?? This is a case of letting the excellent be the enemy of the good, with the ancillary undesirable result that these jerks are that much more likely to ignore this, and probably other municipal ordinances, next time. Same is true for those who can't be bothered to shovel their sidewalks. A ticket with a hefty fine would get the message out loud and clear.
I like CaptainKickstand's idea of forming a group and organizing a committee.

The police aren't really in the position to enforce code violations and blight ordinances; what's needed is an agency similar to the Livable Cities Initiative in New Haven.

There's also no dedicated parking enforcement.

I agree: it's a waste of PD resources to use a patrol officer to enforce code violations and blight ordinance. Unfotunately, it's in theri union contract that they are the ONLY ones who can issue citations. So while on the one hand these are things that they'd just as soon not be bothered with, they also don't want anyone else doing what they consider to be their job. Hence, the institutionalized dysfunction.

Putting aside the broad mission of increasing responsiveness to citizens, what about starting with a single dept (say, Public Works), and a few specific issue types?

From http://www.cityofwesthaven.com/foundations/store/departments/departmentpage.asp:
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The staff’s direct and supervisory responsibilities include:
...
Maintaining/improving the city’s stormwater drainage system (60 miles of sewer lines and 1,500 catch basins) and streets (repair/paving and winter plowing/sanding) and sidewalks (curbing projects).
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So perhaps you might start with these three request types:
1) Sidewalk Repair
2) Storm Drain Issue
3) Pothole

The Dept *already* solicits these service requests from residents, but only via a dated contact form:
http://www.cityofwesthaven.com/foundations/store/departments/department_contact.asp

SeeClickFix should be pitched as an EFFICIENCY tool in their own self-interest, providing more accurate location information, and more complete meta data (including photos and video) than would a phone call or contact form submission. They don't have to adopt SeeClickFix it as a favor to residents, it will actually be a favor to themselves.

Perhaps we could turn on our structured Service Request categories, a service that city governments pay for, to illustrate the possibilities? Service

West Haven is pretty hopeless.