Thomas MacMillan Photos.
Zucker (left) and Alderman Goldfield.
More than two decades ago, Yale paid $1.1 million to keep cars off High Street for 20 years. On Thursday night, Alderman Carl Goldfield put the question to Yale’s Lauren Zucker: How much is the university willing to pay to keep High Street closed now?
Not a dime, Zucker responded.
In fact, she added, if you mess with our deal, Yale might think twice about paying the city for anything it doesn’t have to — or even what it has committed to contribute already.
Is she bluffing? If she is, are aldermen willing to call the bluff?
Those questions emerged Thursday evening around a table in City Hall’s Aldermanic Chamber as a new top Yale official faced off with the Board of Aldermen’s City Services and Environmental Policy (CSEP) Committee in a high-stakes poker game.
High Street.
The Flop
Each side is playing a hand that was dealt more than 20 years ago.
That’s when the city made an agreement with Yale allowing the university to shut off a downtown block of High Street and a portion of Wall Street to car traffic. The High Street block is now paved with flagstones and passes by Maya Lin’s iconic Women’s Table fountain and Sterling Library. The Wall Street section is theoretically closed to traffic and parking. A Thursday afternoon visit found the street lined with cars.
Wall Street.
In exchange for the 1990 street closings, Yale gave the city $1.1 million and agreed to a package of other concessions, including yearly voluntary payments for fire services, the addition of the Yale golf course to the Grand List, and an investment of $50 million over 10 years in economic development.
The 1990 agreement included a provision that the deal would be revisited in 20 years. That review has been taken up by the aldermanic CSEP committee, which is considering a proposal by the traffic and parking department that the streets remain closed indefinitely.
Thursday’s meeting ended without resolution and with a promise of at least two more meetings to discuss the proposal.
It has proved to be a contentious issue, bringing to the surface undercurrents of New Haven’s complicated relationship with Yale: mutual dependency and benefit, along with simmering tension, resentment, and ongoing political machinations.
With the city in dire financial straits, some aldermen see an opportunity to have Yale pony up for continued private use of New Haven streets. Zucker, the university’s new director of New Haven affairs, said that Yale has already given the city millions more than it was obligated to by the 1990 agreement.
Back then, as now, the city was facing a difficult economic situation. The deal with Yale offered a quick cash infusion for the administration of then-Mayor John Daniels. And the deal offered Yale an out; the university was under pressure, from a “Tax Yale” movement at the state legislature and from a move to create fire districts in New Haven, which would have forced the university to pay for fire service.
As aldermen took on the issue Thursday evening, that history came alive. Aldermen dredged up transcripts from 20-year-old committee meetings, and even heard testimony from some of the original actors — the lawmakers who hammered out the street-closing plan with Yale back in 1990. It became, at times, an exercise in exegesis — not to mention stone-faced poker— based on competing interpretations of the original agreement.
The Turn
One key question is if the 20-year review is limited to simply an examination of whether the traffic conditions created by the street closings are still satisfactory, or whether it is an opportunity to renegotiate the agreement entirely.
For West Rock Alderman Darnell Goldson, who has been working on the street closure issue for some time, it is the latter.
Zucker.
Zucker argued that it is the former. The committee’s task is to look only at whether the deal works from a traffic perspective, not to consider financial matters, she said when she sat before the committee on Thursday.
She went on to make two points.
First, the closing of the streets works. It’s not hindering vehicular traffic and it creates a safe and agreeable area for walking and biking, Zucker said.
Second, it’s “not in the economic interests of the city,” to try to renegotiate the deal. She expressed surprise that people are pushing for negotiation, when the city has gotten such a good deal from Yale. She rattled off a partial list of Yale’s contributions to the city, including: Yale pays $4.3 million in annual real estate taxes on non-educational property and an additional $7.8 million in voluntary taxes; Yale is the largest taxpayer in New Haven and no university gives as much to its hometown; the university has given $58 million since 1990, when the agreement called for only $40 million over that time period; Yale is a key funder of New Haven Promise.
Alderman Goldson.
But Yale also has a $16 billion endowment, countered Goldson. Earlier in the evening, he said he had calculated that the city would have made $5 million in parking meter revenue had the streets been open for the last 20 years.
He and Zucker tangled over his characterization of the agreement as a 20-year lease that is now open for renegotiation, and over whether Wall Street is even actually closed. He said he’d driven down it four times that day. Zucker said he shouldn’t have.
Parking meter revenue is not comparable to all the voluntary payments Yale has given the city over the years, above what was required by the agreement, Zucker said. The projected fire payment for this year was $2.7 million; Yale paid $7.8 million, Zucker said.
“This agreement is a package,” she said. “If the city decided they wanted to reopen the street, then Yale could theoretically decide not to make voluntary payments.”
In response to a question from Hill Alderwoman Jacqueline James-Evans, Zucker said “things are working well” between Yale and the city. “It would be a shame to challenge it.”
Beaver Hills Alderman Carl Goldfield asked: Do you think the city has the power to say it wants the streets back?
If that were the case, the city and Yale would have to come to a mutually acceptable agreement, Zucker said.
Could Yale ask the city to pay for the improvements the university has made to the streets in the last 20 years?
“I don’t see why not,” Zucker said.
Goldfield then came straight to the point. The 1990 deal was made when the city was “hurting for money,” he said. The city is hurting again. If it moved to reclaim the streets, “is Yale willing to pay a price to say, ‘No, we really want to keep this?’” he asked.
“We would not be willing to pay to keep the street closed,” Zucker said. “We can negotiate” on a mutually acceptable deal to open the streets, but it “would be a shame” to open up an agreement that has been so good for the city, she said.
Concluding her testimony, Zucker said of the 1990 agreement: “It was a one-time payment. It was not a lease. That’s the story.”
The River
Brokman.
Aldermen then heard public testimony, including an argument from Matthew Brokman, a representative of AFSCME Council 4, which covers many city workers. The 1990 deal resulted in a total package of over $60 million for the city from Yale, he said. In 2011 dollars, that’s equal to over $99 million, he said. “That the investment we’re looking for” now.
Elaine Braffman, former alderwoman and current city worker and labor leader, took the mic to urge aldermen not to allow Yale to limit the scope of their review of the deal. Braffman was on the board at the time of the 1990 deal. She said she voted against it.
“It was never ever the intention of the body of the Board of Aldermen to give these streets permanently to Yale,” she said. “I was there.”
“There’s revenue here to be had,” she said. “You could wipe out the entire deficit with this. … Yale wants these streets. Believe me, they want these streets.”
“I’m saying help us, help the other taxpayers. Now’s your chance,” she said.
“There’s a little bluff here,” Goldfield said. If, as Zucker said, Yale really isn’t willing to pay, the city could have to pay to take the streets back, to pay for Yale’s improvements, or pay to have High Street returned to its original condition, he said.
Braffman.
“Go ahead, let them call your bluff,” Braffman advised. “Don’t worry about what Ms. Zucker says. That’s her job. That’s just her job.”
Tony Dawson, another former alderman who voted on the 1990 deal (and a potential candidate for mayor this year), told current aldermen not to rush to a decision. The board has an opportunity to “hold Yale to the fire,” he said.
Goldson pointed out that Dawson had pushed for the deal 20 years ago.
“It was never my intent … to not be able to negotiate at a later date,” Dawson replied.
Several other members of the public urged aldermen to take their time and work for concessions from Yale.
“I think there’s a lot Yale does for the city,” Zucker said after the meeting. “It’s unfortunate people don’t recognize that.”