Taxpayers Ask For
No More Schools

Cut the fire department in half. Make the Fair Rent Commission part-time. ​“Name and shame” not-for-profits that aren’t contributing money to the city. Cap property tax increases at 25 percent. And, please, don’t build any more schools.

Those were some of the budget fixes New Haven neighbors offered to aldermen Tuesday night in City Hall, at their last opportunity to weigh in on the mayor’s proposed $486.8 million budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.

They emerged amid a whopping six-hour-plus meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee. It was the latest in a series of public budget meetings and hearings the committee has held in advance of its final deliberations on the budget. Those deliberations begin Thursday evening, at the first of two final scheduled committee meetings before the budget is sent to the full Board of Aldermen at the end of May.

Click here, here, here, here, and here for coverage of previous meetings.

On Tuesday night, the committee heard testimony from city officials on the following sections of the budget: Building Inspection and Enforcement, Economic Development, Financial Support to Organizations (Shubert Theater, Tweed-New Haven Airport, New Haven Tennis), Transportation, Traffic and Parking, Commission on Equal Opportunity, Livable City Initiative, Chapel Street Special Service District, Whalley Avenue Special Service District,Town Green Special Service District, and Grand Avenue Special Service District.

In the middle, the committee took testimony from the general public, including a strong contingent from East Rock. Armed with charts, spreadsheets, and memos, people offered aldermen a variety of advice on ways to trim the budget.

Aldermen didn’t act on any of the proposals. After the meeting, Chairwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks said she hasn’t heard of any budget-amendment proposals aldermen may be preparing, but said she’s sure that some are in the works.

Here’s a sampling of the budget fixes taxpayers offered Tuesday:

James Alexander was the first to voice dire warnings on what will become of the city if it follows its current budget trajectory. Employee benefits continue to act as the ​“Pac Man” of the budget, gobbling up more and more of the funding pie. If the city tries to simply cut its way out of this problem, without reining in benefits, it will become a ​“toilet bowl” situation in which services become so ​“hollowed out” that people who can will leave the city, he said.

The city should pass something like Massachusetts’ Proposition Two-and-a-half, which limits annual property tax increases to 2.5 percent of the total assessed value of all taxable property, Alexander said.

Ethel Berger, who lives on Autumn Street, was one of several people who urged the city not to take on more debt to build more schools in the coming year. The mayor has proposed borrowing $43 million to renovate New Haven Academy, build a new wing at Hillhouse High to house Hyde magnet school, and rebuild the Helene Grant School as centralized pre‑K hub. Not borrowing $43 million would save $1.9 million in debt service in the next year alone, Berger said.

East Rocker Rob Narracci reiterated a suggestion he put to the committee at a previous meeting: Put a cap on property tax increases so that no one’s taxes can jump more than 25 percent in a five-year period, twice the rate of inflation. That would ensure predictability for investors who want to buy and fix up houses in the city, he said. Otherwise, people are going to start fleeing the city, he warned.

A number of people said they are not optimistic that the state legislature will pass a piece of legislation requested by the mayor, designed to cushion the blow of an abrupt and dramatic tax hike due to property revaluations this year. The proposal calls for a five-year phase-in of property taxes for owner-occupied homes that are seeing a property tax increase.

“I guess I’m not an optimist. I don’t see movement at the state to pass this,” said Christine Bishop. Even without state permission, the city could implement a citywide tax phase-in on all properties that would have a tax increase, she said. That’s what the city has done before.

Doing that with the current budget would result in a mill rate of 40.78, more than the 40.56 that would result under the mayor’s partial phase-in plan, Bishop said. But if aldermen can reduce the budget by just $1.2 million, the city could bring the mill rate down to 40.56 anyway, she said.

David Cameron offered another idea borrowed from the Bay State: hit up the not-for-profits. He said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino created a task force that came up with a list of city not-for-profits with over $15 million each in tax-exempt property. The committee calculated what the organizations would be paying if the property were taxable and sent out contribution request letters accordingly.

“They have found, doing this publicly, that non-profit contributions have increased more than 60 percent,” Cameron said. ​“We should be aggressive in, to be blunt about it, going after the non-profits.”

Attorney Mike Stratton told the committee that the city has twice the national average number of firefighters per capita. That’s equal to millions in wages and pensions, he said.

Gary Doyens, a perennial presence at budget hearings, called out the Fair Rent Commission as an example of where the city might be able to find more efficiency. The city is paying about $1,400 per complaint investigated by the commission, according to Doyens’ calculations. That’s too much, he said. Maybe the commission’s one employee should go down to part-time, he said.

Doyens was the last member of the public to testify, and concluded with the most strident call to stop building new schools. ​“End school construction and just put a fork in it,” he said. ​“For godsakes do not break ground on new construction just because you’ve got some state money to spend.”

The committee will meet again on Thursday evening to begin budget deliberations.

The Independent reported live Tuesday night from City Hall. Read on for the blow-by-blow of the events as they unfolded.

Live Blog

6:01 p.m.: Chairwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks is calling the meeting to order. Present at the conference table with her are Aldermen Al Paolillo, Jorge Perez, Jessica Holmes, Evette Hamilton, Migdalia Castro, and Justin Elicker.

6:03: Grand Avenue Special Services District (SSD) is first. Frank Alvarado and Bill Placke sit to testify. Alvarado says: We’ve been able to do great things on Grand Avenue. Our projected revenue is $49,760. Expenses, same. The bulk of that is cleaning services. We have two folks working through the Marrakech contract out there every day cleaning Grand Avenue. … We’ll be doing three plantings this year. … We went through an audit that found no problems.

Placke: Our bank [START Bank] is a member of the SSD. … [He’s speaking too quietly to be heard.]

6:08: Next is building inspection and enforcement. Department head Andy Rizzo sits and says: Our budget has increased by 0.15 percent. Overtime and personnel have gone down. The increase is due to the new permit system. It’s the cost of the vendor and the software that we need. We’ve started using tablets out in the field. It’s a $5,000 increase in cost. it should turn into at least a tenfold return. Our revenues are down this year. Yale is not beginning any big projects. … Yale has completed renovation of all its dorms. That was a big revenue source for us. … Next year, we’ll have the new highway project [Downtown Crossing]. Yale has some other things on the back burner — a new biology building and few other things.

6:14: Economic Development is next. A posse approaches: Mike Piscitelli, Kelly Murphy, Tony Bialecki, John Ward, Clay Williams. Kim Futrell, Helen Rosenberg, Lil Snyder, and Chris Cana.

Murphy, the director, says: Our mission is to preserve and create jobs, grow the tax base, connect people to jobs, and create strong neighborhoods. New Haven continues to grow, despite the recession: Grand list growth, low vacancy rate. But the unemployment rates is still higher than the national average. … We’re working on the job pipeline, to create ​“tomorrow’s workers.”

Murphy guides aldermen through a booklet.

Murphy: The budget includes $1.3 million from the general fund, $800,000 special funds, and $6.4 million from the capital fund, half of which is for the West Rock development. How it’s spent: 21 percent is for program delivery, 5 percent is for small contractor development, 17 percent is for things like facade and neighborhood improvements, 13 percent is for arts and culture and tourism, and $1.7 million, the largest piece, is for development initiatives. …

6:26: Aldermen ask about a new position to be filled. Perez asks, as he has done at previous hearings, for more details on just what the new position will do and achieve.

Murphy: We really have a diverse plan in terms of growing economic development in the city. It goes beyond eds and meds. … Last year we launched a Mill River study. We estimate that there’s at least 3,000 jobs there, including manufacturing. Within the Mill River area there are more products than you can find in the average Home Depot. … River Street municipal development plan was started in 2002. We’re really working on implementing that. …

Murphy asks for an example of the kind of work that Rosenberg does. Rosenberg: Many manufacturers seem to be doing well. In particular, New Haven Awning has expanded. They’re up to 14 new employees. They got a small grant from the city to renovate a building.

Murphy introduces Snyder, who helps with local small and minority contractor development. Snyder passes out a picture with the caption, ​“Never underestimate the little guy.” She says: 41 percent of $6.5 million in building contracts went to to our small contractors. $2.5 million went to New Haven contractors. That’s due in part to us helping them with things like how to do a change order. … Small business is what creates work.

Murphy: Cash flow has been a challenge for small contractors, limiting the size of jobs they can bid on. We’ve started a program with the New Haven loan fund.

Snyder: We have three participants in this program already.

6:39: Hamilton asks about advertising so that more small businesses know about the help available. It has to be more than just email, she says.

Aldermen Ernie Santiago, Jeanette Morrison, Brenda Jones-Barnes, Alfreda Edwards, and Delphine Clyburn have arrived.

Murphy: Neighborhood commercial districts. …

Williams: We’re working in Cedar Hill, which is often overlooked. We’ve organized businesses there to work on streetscapes. … That’s just one area we work in.

Murphy: The facade improvement program. …

Williams: In 2011, we supported 18 facade projects with $675,000 in grants. …

6:47: Williams: A lot of folks come to us with credit issues. … I work with two non-bank lenders. …

Bialecki: There are still vacancies downtown. … Town Green is working on this. … Gateway is coming downtown. There will be 11,000 new people downtown. … The opportunity for new and existing businesses is really strong.

6:54: Murphy: Arts, culture, and tourism. …

Futrell: We’ve been providing small grants for arts and arts education for years. It’s great seed money. …

Murphy: We had these vacant lots on Winchester Avenue. We thought, what can we do activate this space? We kicked off with a barbecue.

Futrell: We’ve expanded to monthly coffee house events. We’ve done some after-school programming.

Murphy: We’d like to expand that to another neighborhood. … We’re hoping to develop self-guided walking tours of public art in the city.

Futrell: And architecture.

Murphy: Project Storefronts—We’re at our fourth location. Two we left because they were rented, which is the goal. The Grove started as a project. A tailor now on Orange Street, too.

7:01: Hausladen: Grand list growth?

Murphy: 360 State was a parking lot for 43 years. Now it’s a huge tower. … 2 Howe Street. … Higher One …

Castro: How many residents got hired at 360 State?

Murphy: There are about 150 new jobs in the building and the supermarket. 60 to 70 of the supermarket employees are from New Haven. … We have selected a developer for the former Coliseum site. This year they will be out with initial concepts and community meetings. … 10 Wall St. is a site the city owns. We need to do remediation there. We’ll start that work this year and put it our for an RFP in 2013. That’s all grant funded. … At Winchester, we’ll move on to the second phase: residential. There’s more remediation and repair that’s needed there. … We’ll continue to work with the housing authority.

7:08: Hausladen: Total dollar value of Grand List growth?

Murphy: Over $2 billion in assessment over several years.

Hausladen: We haven’t hired a replacement for Barbara Lamb [arts and culture]. How’s that going?

Murphy: The position is vital. … It’s important that we get the right candidate.

Hausladen and Murphy talk about ​“convertible equity notes” among other things that might help the city develop and keep companies in New Haven.

Hausladen: We have people who are creating walking tours already on Build Walla [?] and Placemaker [?].

7:14: Castro and Murphy discuss zoning changes.

7:16: Jackson-Brooks asks if there is any public testimony. James Alexander sits and says: My comments relate to longer term budget trends. If you look at the last 20 years, the city spending has been increasing at about 2 percent over the rate of inflation. The grand list has been going up also, but not outpacing spending inflation. Over time, that’s very significant. … If we start out with the highest property taxes, and we sustain 1.5 to 2 percent excess city spending over the increase in the grand list … it could lead to bankruptcy. … Federal money that goes to states and cities is viewed as discretionary spending. I believe that $650 billion will be cut. So-called rich states like Connecticut will suffer. … [That will hasten the city’s demise.] … Benefits are expected to go up 8 to 9 percent over the next 20 years and represent over 20 percent of the city budget. It’s the Pac-Man of the budget. … What people tend to do is cut back. ​“You may not be able to cut your way to prosperity.” You need to restrict the growth of benefits. … ​“You end up with a long-term recipe for disaster. … I’m concerned about the whole city going down the tubes, unless something dramatic happens.”

Perez: What do you recommend?

Alexander: You need a multi-pronged approach. It requires three things. Encouragement of private enterprise. … I used to live in Texas, where you can do anything you want. That can be bad. On the other hand, if there are too many impediments, people will go elsewhere. Number two: See if we can have PILOT funded like we did in the 80s, on the grounds that the entire state will get a black eye when a major city ​“descends into a barbarous state as city services decline.” … The third thing: I’d suggest something like a Massachusetts Proposition 2 and a half. Instead of taking it right to the edge of the highest tax rate… 3 percent is right at the trembling edge. Massachusetts put it at 2.5 percent. … We have to recognize the realities that people have options. Unless we’re competitive with nearby states, ​“we’re going to have a gradual inexorable decline.”

Elicker: I haven’t heard you talk a lot before about the benefits situation…

Alexander: I sort of shied away from it. You’re being asked to raise your head above the foxhole. … Future service for an existing employee should be on the table. … Let’s look at these long term trends in terms of the wealth of the city. … [Explains the type of analysis needed.] … You need to look at long periods of time, not just two or three years. .. If people don’t confront this, gradually the services will hollow out and the people who can leave the city will leave the city, and ​“it really will become a toilet bowl.

Castro asks about the debt service.

Alexander: At least with debt service, it’s within our control. That’s not the case with pension and medical benefits. Debt is less of a concern, per se, because ​“it’s there and it’s clear.” … Yes we have a lot of debt, but if that were the case and everything else were stable, that would be better. It’s the uncertainty about what the costs are going to be.

7:40: Jean Musto sits and reads a statement. She says her taxes are twice and four times as high as her sons who live in Boston and Pennsylvania. Now her taxes will go up again. She says: My children did just fine in the old school buildings. They didn’t need a host of highly paid supervisors. It’s time to stop the madness and put some sanity into the budget.

7:41: Ethel Berger of Autumn Street sits and says: I’ve lived in New Haven for 35 years. I’m an illustrator of educational books and I’m a reading tutor. I’m passionate about education. … I wish for youth programs. … I don’t want to hear from my students, ​“My cousin was killed last week.” … I also want lower taxes. … In my neighborhood, East Rock, some people will have to sell their houses. … I hope you will find some way to cut the budget so that the mill rate will be lower. … The budget is harder to read than my health insurance forms. … We spend $66 million in debt service. Don’t take on $43 million more in debt. The schools are beautiful, but we need to put them on hold. If we don’t we’ll save $1.9 million in interest next year. Part of that could lower mill rate. The other could go to youth programs. … Also, contract negotiations. … I ask you again not to approve the building of three new schools. … [Editor’s note — one of the three proposed school construction projects is a rehab; the others involve new construction.]

7:46: June Sachs [?] sits and speaks: I was born and raised in New Haven. I chose to remain here and raise my family here. I opened a business in downtown New Haven. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay in the city I love. … The taxes on my home may increase to over $46,000 a year, a $19,000 increase. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to sell it, if I wanted to. … I’ve read the budget cover to cover. Why do we need to borrow more for new schools? Why are we paying so much in overtime? How can we negotiate the contracts to reflect current realities? Many city union employees do not live in New Haven. There is a reason why over 70 percent of teachers and cops don’t live in New Haven. … We cannot change the debt service for this year, but by not borrowing more we can change it going forward. … At this time the city and its citizens cannot afford the budget. ​“It is morally irresponsible.” … ​“Don’t chase us away by making this city an unaffordable place to live.”

7:51: East Rocker Rob Narracci: I want to re-iterate what I said at a previous budget hearing. There’s an immediate problem: A crisis of confidence. I’ve been here 20 years. … People in my neighborhood, teachers and firemen, are seeing 40 percent increases in taxes. … These are people who have fixed up their houses. This is not going to encourage renewal in any neighborhood. … The phase-in would be a temporary fix. What we need to do is create a cap. Not a cap on total budget in crease, a circuit breaker that limits what anyone’s taxes can raise in any one year: 25 percent. … It’s reasonable to say that people won’t see a spike greater than twice the rate of inflation. … It will restore confidence that good behavior won’t be punished. … It’s going to mean ​“burden shift.” … What we’re seeing is statistical victims here. … People are going to have to sell out and get out. … No one will want to buy. It’s going to suppress the grand list. The burden will shift to another neighborhood. … Lobby your legislator for a cap in the next session. It’s not like Prop 13 or Prop 2.5. It gives investors a little bit of predictability.

Castro asks about renters.

Narracci: I don’t know what the answer to that is. If you don’t have this phase in, you’re going to see panic and sales and long term effects on the grand list. … I have a rental, I’ve been inching up the rent, but it’s nowhere near the rate of inflation or tax increase.

8:00: Christine Bishop: In the last city election, people wanted change. That’s why we see so many new faces. Don’t rubber-stamp the budget. That’s not change. … If one thing’s going up, we need to cut back somewhere else. … In the budget, the top five areas account for $10.4 of the $11 million increase for next year. We need to look at those areas. They account for 77 percent of budget and are growing faster than any other part. … We need to trim them now or they will continue to grow. … One area is the debt service. I can’t say enough about not approving the boding for the $42 million of new debt for schools. That saves $1.9 million next year. … The other thing I want to talk about is taxes. … I guess I’m not an optimist. I don’t see movement at the state to pass this. The city has the power to do some things without the state. It can fully implement new taxes. It can do a full phase-in. That would mean any decrease is a full decrease. The phase-in only applies to increases. That’s what we’ve been doing over the last five years. … All of the downs would go down immediately. The ups would phase in. Mayor’s proposal would mean mill rate of 40.56 rather than 40.78. But you can do a full phase in and keep mill rate at 40.56. All you have to do is reduce the budget by $1.2 million, that’s a quarter of a percent. That’s $250,000 in each of the top five areas. Education? Police? We can find cuts there. … In summary, I’m asking you to do three things: Not approve $42 million in new debt. Assuming the state doesn’t pass anything, change the budget so that we pass our own phase-in. Cut the budget by $1.2 million so that we can keep the mill rate as advertised at 40.56. …

Perez: Commercial properties across the board have gone up in value. If we phase-in, there will be a large benefit to the commercial side?

Bishop: I can send you my spreadsheet. I started with the old and new assessment values. I didn’t separate by residential and commercial. I took what the mayor said in his presentation. … [Explains her numbers.]

8:15: William Caplan of Autumn Street says: I think we need to change the direction our budget is taking us in. I’ve tried to find a comparable city raising taxes in the way New Haven is. I haven’t found such a city. … I know one taxpayer who will pay $36,000 in taxes. Others will pay $20,000 per year. One neighbor will pay nearly $250,000 over five years. … Others’ taxes are going down. … It’s like the city decided it needs a blood transfusion and has decided to take the blood out of its own arm. … It’s not the time to build new schools. Some of the schools have fewer students than they could handle. Hillhouse has 300 open slots. … Meanwhile the city has 34 murders last year. Suppose the city decided that instead of increasing bonding costs, we decide not to bond and instead take that money, $1.9 million, cut it in half. Pay down the debt with $1 million, and increase the $400,000 currently put towards youth programs. Maybe you stop some of the devastation.

8:23: David Cameron sits with prepared testimony: I’ve left you a four-page letter. I won’t read it, but I’ll hit the high points. I want to pick up on an idea that I floated last year to generate additional revenues, to get away from one-time revenues and gimmicks. Education is the largest item in the budget. The budget doesn’t reflect that the governor provided additional funding for schools. We’ll get an additional $3.8 million. … The major issue in education is that we put in a lot of money and what is missing is accountability for the quality of the education. I mean all the way up the line, not just teachers. The Board of Ed is insulated in two ways. All the members are appointed by the mayor, and the Board of Aldermen can only vote up or down on the budget. … The second largest item is debt service: $63 million. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg, on page 2 – 38 you’ll see the city owes over $450 million total. Don’t forget that there is very substantial interest. … I’m not against all schools. I think Helene Grant is a good idea. I don’t think Hyde is. I’m not sure about New Haven Academy. … Capital budgets can be stretched out. … Thirdly, on expenditures: $3.3 million in labor savings. That’s wishful thinking. $2.5 million in contract negotiations? Who knows how those will go. … On the phase in: it probably won’t happen. The delegation is not on board. If that doesn’t happen, what we need to do is implement the full amount and bring the mill rate down as far as it can come. … I want to turn to PILOTs. It’s disappointing that Malloy hasn’t given us any more than Rell did. … If there were no exemptions, we would get $70 million from colleges and hospitals and $15 million from the state. That’s $85 million. But we’re getting only about $42 million. … That takes me to the last point: Voluntary contributions from not-for-profits. In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino set up a task force that came up with a list of not-for-profits with more than $15 million in property. They looked at what the taxes would be and sent out a schedule for contributions. They have found, doing this publicly, that not-for-profit contributions have increased more than 60 percent. … There’s a total of $11.65 million from not-for-profits in New Haven. There’s much more that we could and should be getting. ​“We should be aggressive in, to be blunt about it, going after the non-profits.” Obviously it’s voluntary, but Boston has been able to ​“name and shame,” which has been very effective. …

8:39: Mike Stratton, a lawyer, sits to speak: You’ve heard an awful lot. I don’t want to repeat. Concrete things that can be done — My property tax would go from $23,000 to $46,000 in one year. I’m not going anywhere, but my neighbors are. There’s a crisis in confidence. You can address that. The big issue on the phase in is that it doesn’t apply to everybody. … A 20 percent increase you can handle. What if we phased in property taxes that increase over 20 percent. You’d have to raise the tax rate one mill. It’s just one mill. … Another thing: No new borrowing. … Also, take a look at the fire department. Fires happen far less often. Fire department primarily does advanced life support, medical response. … We have double the national average of the number of firefighters. That’s millions in wages and pension. … We should have a statistical revaluation in two years, to see if these numbers are real.

8:45: Christine Tokey [?] of St. Ronan Street: My husband and I moved here from the shoreline five years ago. ​“Unfortunately, two years into our stay, my husband because terminally ill.” … I will have to pay over $20,000 a year in taxes to live in my house in East Rock. I will have to move. I hope to move somewhere else in New Haven. … I am a gerontology research scientist. Living in the suburbs is not helpful for aging. …

8:50: Jeffrey Kerekes, former mayoral candidate, steps up to testify. He passes out some information, and says: One of the biggest concerns I have is there are a lot of new aldermen and it takes a long time to understand the budget. Everything gets crammed together and details get lost. … Everyone’s going to come to you and say I need a blogger to blog away crime. … You need to keep in mind that the gap is growing exponentially. We’re not in a stable situation to deal with budget increases. Every department has reasons to expand. We can’t afford to do all of it. We need to look at our priorities. … The capital funds budget is the most logical place to start. It has been previously said — by the city’s former budget director and comptroller — that the city should borrow more than $15 million and the budget calls for borrowing more than $70 million. … The state has the highest taxes in the country and New Haven has the second highest taxes in the state. … We need to look more at the Board of Ed and police budgets. And the capital funds budget.

8:56: Gary Doyens says: I’m a critic of the budget and have been for years. … The answer to our problems has been ​“more.” More cops. More schools. We end up with more debt and more people. People look for more solutions. They always cost more money. … We’re tying to keep all the plates spinning. … We’re on shifting sands. … Yet we keep doing all the same things we have always done. We never look at the individual departments in the budget. It’s difficult to do that with the department heads sitting in front of you. It’s difficult to tell my daughter she can’t have the iPod touch. … What level of police funding do we really need? Does more cops equal more safety? If you’re addressing a community’s real problems, your crime goes down. People have hope, not despair. They have vision, not violence. … When was the last time a TSA employee found a terrorist. They don’t. But they grope everyone. It’s all great theater. … What do we really need? How many policemen do we really need? We have the largest budgeted cop force in the state. We have more schools than anybody in the state. We do not have more school children. We can’t maintain them. Why are we even thinking about building new schools? … The Ricci settlement — the mayor wants to bond $6 million for that. I’m against that. For the same reason I’m against bonding $42 million for new schools, which will increase operational costs also. … Not to pick on the Fair Rent Commission, but it logged 1,500 incidents. The cost was over $63,000. That’s $42.24 per incident. But most of them didn’t get to full complaints. With the employee’s benefit package the cost of the department is up to $90,000. It comes out to about $1,400 per actual complaint. … These conversations are difficult, but you need to start having them. … ​“We have grave concerns and a real unease about where we are and what we’re doing.” … ​“End school construction and just put a fork in it. … For godsakes do not break ground on new construction just because you’ve got some state money to spend.” …

9:11: Castro: Do you think it’s fair for us to take a position against Fair Rent when people are working two or three jobs?

Doyens: I’m familiar with the commission and with the fact that other city’s don’t have one. Maybe his position could be a part-time job. That’s just one thing to look at. … We need to change some of the things that are driving our crime rate. We need to engage early the kids who are dropping out. The drop-out rate at Wilbur Cross is 50 percent, if you include the kids who haven’t graduated in four years. At Hillhouse it’s 45 percent. Of the kids the who graduate, 89 percent need remedial help in college. These kids are not graduating from college after six years. In the 2004 graduating class at Wilbur Cross, 92 went to college, 70 need remedial help there, and only 17 graduated six years later. My son will graduate this year from Cross. He was part of a very large freshman class: over 600 students. His graduating class will be barely 300. … My car used to get broken into twice a year. It’s already been broken into twice in the first quarter this year. … We’ve been pushing hard for community policing. That doesn’t necessarily mean more cops. … I think you consolidate schools. … This is going to be hard. We’re just digging ourselves a big hole.

9:20: Jackson-Brooks calls for a five-minute break.

9:36: And we’re back, ​“five minutes” later.

Jackson-Brooks: Thank you for understanding. Ann Worcester, of Market New Haven and the New Haven Open, is next.

Worcester: I’m here to talk about the New Haven Open tennis tournament, which is much more than a tennis tournament. It’s always our intention to leverage this for the benefit of New Haven. It generates $26 million of economic impact. It highlights New Haven. It gives back through community outreach programs. The city contributes $100,000 of the $4 million cost. The city receives an extraordinary return on its investment. The tournament means 291 full time employees. The tournament is televised in over 100 countries. All stories mention New Haven. All the marketing materials say New Haven ​“It all happens here.” The tournament staff is in its eighth year of managing the imaging of New Haven. It’s a labor of love. Community give-back: For more than a decade we’ve been leveraging the power and excitement of pro tennis to build the community game. We work with schools, after-school programs. community organizations. More than 5,000 New Haven youth have gone through these programs. … The reason they’ve grown is that the tournament is the marketing arm for programs. … Every July we bring in tennis players for a clinic. We have lessons: $35 for five weeks. We have a Latino day at the tournament. 25 percent of our participation is Latino. 45 percent black. 20 percent white. 10 percent Asian. … This year seven or our high school boys are in the top 10 nationally of a scholarship program. Two high school girls are in the top 10. … We have five after-school programs. We’re looking to improve that. … We’ve improved courts. … A new mystery sponsor is funding court improvements that I can’t announce yet. … We got a very exciting player announcement that I can’t announce now, but stay tuned.

Morrison: In my neighborhood there is such a lack of activities, in Dixwell. How do we direct the kids in my neighborhood to this? … Sometimes people have to make the decision: Pay the light bill or pay for activities. … These programs never really affect the kids who are really yearning for something to do.

Worcester: I’d love to work with you. Anyone who cannot afford the $35, we find a way to help them. … I would love to do more in Dixwell. We took tennis to Dixwell last July. We did a ​“tennis play day” at Wexler-Grant. First Niagara gave every kid a tennis racquet. … You have a tennis court behind the store across the street. We got 200 kids to show up. … A week-long August tennis camp was full. … I’d love to talk to you about how we can build off what we did last summer.

Morrison: The children in our community, they want it. They want it bad.

Worcester: When tennis pros come into New Haven and conduct a clinic, they say there’s something special about the kids here. … We need to feed them into tournaments and competitions.

Morrison: We’ve definitely got to build it for Dixwell and Newhallville.

Hausladen: Are we funding the annual thing or the summer tournament? What do they do without that $100,000?

Worcester: It’s a year-round event. We’d have to go out and find that $100,000 elsewhere and it would be even harder for me to raise money. …

Hausladen: Do you have a buy-local policy at the tournament?

Worcester: We have tickets that start at $9. We probably donate 5,000 tickets.

Hausladen: I meant all the vendors you mentioned…

Worcester: Some of our vendors are local. Some but not all. Anything that we can do local, we absolutely do.

Hausladen: What are ticket sales like?

Worcester: It’s harder and harder to attract people to a live sporting event. That’s why we’ve incorporated all the other things: food and wine, fashion, yoga, zumba. … Last year we had two natural disasters in one week.

Hausladen: So ticket sales are down how much?

Worcester: I’ll find out for you.

10:03: Shubert Theater is next. John Fisher, the director, and Sheri Caplan, general manager, sit.

Fisher: We had a public information forum on March 19th for aldermen. … We’re in our 97th year. We have over 100 performances annually. $150 million in direct economic impact on New Haven since 2001. … The city owns the theater.

Caplan: We give out tickets to community groups every year. … Education: programs go out into the schools. We bring artists into the classroom — dancers, singers, actors, writers. We reach 5,000 students a year. … We have a good relationship with Co-op high school. … Carpenters, dancers, make-up artists, producers. … This summer we’re starting a Co-op summer camp for the arts: visual arts, dance, music, and more. Middle-school students, will be able to ​“try on” Co-op. Teachers and 10 to 12 students from Co-op will work at the camp.

Fisher: Next season we’ll have Jersey Boys for two weeks, Shrek, Les Miserables.

Holmes asks about how the Shubert sustains itself.

Fisher for every dollar the city invests, the theater raises $62. After CAPA took over in 2002, we reduced our staff. CAPA, out of Columbus, OH, helps with back-office support work.

Caplan: 80 percent of funds come from ticket sales.

Holmes: How much reserve is there?

Fisher: In the building reserve, there’s about $180,000.

10:19: Tweed New Haven is next. Tim Larson says: This is my fifth budget. I started in 2008. After I was mayor in East Hartford for eight years. … We are running on a very thin margin. We’re very aware of the economy and cost of gasoline. We’ve gone from 21 to seven ​“legacy carriers.” … Our budget has remained flat. We’re in the throes of a lawsuit. A $3 million battle with our FBO [?] We’re going to be aggressively fighting that. It’s been going on for 18 months. … We’re on a razor-thin margin. … We’re doing well. Last year’s enplanements were up 11 percent. We continue to look at different destinations. Our major destinations currently: Philadelphia four to six times a day. We’re tying to ignite service to Washington DC. I think we’re doing well in light of a lawsuit, flat line funding, and a difficult economy. … We’ve refreshed our website. We have a new logo. We used Digital Surgeons, a New Haven company. We’re optimizing the website. We have a stand alone app for iPhones, it will tell you if your planes on time. … We’re studying our impact on the neighborhood. … Tweed is poised to be a very significant player in the market.

Hausladen: What was your enplanements for private?

Larson: We have about 75,000 movements.

Hausladen: What are your landing fees? When was the last time they were changed?

Larson: We try to be competitive with surrounding airports. We’ve got to be fair and priced competitively.

Hausladen: When was the last time we changed landing fees.

Tweed lawyer: Rates include several fees. It was changed in 2009. Some were change in 2010.

Hausladen: Can you figure out what they went to? … Is there a survey of plane owners and renters? … Can we figure out a survey of customers and figure out how far their coming from?

Larson: I think we can get you that.

Perez: Going back to the lawsuit. If we lose, who’s on the hook?

Larson: The airport.

Perez: If the airport doesn’t have the money, we’re on the hook.

Larson: Correct.

Perez: We should be notified, if we’re going to have to come up with money. We ought to know about that.

Murphy: That’s fair and I will talk to corp counsel to make sure you’re kept abreast.

Larson: We feel comfortable — [He’s cut off by a hand on the shoulder from Piscitelli before he can say too much about pending litigation.]

Perez and Larson discuss the relation between the airport and the Chamber of Commerce.

Holmes: Is it common for municipalities to subsidize airports?

Larson: Yes. … There are 20 public use airports in the state. Bradley and Tweed are the only two that have commercial service. … Most of our customers are business-related or college students. … ​“It’s an amazing business and it’s as fickle as my daughter’s hairstyles.” … ​“I’m scared to death of flying.”

10:47: The Department of Transportation, Traffic, and Parking is next. Director Jim Travers arrives with an entourage of department staffers.

Travers passes out a report, and says: Tropical Storm Irene response — very proud. … Signal improvements. … Credit card meters. … Dynamic parking … Crossing guards … New citation system. … Increase in personnel this year. Increase in materials and supplies to deal with aging flight. Increase in rentals. … Additional meters. … New signage for new parking times. …We must replace some aging bus shelters. … Rolling stock: our average vehicle is 10 years old. Our bucket truck has a leak in the hydraulics. We have a truck with tool beds that have rusted through. … Nighttime meter hours will be 9 p.m., starting in May. … We will have a very strong communications plan associated with that. …

Clyburn: What time would I have to pay in the morning?

Travers: The majority begin at 8 a.m. … After 5 p.m., there’ll be no time limits. That’s true of old and new meters.

Castro: The $88,000 because of overtime…

Travers: The overtime is in two ways… Contractual obligations … emergencies … … The meter fee will remain at $1.50 an hour. … We will be bringing on three additional part-timers.

Castro: After 9 p.m., we have the bar crowd. That’s where you’ll really make money.

Travers: That’s not covered now.

Hausladen: I’ve been getting a lot of complaints about very old tickets. Does the city sell old debt to collection agencies?

Travers: No. But we’ve moved to a different service. …

Holmes: I got one recently from 2007.

Hausladen: I’m getting a lot of calls. …

Morrison: I’ve been getting a lot of complaints about Francis Hunter Drive. … We need a mirror.

Travers: Many of our streets are like that. Bruce and I went out there on a couple different occasions. What were doing out there is increasing the sight line. When vehicles park close to the corner, it impedes the sight line. We’re moving signs further away and paint an angled marking to highlight that you should not be parking there. People are parking right on the corner. It is very difficult. We did do a complete analysis, getting all the police reports for the last three years, but found no accidents.

Morrison: Two things: On Francis Hunter Drive parking enforcement is not around on Saturday and Sunday. Your guidelines aren’t working in my community. … Even in front of where I live, people park in front of a fire hydrant.

Hausladen: We should have a briefing on the Complete Streets manual and its project request form.

Morrison: My question is about preventing accidents. We need to address it. Maybe I’m crazy.

Clyburn brings up another blind spot on Newhall Street.

11:11 p.m.: The Commission on Equal Opportunities is next. Nichole Jefferson, executive director: We oversee all construction within the city of New Haven, the actual workers, every department there is. We have oversight over the labor force only. … We inspect all construction sites. We deal with city, state, and federal laws. We are the oldest municipal civil rights agency in the country, back from when President Kennedy and Mayor [Dick] Lee got together. …We have the best hiring practices in the country. We’re clocking at least 30 women per site, and it’s difficult to get women into construction. … At East Rock School we placed 52 percent minorities, 32 percent New Haveners, and 17 percent women. We out-place any other place in the country. … We meet every single contractor who wins a contract in the city by law.

[Jefferson is going through a stack of reports, rattling off numbers at at a rapid-fire pace. It’s an impressive amount of documentation. She’s even got CD-ROMs, for aldermen who don’t like a lot of paper.]

Jefferson: We’re pro union. They can have a better quality of life for their family.

[Now she’s going through files of individual workers: tracked, photographed, documented.]

Morrison: Is the program application still only available one time a year?

Jefferson: We used to do it twice a year. … It’s only me. I spend a lot of time writing grants.

Kelly Murphy: It’s a lot of work getting the revenue.

[Jefferson pulls out a laptop and fires up a slideshow of photos with jazzy theme music. She’s killing it. No other presentation has had this kind of production value.]

Jefferson: Training: heights, carrying, carpentry, plumbing, heating, … 316 Dixwell. 

11:37: Castro: I have a concern. Years ago, I asked you to help us out to do a better outreach in Fair Haven. People helped with Clay Street, but that doesn’t meet the need of what I requested. I got a call the day before… I didn’t have enough time. The outreach could be improved.

Jefferson: You’re right. We only called you the day before. It’s really due to our lack of staff. …

We need to look at planning for construction at 100 College St.

11:43: Livable City Initiative is next. Erik Johnson, director, is up.

Johnson: LCI is the city’s department of housing and community development, inspection services, relocation, property management, demolition, neighborhood specialists. We have an $11 million dollar budget, some of that is grant funds. We’re requesting more for increases to downpayment and rehab assistance programs. …

Perez: Why do we have those things as capital costs?

Johnson: There’s been no tolerance in the general fund.

Perez: There are rules. … I want an answer from a legal perspective. … My asking is no reflection on the merits of the programs.

Johnson: We understand the question.

Clyburn and Johnson talk about something called the Get Home Now program.

11:57: As Hausladen, one of several Tweeters in the room, points out, LCI has a new initiative to encourage city employees to buy houses in New Haven.

12:00 a.m.: It’s tomorrow. Hour seven of the hearing starts now.

12:01 a.m.: Clyburn and Johnson discuss Neighborhood Housing Services, and specific sales. They disagree about something. I can’t quite follow it.

12:05 a.m.: Castro asks about houses without parking lots and the difficulty of selling them. Discussion.

12:08 a.m.: Chapel Street Special Services District is next, along with Town Green and Whalley Avenue Special Services Districts. Rick Elser brings macaroons from the Q Club for the aldermen. He’s at the table with Sheila Masterson, Brian McGrath, Win Davis.

McGrath, of Chapel Street: Our budget is larger. Our assessed values went up. We have three full time staff now. Everything we’re doing is expanded by 20 percent.

Masterson, Whalley: Our levy is a few dollars more. The budget is reduced. Last year, we put in plantings that have reduced crime by 26 percent on that corner.

McGrath: It’s poison ivy.

Masterson: Our levy is 1.85 mills. … Two business opened up this week: Harbor Freight, in the old Staples building, and Shanghai Market, in the Edge of the Woods plaza. They have fresh fish.

Davis, Town Green: Our proposed levy is 1.8 mills. We’ve had some growth in out grand list, largely from 360 State. Our mill rate would go down from 1.85 mills.

Davis and Perez talk about the possible fall-out from the court case between 360 State and the city, over assessment.

Castro: What’s the difference between the highest and lowest payers on Whalley.

Masterson: The shopping center or the hotel would be the highest, about $8,000. In the lowest, it might be $300 a year. Don’t quote me on that. … Each property gets one vote, no matter how much they pay.

12:20: No further questions. Jackson-Brooks: Thank you for dinner.

Elser: Or breakfast.

Move to adjourn. Passes unanimously.

And we’re done! After six hours and 20 minutes.