Foley: Let People Drive

The man who hopes to drive Dan Malloy from the governor’s office has no problem fixing New Haven’s bus system — but he doesn’t want to push people out of their cars to do it.

Tom Foley, the Republican candidate for governor, offered that view in an interview about his take on New Haven issues.

Asked about public housing, economic development, youth centers, and mass transit, Foley offered general responses on policy peppered with I don’t know“s on specifics. He said he didn’t know enough about New Haven projects before the state — like the rebuilding of the Dixwell Commuity Q” House or the planned $395 million development of a new-urbanist mini-city on the grave of the old New Haven Coliseum — to commit to offering his support if elected governor.

I’m running for governor, not mayor of New Haven,” Foley said in between bites of a chocolate-chip cookie at Woodland Cafe on Sherman Alley, where the interview took place. He’ll set the agenda and focus on the details along with his administration after getting elected, he said.

The governor is the captain of the ship. He’s not cleaning the propellers. He sets the tone. He’s the leader. It’s enough for a governor to set the priorities and the goals.”

Connecticut’s future is no better than the future of its cities,” he said. I want to be the best governor Connecticut has ever had.”

Have Mercy On Motorists

Paul Bass Photo

Foley promised he’d work to improve bus service in cities if elected governor. Asked for specific ways he’d do that, he responded, I don’t know. … I’m not familiar enough with the local challenge of mass transit.”

He does know that he wouldn’t try to push people out of cars onto mass transit” — which he accused the Malloy administration of doing as a matter of policy. He argued that under Malloy the state has purposefully” neglected roads and bridges as a matter of policy to boost train and bus ridership. Asked about the $3 billion being spent to improve and expand I‑95 through the heart of New Haven, Foley questioned whether that money has been spent efficiently: There’s a limited amount of money. I’m not sure where all the money goes.”

He argued that while mass transit matters, the state shouldn’t pursue a policy of favoring it over car travel. Proponents of such policy argue that encouraging people to ride buses or trains, or walk or bike to work, reduces road congestion and cuts pollution. It may be the argument,” Foley said. But I don’t buy it.” It’s not government’s role to tell people whether or not to drive, he argued.

Speaking of New Haven drivers, Foley promised he’d fix the problems at the closest Department of Motor Vehicles office, just across the Hamden line. (Click here to read and watch Malloy address DMV and bus problems.)

We simply have to do a better job for the customers who use it,” Foley, who made a personal fortune running a private-equity firm, said of the DMV. I’m a business person. I know some of the ways he can make the government serve the people better.”

Such as? There are some technological solutions to these problems” as well as private-sector-oriented techniques that states like Indiana have tried successfully, he responded.

Any specific solutions or techniques?

I would bring in experts,” Foley said.

Follow The Child”

A Gov. Foley would be calling on the experts as well to flesh out a central platform on how to improve the public schools.

Foley calls for a money follows the child” policy for public schools: Parents choose which schools in their district they want their children to attend. The public dollars for those students then move to those schools.

If a school is failing, he argued, parents should be able to take their children to a different school, and the failing school should not continue to receive the money for educating those lost children. Charter school groups like Achievement First, which would benefit most, have led the call for a money follows the child” plan. Magnet schools would benefit, too.

The crappy schools can’t survive” unless they improve under that plan, Foley said. He said the status quo regards poor performance.”

Money follows the child” plans draw a number of objections from critics. (Click here for an example.) Some compare the plan to voucher programs; Foley said that unlike voucher proposals, his plan would not allow parents to take the money out of district or to a private or parochial school.

Another criticism: Struggling schools would lose the most motivated, highest-performing students, and those with engaged parents; they’d be left only with the hardest-to-educate and special-ed students, creating a two-tier education system.

Foley responded that his plan would take into effect how much it costs to educate different kinds of students. It would offer variable grants” rather than a single check per student to each school. It takes more to educate a special-ed student, for instance, so that grant would be higher. He said similar calculations can be made for the cost of educating higher-performing students.

How would those calculations be made specifically? he was asked. Would the system allocate dollar amounts to a student’s test scores, and pay less for students with the higher scores? Or pay for more for students from disadvantaged backgrounds?

That’ll be the job of the people running the program, Foley responded. I’m the governor! I’m not the program designer!”

Charter school advocates have promoted money follows the child” in Connecticut; the Malloy administration has opposed it. Foley had praise for New Haven’s Achievement First charter schools, but added that he doesn’t support one public-school model over another. He said he supports good schools,” whether on the charter, magnet, or traditional public models.

PILOT & The Pilot

During the interview, Foley was asked about specific projects and proposals currently pushed at the state level by New Haven’s politicians:

• Gov. Malloy earlier this year delivered $1 million in state bond money to plan the revival of the shuttered Dixwell Commuity Q” House; he’s expected to deliver a full $15 million before the election to build a new youth facility there. Proponents see the Q House as an important symbol of both the disappearance of youth centers in town as well as of the promise of giving the city’s young people constructive ways to spend their time. I think the state should support that sort of thing,” Foley said. Asked if he would specifically support the Q House project, he responded, I’m hearing about this for the first time,” so he didn’t yet have a position.

• New Haven has signed an agreement with a developer, Montreal-based LiveWorkLearnPlay, to build a busy new $395 million new-urbanist mini-city of apartments, stores, offices, a hotel and a public plaza on the land where the old New Haven Coliseum once stood. The deal hinges on the state bonding for up to $20 million in streetscape changes and improvements in the immediate area. Malloy said he supports the project and is hopeful his administration can deliver the money; his staff is currently examining the proposal to make sure the private financing is solid enough to ensure the project gets built. If it’s bringing better housing to New Haven that encourages more people to live in the city, if it’s bringing jobs to the community” as part of a long-term plan for the city, I would support it,” Foley said. He was asked if the LiveWorkLearnPlay plan does that. I don’t know,” Foley said, because he hadn’t heard of it before.

• New Haven’s senior state senator, Martin Looney (who’s expected to become the chamber’s president this coming year), has proposed changing Connecticut’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program to guarantee that cities like New Haven — which have the most property owned by not-for-profits — receive at least 50 percent reimbursement for revenues lost on untaxable land. State House Speaker Rep. Brendan Sharkey has proposed a different PILOT fix, which would allow cities to tax large not-for-profits. Foley called both proposals band-aids” that don’t solve the broader problem.

We should step back and relook at how our cities’ revenue is provided,” he said. I don’t like the idea of cities having to go every year to the state and beg for money. These cities .. bear the burden for more than their share of social costs.” They should have a more predictable and fair stream of revenue coming from the state, he argued.

What would the stream look like, specifically?

Maybe,” he said, it would rely on a dedicated portion of sales-tax revenue. Maybe.

Any other specifics? I don’t know,” he said. The captain decides where to sail the ship. The experts will him steer it there.


Previous urban policy interviews with 2014 gubernatorial candidates at Woodland Cafe:

Dan Malloy
Joe Visconti
John McKinney
Jonathan Pelto

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