by | May 26, 2021 10:31 pm | Comments (21)
Markeshia Ricks file photo
Alder Wingate: “Bold” moves on crime.
Alders overwhelmingly adopted a $606.3 million operating budget for the new fiscal year that keeps taxes flat and the libraries open, jacks up the city’s pension contributions — and assumes the state and Yale will fork over an extra $53 million.
by | May 26, 2021 4:44 pm | Comments (17)
Thomas Breen photo
Fairbank Apartments: No tax break for new owners. For now.
LISHTA member and Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola: NHI comments make secrecy necessary.
Alders lambasted two low-income senior apartment building owners for failing to show up to defend requested tax breaks and for attempting to take advantage of a cash-strapped city without creating new subsidized housing.
It turns out the landlords were never invited — and they had filed plans about which the alders were either unaware or confused.
by | May 24, 2021 3:57 pm | Comments (22)
Tenant Fabian Rosario and Rosa Rivera outside Fairbank: “Perfect.”
Thomas Breen photo
Newly sold Fairbank Apartments at 355 Ferry St.
A California-based affordable housing developer has purchased a Fair Haven senior apartment complex for $11.1 million — and is seeking a local tax break for a $7 million rehab.
by | May 21, 2021 2:54 pm | Comments (3)
City of New Haven
How the city plans to spend the first $26.3M in American Rescue Plan money.
Alders have fast-tracked approval of city plans to spend the first $26 million-plus in federal pandemic-era aid to bolster lost municipal revenue and build up a host of summer youth programs moved ahead.
Continue reading ‘City’s First $26.3M Covid-Aid Spending Plan Advances’
by | May 14, 2021 9:27 am | Comments (11)
LUCY GELLMAN / ARTS PAPER PHOTO
Westville’s Mitchell library: No longer on the chopping block. If it ever really was.
Alders cast the first of two votes needed to pass a new city budget — ditching a “crisis” version tax increase and library closure, embracing a “forward” version assuming the state and Yale will pony up an extra $53 million.
Continue reading ‘“Crisis” Wanes: “Forward” Budget Advances’
by | May 11, 2021 11:21 am | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photo
The new Q House, on the rise on Dixwell Ave.
Zoom
Monday night’s Finance Committee hearing.
Committee alders enthusiastically endorsed a three-year, $300,000 contract between the city and LEAP that would have the local youth tutoring and recreation agency manage — and fundraise for — the reborn “Q House” Dixwell Avenue community center.
by | May 11, 2021 9:20 am | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen / Zoom photos
Young New Haveners who spoke up at Monday’s budget hearing. Clockwise from top left: Kiana Flores, Jamila Washington, Eva Hana Starkey, Abiba Biao.
Seven-year-old Westville resident Eva Hana Starkey took a breath, leaned towards the camera from her father’s lap, and issued her budget-season plea to city lawmakers:
“I want the Mitchell Library to be open.”
Starkey was the youngest of two dozen members of the public to testify Monday night during the aldermanic Finance Committee’s last public hearing of this year’s budget-making season.
by | Apr 27, 2021 12:37 pm | Comments (14)
Zoom
Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers at Monday’s task force meeting.
City of New Haven chart.
Recent history of rising city pension costs.
Alders have brought back to life a pension task force to help figure out ways for the city to plug a nearly billion-dollar hole.
by | Apr 16, 2021 2:59 pm | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen photo
NHPS Supt. Iline Tracey: “Money, money everywhere.”
NHPS Slide
The city’s typically cash-strapped school system has a big challenge, and a big opportunity: Figuring out how to spend $136 million in pandemic-induced federal relief over the next few years without getting hooked on the short-term dough.
Continue reading ‘Schools Q: How To Spend All That Federal $’
by | Apr 13, 2021 1:13 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photo
City Budget Director Gormany: Praised at Monday night’s hearing for police and fire OT realism, slammed for potential library closure.
Increase police and fire overtime? Realistic budgeting.
Close a library branch? Disastrous, disingenuous politics.
Those two takes about the city’s budget-making process emerged during the latest virtual workshop on Mayor Justin Elicker’s two proposed Fiscal Year 2021 – 2022 (FY22) general fund budgets — a $589.1 million “crisis” version and a $606.2 million “forward together” budget.
by | Apr 6, 2021 9:07 am | Comments (16)
City of New Haven slide
City workers and administrators are leaving their jobs at a quicker clip than local government can find replacements.
Why is that happening? And what can the city do to catch up?
by | Apr 5, 2021 1:51 pm | Comments (32)
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
City Plan Director Woods (right) with Acting LCI Executive Director Arlevia Samuel: Rezoning is top priority.
No more tinkering around the edges. It’s time to start overhauling the city’s entire, half-century-old zoning code.
City Plan Director Aïcha Woods issued that call to land-use-reform arms when describing one of the top priorities for her department in the year — and years — to come.
by | Apr 5, 2021 12:30 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Q House, under construction on Dixwell Ave.
Oversee Q House programming. Hire and manage staff. Handle a portion of fundraising for the site. And establish relationships with community partners.
Those are some of the responsibilities detailed in a city proposal to enter into a three-year, $300,000-in-total contract with LEAP that would have that local youth tutoring and recreation nonprofit run the soon-to-open, reborn Dixwell community center.
by | Apr 2, 2021 9:01 am | Comments (19)
Wikimedia image
Fiber internet, coming soon to a neighborhood near us?
New Haven is trying again to bring high-speed Internet service to neighborhoods citywide, with a $1 million planned pilot and possible help on the way from D.C.
by | Apr 1, 2021 2:22 pm | Comments (5)
Twitter photo
Hill Alder Ron Hurt gets vaccinated at Career High School popup clinic on March 20.
When public schools close for April recess later this month, the city plans to open a Covid-19 mass vaccination clinic at Career High School in the Hill with the explicit goal of providing shots for eligible New Haven youth.
Continue reading ‘City Plans Covid Vaccine Clinic For High Schoolers During April Recess’
by | Apr 1, 2021 1:40 pm | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
The new Q House, coming online this summer.
LEAP’s Fernandez: Ready to roll.
The city has tapped the youth tutoring and recreation agency LEAP to oversee programming at the reborn Dixwell Q House community center.
by | Mar 31, 2021 6:03 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photos
Local climate activists outside City Hall in 2019.
The city plans to spend $60,000 on a new sustainability-focused staffer.
Local climate activists are pushing city government to dedicate $1.1 million to promote reduced emissions, clean energy jobs, and climate education.
And a state legislative committee advanced a regional climate and transportation accord that could see hundreds of millions of dollars spent over the next decade on cleaner public transportation in air-polluted communities like New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Climate Costs Debated As City, State Weigh Actions’
by | Mar 31, 2021 12:12 pm | Comments (24)
City of New Haven chart
Recent history of rising city pension costs.
Thomas Breen photo
Budget Director Gormany: Expect those numbers to keep going up.
City pension payments could jump by 26 percent next fiscal year thanks to a new, more conservative way that the city estimates pension fund investment returns.
While that one-year increase is steep, the city budget director cautioned, it also marks just the beginning of a gradual shift towards more responsible — and costly — city pension budgeting.
by | Mar 30, 2021 2:26 pm | Comments (29)
Zoom
Joshua Van Hoesen on WNHH FM.
Joshua Van Hoesen is determined to give Upper Westville voters a choice — about who represents them, and about how their city will stay solvent in the future.
by | Mar 16, 2021 10:19 am | Comments (15)
File Photos
Roth (left): Carabetta can and should pay more tax. Walker-Myers (right): Rain was coming down into apartments.
Alders overwhelmingly approved a 17-year tax break for a failed Dwight housing co-op on the brink of demolition and reconstruction, amid objections that the affordable housing deal is too generous for the project’s developer.
by | Mar 15, 2021 8:08 am | Comments (12)
Maya McFadden Photo
East Shore Senior Center.
East Shore neighbors pressed Mayor Justin Elicker at an online community meeting not to proceed with a threatened closing of their senior center.
Continue reading ‘East Shore Presses Elicker On Senior Center Closing’
by | Mar 12, 2021 1:15 pm | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen file photos
Top city workers who have retired or resigned in 2021 so far include (pictured) former CAO Scott Jackson, outgoing nursing director Jennifer Vazquez, former Asst. Fire Chief Mark Vendetto.
Thomas Breen file photo
City Building Official Jim Turcio (right) on the job with (now-retired) Asst. Fire Chief Mark Vendetto.
Twenty-four municipal workers have resigned already in 2021, more than double the rate at this point in 2020 — and the building department, for one, desperately needs help.
by | Mar 9, 2021 5:06 pm | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic file photo
City Assessor Pullen: Reporting on latest figures, preparing for reval.
Nearly 60 percent of all city real estate value — or $8.5 billion in total — remains off the tax rolls, as City Hall gears up for a twice-a-decade property revaluation.
Continue reading ‘59.57% Of City Real Estate Tax-Exempt In Latest Annual Calculation’
by | Mar 9, 2021 12:00 pm | Comments (12)
Paul Bass Photos
One neighbor’s plea posted on a Central Avenue tree.
Lucy Gellman / Arts Paper photo
Mitchell library: In City Hall’s crosshairs.
Teachers, parents, artists, and bibliophiles lined up to blast the mayor’s proposed shutdown of Mitchell branch library, decrying the “absurdity” of threatening to close a core community institution that makes up only 1/20th of 1 percent of the city budget.
by | Mar 8, 2021 2:01 pm | Comments (15)
Facebook Live photo
Chris Murphy in New Haven Monday.
The soon-to-pass federal Covid stimulus bill will send close to $100 million in direct aid to the city and then millions more to the schools and other local agencies.
But in itself it won’t solve the city’s budget problems or prevent a tax hike.