The city’s new plan for a municipal ID, unveiled in a broadly re-imagined form, will be everything to everyone — a debit card, credentials for minors, a way to pay the parking meter, take out a library book, or get a discount at the golf course. Oh, and it may help immigrants avoid being robbed.
After original attempts to put out a municipal ID got swallowed in an eruption of anti-immigrant fervor, the city redrafted plans to broadly expand the ID’s concept so it’s useful in many ways to all residents of the Elm City.
The new card, pitched Monday to aldermen at a briefing in City Hall, would expand the ParkSmart card, which citizens already to pay the parking meter or make purchases downtown, into a heftier debit card and proof of identification. The objective: To create a way for those who currently don’t have proof of ID, or don’t have a debit card, to be civically engaged in the city.
The current parcxmart card’s accepted at 50 vendors downtown. After first adding funds to the card, one can buy everything from gas to clothes to coffee, as well as insert it in downtown meters as a convenient alternative to carrying coins. The city proposes to up the limit of funds from $100 to $150 and expand the number of vendors accepting the card, so that it becomes a debit card — no fees or strings attached — for those who couldn’t otherwise get one. The new card would cost $10, and would come stocked with $5 that could be used to make purchases.
The new municipal ID (prototype pictured above) would also serve as a library card and proof of residency at the golf course or parks. With two types of holograms, a photo, and a personally identifying number, it would serve as an official governmental ID for all residents, including those who may now operate without one, such as youth, those without a driver’s license, and the immigrant population.
“The original idea came from the immigrant population, but the only way it would work is to design one for the entire population,” explained Kica Matos (pictured), the city’s social services chief, after Monday’s briefing.
The original idea was to help the city’s immigrant population, regardless of legal status, take out library books or open a bank account. Those who don’t have an ID now can’t get a bank account, and end up carrying around piles of cash, making them prone to robbery. Matos hoped to get local banks to agree to accept the ID to open bank accounts, as well as get the city’s supermarkets to accept it, so shoppers at C‑Town or Shaw’s will be that much safer not carrying cash around.
Would immigrants be wary of turning over personal information to the government? Matos thought the opposite has been true: “We have had immigrants calling and asking to be part of it, saying, ‘I want to become an integral part of society,’ and this is the way to do it.”
Click here for a study by the Yale Law School and JUNTA for Progressive Action declaring the card not only legal by federal immigration laws, but a moral imperative to protect New Haven’s residents. To those who may fear their information would be shared, Matos assured the information would be kept in a “locked, very secure place.”
Matos hasn’t reached out to financial institutions yet ask for commitment on getting the card accepted to open bank accounts.
She has gotten a commitment from New Haven’s new community bank—the so-called First City Bank, run by Chandler Howard, due to rise from the ashes of New Haven Savings. The First City Fund Corporation has agreed to give the city a grant of $236,975 to support the card’s inception. That would cover the cost of the card, as well as staff to administer it.
Aldermen at the briefing Monday welcomed the idea, but put measures in place to ensure it got a public hearing. Aware of a continuing need to fund the program after Year One, and hoping for public debate, they rejected the city’s attempt to shoot it through the board Monday night by unanimous consent, opting instead to refer the matter to the aldermanic Finance Committee, where it will have a public hearing.
“The UC process [by which items are slipped onto an agenda and voted on in one evening instead of passing through two readings beforehand] is only intended for grants we’ve already approved,” explained Hill Alderman Jorge Perez. While he supports “having an ID available for all residents in the city,” he wanted to ensure it was established in a “transparent, open and clear way.”
Aldermanic President Carl Goldfield, like all other alders informally polled, welcomed the revamped plans. “They’ve broadened the card in a way that’s going to make it useful to a much wider spectrum of people. They’ve done a great job in thinking about this thing and being creative with it.”
After the matter is debated in committee and voted on by the full board, the city hopes to roll out the card in the early summer.