New Haven wouldn’t face pressures to raise taxes or spend more on schools if only its state legislators would use their power to fully reimburse the city for tax-exempt property, one mayoral candidate said Sunday — in effect laying the blame at the feet of one of his opponents.
Candidate Henry Fernandez made that claim during a backyard campaign pitch in Westville.
It was one of (count ‘em) four political campaign events Sunday afternoon in lower Westville, which is often the city’s highest-voting neighborhood — and thus a prize in which seven Democrats are seeking to succeed retiring two-decade incumbent Mayor John DeStefano.
Fernandez, one of those seven, made his appeal before some 40 largely sympathetic Westvillers gathered on the backyard patio at the McKinley Avenue home of Steven and Rachel Wizner. Among his ideas: Push Yale School of Management to create a new school principal training program that would include seven to 10 New Haven administrators a year. (He discusses that idea toward the end of the above video.)
The indirect swipe at one of his major opponents — state Sen. Toni Harp — came during Fernandez’s response to a question about his position on property taxes.
First he took a swipe at the statement of another mayoral opponent, former Chamber of Commerce prez Matthew Nemerson. Last week Nemerson vowed not to raise property taxes a cent in his first term if elected mayor.
Paul Bass Photo
Solving the problem of high property taxes involves addressing not just the mill rate and the city budget, but the high crime and low-performing schools that drag down home values in some neighborhoods, Fernandez (pictured) argued. (He said he has the record to prove he can make the “tough decisions” about what to cut in the city budget. Then, like Nemerson in his remarks on the subject last week, he declined to name any specific cuts he would make.)
“People tell you, ‘I won’t raise the mill rate.’ That doesn’t tell you much,” Fernandez told the Sunday gathering. “Anybody who says there’s an easy quick fix isn’t being honest.”
Then he amended his comments. One quick fix does exist, he said: The state should fully reimburse cities like New Haven for all the taxes lost on tax-exempt property. The state theoretically is supposed to do that with its Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program. But it doesn’t. In fact, the amount it reimburses under the program has dropped to about 60 percent of taxes lost on property owned by not-for-profit hospitals and universities, and about 40 percent of taxes lost on state-owned property.
“Our [state legislative] delegation holds the seniority to deliver on that,” Fernandez argued.
The two most powerful senior state lawmakers from New Haven happen to be … 21-year incumbent Toni Harp, who co-chairs the legislature’s Appropriations Committee; and Senate Majority Leader Marty Looney, who’s championing Harp’s campaign for mayor this year.
Tough Fiscal Times In Hartford
Toni Harp (pictured) happened to stop by another campaign event an hour later in Westville Sunday, an announcement by first-term 25th Ward Democratic Alderman Adam Marchand. (She held an earlier event of her own, announcing the endorsements of 18 aldermen, at her headquarters just up Whalley in the Edgewood neighborhood.)
The event, at the popular Manjares coffee shop and tapas bar across from Edgewood Park, drew about 60 people. Only a handful came over from the backyard Fernandez event. Whereas the crowd at the earlier event consisted largely of longtime supporters of the DeStefano administration, Marchand’s drew heavily from supporters of the labor-backed team of candidates who won control of the Board of Aldermen two years ago, as well as stalwarts of the grassroots neighborhood beautification and cultural organizations responsible for the “Westville Renaissance.”
Harp was asked at the event about Fernandez’s criticism of her and her colleagues’ inability to bring in more PILOT money.
“For the past six years, we’ve had to cut over $6 billion out of our budget because our revenues weren’t performing,” Harp replied. “We’re in the midst of a recession. We’ve had zero job growth.”
She also pointed out that “Marty and I are only two people out of 187” in the legislature, which is dominated by representatives from suburban communities. She noted that the state is sending over $250 million a year to the city, making up more than half its operating budget.
That said, Harp said Fernandez makes a valid point.
“He’s right” that she and her colleagues should aim for 100 percent reimbursement, Harp said. An improving economy should help, she said. She also said the dynamics of the legislature are changing on the issue. Towns like North Haven, Hamden, and West Haven are losing more revenue to tax-exempt schools like Quinnipiac and University of New Haven. That makes their representatives potential new allies in the fight for more reimbursement, she said.
Ideas Travel
Fernandez’s words echoed at one point when Marchand, who so far is running unopposed, addressed the crowd filling the sidewalk by the Manjares entrance. “What happens in West Rock, what happens in Beaver Hills, ends up happening here as well. We’re all of us one city. We can’t have a wonderful Westville if people across Whalley Avenue are destitute,” Marchand said, in language almost exactly like that Fernandez has been using in his “One City” campaign speeches. Marchand invoked the idea to enlist support for the new “jobs pipeline” and community policing programs that he and his fellow labor-backed aldermen have been pushing this term in office.
At another point, Marchand reprised language that another mayoral candidate, Justin Elicker, used in a May 20th candidates debate in Westville. “We should make sure economic development in New Haven occurs on Whalley Avenue, on Grand Avenue … all the business districts in New Haven. Not just downtown.”
That said, Marchand focused more on issues specific to Ward 25.
He said he’s been working with others on a “safe routes to school” grant application to protect Edgewood School students from “maniac” drivers. He spoke of a “West River Recreational Corridor” he’d like to include as part of a comprehensive plan he and others are in the process of drafting for New Haven. Similar in concept to the Farmington Canal Trail, this corridor would provide a clear biking and hiking route from City Point, along the West River, through Edgewood Park, into Westville Village, out to Southern Connecticut State University and Beaver Pond Park, up to the former Martin Luther King School. It would connect to a path up West Rock Ridge all the way to Sleeping Giant.
A Secret Secluded Campaign Stop
David Sepulveda Photo
Before Marchand’s event, Friends of Edgewood Park held an annual wine-and-cheese reception in a hidden spot of beauty: the observation deck in the woods of Edgewood Park down from Edgewood Avenue near Yale Avenue. The event drew Harp (shown listening to park volunteer leader Sharon Lovett-Graf pitching greater support for Edgewood) …
David Sepulveda Photo
… Nemerson, who emphasized the need for greater private philanthropy in helping to underwrite the goals and vision for an improved Edgewood Park and park system …
Paul Bass Photo
… and Elicker, who sped off to hold a meet-and-greet at Da Silva Gallery in Westville Village. Gallery owner Gabriel da Silva said he plans to invite all the mayoral candidates to conduct such sessions in coming weeks. (Elicker is pictured greeting Westvillean Finn Slattery.)
A day before that event, Gary Holder-Winfield was across the street at a meet-and-greet of his own. He’d already done at least two previous such events in Westville Village. (Read about them here and here.) Given all the campaign activity in the neighborhood this weekend, it’s a good bet he and his competitors will return.
David Sepulveda contributed reporting to this story.