Agreed: They Love Animals

Hamden Mayor Curt Leng and Republican Challenger Jay Kaye shared two perspectives on policing, debt, an animal shelter, and other facets of Hamden’s present and future on Monday in their first debate of the general election cycle.

Leng, a Democrat, faced off with Kaye at Thornton Wilder Memorial Hall to help voters decide whose bubble to fill on the Nov. 5 municipal election.

The debate, hosted by the Hamden/North Haven League of Women Voters, drew around 200 people.

Though there were a few moments of clear opposition, the two candidates rarely suggested specific conflicting policy proposals. 

(Read more about Kaye here.)

For example they agreed that, in general, the town needs to focus on community policing and forging better relations between police and the residents whose neighborhoods they patrol. Their visions of a new chief did not seem to differ. They agreed that the town needs to improve how it communicates with residents: Leng said a new website is almost up and running, and Kaye said Hamden needs the website and also more information on paper for those who don’t use the internet.

On a few questions,differences became clear.

Near the beginning of the debate, Leng found himself on the defensive again, as he had been in debates before his Democratic primary contest with Lauren Garrett, about the town’s finances. Moderator Ray Andrewsen asked how each candidate would address the town’s large unfunded liabilities. According to the latest audit, Hamden has over $1 billion in net present and future liabilities.

Kaye began.

“Clearly over the last 30 years, there have been very bad decisions made regarding funding the pension,” he said. It would have been much better if the town had paid 100 percent of its actuarially required contribution (ARC, the amount that the town would need to pay each year to be on track to full funding) into its pension fund over the last few years, he said.

When Leng’s predecessor, Scott Jackson, took out a pension obligation bond to prevent the pension from becoming insolvent, the bond required the town to ramp up its ARC payments to 100 percent of ARC by the 2017 – 2018 fiscal year. When state revenues came in short that year, Leng negotiated with the state to push back the ramp-up period. That, said Kaye, was a mistake.

“That money is going to come due … Trying to keep the mill rate down artificially is not honest to the taxpayer,” he said, echoing criticisms that Garrett lobbed at Leng last month before the primary.

Leng countered: ​“There’s been a narrative about the town that the sky is falling, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the sky is not falling. There are challenges with the town … We have challenges without question.”

However, he said, he has taken steps to save money. He said he has negotiated every union contract in the town.

In February, the Legislative Council passed a concessions agreement with the teachers union and with the supervisors union. It passed a concessions package negotiated with the fire union in 2018. In May, town hall employees and library employees agreed to concessions. And in April, Leng asked his department heads to take furlough days. Throughout the winter, the administration was in negotiations with the police union, but that concessions package has yet to come before the council.

It would have been better to pay 100 percent of ARC into the pension fund, Leng said, but the town is close. This year it paid 85 percent. He said that the town is working with Segal Consulting to figure out how it can recoup money it overpaid in cost of living adjustments for many years.

Kaye did not let up at that.

“This isn’t a doom and gloom speech,” he said, employing a term that Leng has frequently used to refer to the accusations of his opponents. ​“This is the truth. You don’t have to be a financial expert to go through the books and be able to understand where we’re at and what our liabilities are, and to say that we’re fine. It’s just not accurate. We’re not fine.”

Cats And Dogs

Leng and Kaye agreed that they both like animals. Leng lost his train of thought for a moment as he mentioned his two Chihuahuas. However, when it came to how to deal with them in Hamden, they did not quite see eye to eye.

Until March, Hamden had been using pens at the North Haven animal shelter to house the animals under the care of its animal control division. In March, North Haven kicked Hamden out.

The town is searching for a place to house its animals. The group Gimme Shelter now advocates for a site in Hamden. According to an email newsletter from the group, it has also raised $14,000.

Andrewsen asked Leng and Kaye if they could commit to naming a site for the shelter within 60 days of taking office.

“No, I can’t commit to 60 days,” replied Leng. ​“I don’t think that 60 days would be a reasonable amount of time.” In his first year as mayor, he said, he secured $400,000 for a shelter from the council. The town tried to arrange deals with North Haven and another nearby town, he said, but they fell through.

Though a shelter is a priority, he said, other major construction projects take precedence. Two fire stations are in desperate need of repairs, as is the Keefe Community Center. Committing to an animal shelter before those projects, he said, ​“is not something that I could commit to in good faith.”

For Kaye, 60 days appeared not to be a problem. ​“I certainly could commit to naming a site,” he said. He added that it would allow Gimme Shelter to apply for grants. He suggested placing the shelter at the Public Works Department’s headquarters on Sherman Avenue. An animal shelter is ​“not a crazy pie in the sky idea,” he said. ​“It doesn’t have to be the Ritz Carlton… It needs to have a roof.”

Leng used the opportunity to make a light jab at his opponent: ​“One of the commitments that Mr. Kaye has made is to not do any new borrowing over his term, or at least the first year, and without any new borrowing, you can’t build a new animal shelter. The money’s not there.”

Police

Many of Monday evening’s questions focused on policing. For the most part, the candidates did not present markedly different views of how to proceed. Both said that community policing is important. Neither indicated a preference for hiring a new chief from within the department or from outside.

Kaye did make jabs at Leng, however. He called the police chief search committee that Leng established in May ​“reactive.”

“It kind of fell off the radar. I’m not really sure where that search committee has gone and how well those recommendations have been taken,” he said. He also said that the search should have begun much earlier.

Leng said that the committee held three public input sessions, and that job descriptions will be sent out after the election. The committee will then choose five top applicants to present to the mayor. The mayor will then choose from those five.

Their views of what a new chief should look like did not appear to differ drastically. A chief, said Kaye, needs to understand Hamden, its neighborhoods, and the department’s police officers. ​“And our chief needs to be a proponent of community policing,” he added.

A police chief, said Leng, should have a new vision to implement community policing practices, and should be ​“someone that embraces [the philosophies of Obama’s 21st century policing report] and has the fortitude and backbone to implement them.”

One question addressed school resource officers (SROs). In his budget this spring, Leng proposed putting SROs in elementary schools. That proposal met with a significant backlash.

Leng said he is still committed to maintaining the SRO programs at the middle school and high school because both past and current principals of those schools, he said, talk highly of the program. About the elementary schools, he said, he has changed his mind. ​“I’ve listened and I’ve become convinced that SROs at this time aren’t the right answer,” he said. Some kind of retired officer or other mentor figure, he said, might work.

Kaye, on the other hand, appeared more skeptical of putting police in schools. He said he thinks it makes sense at the high school, but that at the middle school, a security guard who knows the kids should be enough. And in elementary schools, he said, he definitely doesn’t want police officers.

It should be up to the administration and teachers to deal with problems, he said. They should be able to help students who are acting out. ​“You can’t just call a police officer every time there’s a problem.”

Both said that building trust between the police and residents is one of the most important challenges the town currently faces. The debate came one week after the State’s Attorney’s Office charged Hamden Police Officer Devin Eaton with assault after he shot at an unarmed couple in April.

“You have to understand what people of color have gone through,” said Kaye. ​“You have to be able to understand why they don’t trust police officers.” He added: ​“When you see what you think is a protest, it’s not really a protest, right. It’s pain.”

Leng responded with an affirmation for his opponent. ​“I think that Mr. Kaye’s answer, that was excellent,” he said, adding that he hopes whoever is elected mayor will work to bridge the gap between the police and the community.

Other Highlights

• Leng said he wants to change zoning regulations to make them attract more businesses. (Read more about that here). Kaye said he wants to give the Planning and Zoning and the Economic Development Departments more resources.

• Leng said that parts of the town’s new website are up and running for a soft opening before the final announcement of its completion. Kaye said that in addition to a better website, the town should also distribute paper materials for those who can’t access the internet.

• In response to a question about whether the candidates support regionalization, Leng said that it has pros and cons. Sometimes, he said, union contracts make it difficult, for instance when they thwarted the creation of a shared Hamden-North Haven dispatch center. Kaye said he’s skeptical of regionalization, especially when it involves adding state taxes. He referred to a plan that Sen. Martin Looney presented in January at another League of Women Voters event in Hamden. ​“The whole idea, while it makes sense on paper, you need to be able to make it on your own,” he said.

• Kaye said he would like to look into changing the town charter to have a town manager as the chief executive. It takes the politics out of decision-making, he said. Leng disagreed. ​“I think that our residents want more accountability from their chief executive, not less,” he said. Read more about the proposal for a town manager here.