Christopher Peak Photo
The scene outside APT in the Hill.
Some of Mayor Toni Harp’s latest takes, offered Monday on her weekly WNHH radio show:
• The APT Foundation should hire security guards to keep not just the people on their property of their methadone clinic, but clients waiting across the street, from committing crimes.
• New Haven should look at creating more single-room occupancy apartments to house the most difficult homeless population to help right now: single adults.
• It might look like New Haven’s getting roughly the same amount of aid as last year in the new budget passed by state legislators. But legislators legislators are pulling a fast one with sneaky math to make it look that way — by suddenly adding bonding reimbursements for road repairs previously calculated separately. The city could in fact be losing $3 million or more.
Harp offered those takes on her latest appearance on WNHH’s “Mayor Monday” program.
Fielding a steady stream of listener calls and Facebook Live comments, she predicted that Spinnaker Real Estate Partners will begin building its new development at Audubon and State streets this coming spring; detailed some of the emergency work done overnight in response to 56-mile-per-hour winds that felled trees and power lines; supported the idea of building and selling tiny houses on Newhallville sliver lots, while opposing 300-square-foot micro-apartments in new market rate developments downtown; and floated the idea of finding natural predators (such as owls) to rid the Green of rats.
She criticized APT for in her view failing to be as responsible as other drug-treatment center operators in making sure not to cause problems for its surrounding neighborhood. (Click here for a previous story on the subject.) Looking at the issue more broadly, Harp recommended that Connecticut allow private doctors to administer methadone to addicts rather than require addicts to visit clinics. She said she tried as a state senator to pass legislation to do that.
On the program, Harp also spoke about the day she spent last week at New York City’s Gracie Mansion, where mayors from across the country planned a national lobbying effort for civil rights and immigrant reform measures.
Click on or download the above audio file or click on the Facebook Live video below to hear the full episode of “Mayor Monday” on WNHH FM.
This episode of “Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.