Christopher Peak Photo
2017 protest outside City Hall.
Mayor Toni Harp moved city accounts to a new bank — and earned plaudits from social-justice activists.
The administration announced it is moving its three main operating accounts to People’s United, which prevailed in a competitive bidding process.
The accounts were moved from Wells Fargo, which the state deemed a “nonqualified depositary for municipal accounts.” Wells Fargo has come under nationwide criticism — and protest in New Haven — for bankrolling the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, which will cut through the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. It has also taken heat for funding private prisons and immigrant detention centers, defrauding customers with bogus accounts, and discriminating against minorities with pricier mortgages.
New Haven Stands With Standing Rock, which pushed the city to shift the accounts, praised Harp’s move.
“It is true that state law required this, but that state law also had no deadline and no enforcement power, so the city took the initiative,” organizer Melinda Tuhus stated. “Wells Fargo has a terrible human rights and civil rights record, which is why we fought to get the city to move its money. Peoples is a regional bank with a commitment, as the mayor said, to our community.”
City Controller Daryl Jones said the bank move will benefit New Haven government’s bottom line.
“Te City is expected to both save on banking services fees and expand its digital banking solutions,” Jones stated in a city hall release. “What’s more, with People’s United Bank, we’re hopeful about future opportunities for residents to transact business directly with the city at a local People’s branch, sparing them a separate stop at City Hall.”
Tuhus added that her group remains “concerned” that the city plans to maintain a merchant card program with Chase Bank, which she called “the worst offender of all when it comes to investing in community- and climate-killing fossil fuel projects.” The group plans to “take this matter up” with incoming Mayor Justin Elicker.