Harp Switches Gears On Lead

Mayor Toni Harp Monday declared that her administration will stop fighting legal aid lawyers in court and start enforcing tougher lead paint poisoning standards — and contradicted two of her own appointees charged with carrying out the new plan.

Mayor Toni Harp made that announcement Monday afternoon during a tense press conference on the second floor of City Hall, addressing an issue that has dogged her not only in court but on the current reelection campaign trail.

She promised to submit to the Board of Alders a new, clarified child lead poisoning law. In the process, she publicly overrode statements made just seconds earlier by the city’s new interim environmental health director and by the city Community Services Administrator Dakibu Muley.

At the center of the press conference was a new five-point plan for combating child lead poisoning that the mayor and the city’s health department put together in response to a string of state court losses regarding its inconsistent enforcement of existing laws.

The most recent decision came down just two weeks ago, when Superior Court Judge John Cordani sided with legal aid and two Fair Haven child plaintiffs in their lawsuit against the city. for surreptitiously changing the blood lead poisoning threshold required for health department intervention.

The judge clarified that existing city law defines ​“lead poisoning” as matching the federalCenters for Disease Control and Prevention’s reference level of 5 micrograms per deciliter (μg/dL), as opposed to the 20 μg/dL threshold set by the state.

Cordani ordered the city to inspect and oversee the abatement of the properties of the two primary child plaintiffs the case, and to go through the Board of Alders if it wants to change the law.

At Monday’s presser, Harp revealed the city will not appeal that ruling (the fourth time a state judge has excoriated or ruled against the city’s carrying out of lead paint enforcement). Harp clarified that the city plans to keep 5 μg/dL as the local threshold for child lead poisoning. Properties housing children under 6 years old who have blood lead levels above 5 μg/dL, she said, will receive full health department lead inspections with X‑ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzers.

“The city will use this recent spate of lawsuits as a springboard to refine its ordinance,” she said, ​“eliminate any potential ambiguity in its language, and go forward with a plan of action triggered by a blood-level of five micrograms per deciliter, even as state law requires at 20.”

Harp enumerated five points in the new lead plan:

• Instead of appealing the recent court loss, her administration will work with the Board of Alders to amend city law to adhere to the stricter lead-level threshold.

• Her administration will hire up to five lead paint inspectors. The city’s health department currently has three budgeted positions, with only two of those positions filled.

• The administration plans to conduct a national search for a new health department director, now that former director Byron Kennedy has left the department to work for the state. City environmental health director Paul Kowalski has been put on paid administrative leave, as first reported by the New Haven Register’s Mary O’Leary. (Harp said Monday that the move had nothing to do with enforcement of lead laws.)

• The city also plans to ​“start bringing technology into the field in the form of electronic tablets, to standardize inspections, create digital records, and provide clear communications to all applicable city departments.”

The health department, as revealed in previous state court lawsuits regarding the city’s inconsistent enforcement of existing law, keeps its current lead inspection records only on paper.

• Finally, the city plans to bulk up its ​“outreach, awareness, and education program” to help parents and landlords better understand the dangers of child lead poisoning, identify lead paint hazards in apartments, and then abate those hazards.

These renewed efforts, Harp said, will be paid for through liens placed on properties with lead paint hazards, through a ​“revolving loan fund,” and through potential new state and federal funding sources.

“New Haven’s commitment to protecting children from lead exposure has never wavered,” she said, ​“from its first ban of lead paint in 1974 to its 25-year-old public awareness, inspection, and abatement program, to its extraordinary action plan at five micrograms per deciliter — far surpassing the state standard of 20.”

Mixed Messages

Harp’s clear declaration that her health department will treat blood lead levels of 5, not 20, as the thresholds for full inspections and abatement enforcement came only after Muley and Roslyn Hamilton tried to pull back on that stricter commitment.

Muley pointed out in his prepared remarks at the press conference that the CDC gives municipalities discretion to enforce lead poisoning laws for children testing at between 10 and 19 μg/dL. State law requires cities to conduct full epidemiological inspections only after a child tests twice at or above 15 μg/dL within a 90-day period, he added. ​“As proposed,” he said, ​“the City of New Haven would exceed both recommendations” with its new proposed ordinance amendment.

Hamilton, who has stepped in to replace Kowalski as the interim environmental health director and therefore as the city’s top lead poisoning health official, then publicly contradicted Harp by saying the city does not plan to enforce full inspections and abatements for children with blood lead levels of 5.

“That hasn’t been revised,” Hamilton said in response to a question about the city’s new proposed definition of ​“lead poisoning.”

Harp disagreed. ​“We will do an inspection and a full epidemiological search,” the mayor told reporters at the press conference. ​“We’ll do exactly what it is that we would have done at 20 [μg/dL]].”

Not exactly, Hamilton said. ​“We’re not doing full inspections. We’re not using the XRF machines, I don’t think.”

“Yes we are,” Harp cut in. ​“We have decided, I have decided as mayor that we are going to use everything that is required at a higher level at 5.”

Their exchanges can be viewed in a video of the press conference, embedded below in this article. The dispute between Harp and Hamilton begins at the 16:15 minute mark.

The city later posted its own Facebook Live video of the press conference, but the audio cuts out right as Harp and Hamilton disagree over whether or not full inspections should be done for children with blood lead levels of 5.

Praise, Concern From Legal Aid

After the presser, New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) Attorney Amy Marx praised the mayor for committing to enforcing the city’s lead poisoning protection laws for children with blood lead levels of 5 — despite what was said at the same press conference by Hamilton and Muley.

Marx and fellow legal aid attorney Shelley White have taken the city to court nearly a half dozen times over the past two years regarding the city’s substandard lead paint inspections and abatement enforcement. Four different judges in that time period have ruled in favor of legal aid and against the city in those cases. 

“We are extremely pleased with what we heard the mayor state today,” Marx said Monday. ​“She stated clearly and unequivocally that she intends to provide full lead protections including, full lead hazard inspections, for all children with 5 μg/dL or greater. And she intends to work with Board of Alders leadership to resolve any prior misunderstandings” around the city’s lead laws.

She called on the city to immediately start scheduling and conducting lead hazard inspections for all children in the city who are under 6 years old and have blood lead levels above 5 μg/dL. She also said the city should settle the existing lawsuit, in which Cordani has still yet to decide on whether or not to certify a class of potentially hundreds of lead poisoned city children similarly neglected by the city’s health department.

Finally, she said, the city should make sure to include community advocates and legal aid representatives on its Lead Paint Poisoning Advisory Committee, which currently consists just of doctors, city-hired attorneys, and city and state health department officials.

Below are the individuals currently on the city’s advisory committee: R. Douglas Bruce, the chief of medicine at the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center; Amanda DeCew, a nurse practicioner; Catherine LaMarr, a deputy city corporation counsel; Heather Reynolds, a lecturer at the Yale School of Nursing; Meredith Williams, a pediatrician at Yale New Haven Hospital; Frank Mongillo, a doctor of internal medicine; Karen Dubois Walton, the head of the city’s public housing authority; Frank D’Amore, a deputy director of the city’s anti-blight Livable City Initiative; Tanaysia Jefferson; Muley; LCI Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo; LCI Deputy Rafael Ramos; city Human Resources Manager Stephen Librandi; Roslyn Hamilton, interim environmental health director; Corporation Counsel John Rose, Senior Asst. Corporational Counsel Stacey Werner; Nancy Mandel; Kimberly Ploszaj, an epidemiologist with the Connecticut Department of Public Health; Sherrine Drummond, an epidemiologist with the Connecticut Department of Public Health; Nicole Pratt; and state attorneys Judith Dicine and John Kerwin.

“The mayor’s new policy is the same policy they should have been enforcing all along,” Justin Elicker, who’s challenging Harp for the Democratic mayoral nomination, said after the press conference, which he observed.

He argued that the ​“tens of thousands” of dollars in attorney fees the Harp administration spent fighting the legal aid lawsuits would have been better spent protecting children’s health according to what are national consensus standards.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Monday’s full presser.

Previous lead coverage:

• Motion Accuses City Of Contempt
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Briefs Debate ​“Lead Poisoning”
• New Haven: Another Flint?
• Harp Administration Admits Relaxing Lead Standard To Save $$
• Class-Action Suit Slams City On Lead
• City, Legal Aid Clash On Lead Paint
• Legal Aid To City: Get Moving On Lead Paint Law
• 100+ Tenants Caught In Lead Limbo
• 2 Agencies, 2 Tacks On Lead Paint
• Chapel Apartments Get 3rd Lead Order
• Lead Sends Family Packing
• Health Officials Grilled On Lead Plans
• Judge Threatens To Find City In Contempt
• Same Mandy House Cited Twice For Lead Paint
• Lead $ Search Advances
• 3 Landlords Hit With New Lead Orders
• Another Judge Rips City On Lead
• Judge To City: Get Moving On Lead
• Health Department Seeks Another $4.1M For Lead Abatement
• City-OK’d Lead Fixes Fail Independent Inspection
• Judge: City Dragged Feet On Lead
• 2nd Kid Poisoned After City Ordered Repairs
• Judge: City Must Pay
• City Sued Over Handling Of Lead Poisonings
• City’s Lead Inspection Goes On Trial
• Eviction Withdrawn On Technicality
• 2nd Child Poisoned; Where’s The City?
• Carpenter With Poisoned Kid Tries A Fix
• High Lead Levels Stall Eviction
• 460 Kids Poisoned By Lead In 2 Years
• Bid-Rigging Claimed In Lead Cleanup
• Judge Orders Total Lead Paint Clean-Up
• Legal Aid Takes City To Task On Lead