New Haven Independent

Murphy spoke about the factory’s future during a breakfast talk at the Graduate Club organized by the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund. The talk served as an update after Murphy’s hectic first six months on the job as City Hall’s economic development adminstrator.

The Winchester arms plant closed at the end of March, leaving 187 workers unemployed. Since then the city has tried to find a new buyer for the remnant of what in its heyday was the jobs lifeline of the Newhallville and Dixwell neighborhoods. The plant’s Belgian owner, Herstal, agreed to give the city time before moving out inventory and equipment — until June 23 to find potential buyers to submit bids. First those potential buyers would have to prove they were qualified to buy the plant; at that point Herstal agreed to open its books, including proprietary information on costs and sales. If anyone does submit a bid, the city then has until July 15 to see if it can make progress on a deal, then until September to seal it, according to Murphy. Any buyer would have to negotiate directly with Herstal about a sale, but also with city and state governments about taxpayer help.

Murphy said more than four gunmakers originally expressed interest but some dropped out. She wouldn’t identify the qualified buyers.

“I’m slightly hopeful we will actually have bidders. It’s always been a long shot. At least we have an opportunity here,” Murphy said.

Other news from Murphy’s talk Wednesday:

&#149 The city is trying out a valet parking operation on Temple Street from Chapel Street to Frontage Road, where new restaurants have been opening. Murphy said the city has received three bids from private companies interested in running the operation, which she said should get going “hopefully some time in summer. If it’s successfully we’ll try it in other parts of the city.”

&#149 This Sunday the city will begin advertising, in the Register legal notices section, for developers to submit plans to build new apartments, offices, and stores, plus lots of parking, on the Shartenberg lot at the corner of State and Chapel streets. Before it was a surface parking lot, the 1.5-acre site was home to a popular department store.

&#149 Thanks to City Hall’s effort to hire more local people and blacks and Latinos on government-funded construction projects, 207 city residents and 435 people of color have landed jobs so far in 2006. Some $1.5 million in wages have been paid to city residents in the school construction program. The city’s Commission on Equal Opportunities, which reports to Murphy, oversees this effort.

&#149 Murphy’s office discouraged a business from pursuing plans to restart the “Sooty Six” English Station power plant. “Evergreen Energy came in at one point to talk about that. We were not supportive of that happening. They have not been back,” Murphy said.

Although on the job six months, Murphy continued, as in past public remarks, to stress how much she still has to learn in New Haven. She has yet to make a controversial or attention-grabbing pronouncement or signal any new policies or directions. “You might actually know a little bit more than I do having been here six months,” she told the two dozen civic figures gathered at the Grad Club breakfast.

On the other hand, she also spoke of how two events plunged her deeply into New Haven development controversies and forced her to learn fast within her first month on the job: the controversy over whether Yale-New Haven Hospital could proceed with plans to build a $430 million cancer center and the Winchester plant closing. The first event had a happy ending. It’s too soon to tell about the second.