New Haven Independent

On the left: West Haven Mayor John Picard. On the right: New Haven Mayor John DeStefano.

They showed up together at New Haven City Hall Tuesday afternoon to receive symbolic checks — to be followed by a combined $1 million — to clean up polluted abandoned lands (known as brownfields) to make way for new development.

The”checks,” as well as the real checks, come from the regional Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Brownfields Program, run by Carol Goldsberry Tucker (pictured), who came to the press conference bearing the blown-up mock checks. She spoke of how the EPA program enables cities to reclaim land to build schools, parks, playgrounds, and businesses.

New Haven will get $400,000 of the total going to the two towns. The money will go toward the new light-industrial business district taking shape on the banks of the Quinnipiac River in Fair Haven. Half the money will go toward cleaning up a 2.8-acre site on River Street. The rest of the money will go tward cleaning up 1.75 nearby acres on Lloyd Street.

The EPA money will help West Haven proceed with its West River Crossing project.

Science High

Picard and DeStefano plan to meet the press again Friday morning at 11, at the University of New Haven (UNH). They’ll announce a three-way agreement to proceed with a new UNH-sponsored regional magnet 6-12 school focused on science and technology. (Click here to read a previous story detailing the project.)

The $59 million school will eventually house 600 students, mostly from New Haven and West Haven. It marks a significant step by UNH to help boost local public education, as well as a symbol of cooperation between New Haven and West Haven.

The University of New Haven Science and Engineering Magnet School will be a city public school housed on or near the UNH campus right over the New Haven line in West Haven.

“The University of New Haven Science and Engineering Magnet School will be a ‘first’ for Connecticut,” UNH President Steven H. Kaplan said in a press release. “Beginning in the sixth grade, we will prepare students for a rigorous, technology-based high school program and they
will be thoroughly primed for success by the ninth grade.” The released added that “the problem-solving skills acquired in an engineering program equip students with skills that can be applied in any sphere of activity and give graduates the flexibility to accommodate new technology.”

Mayor Picard said Tuesday that he doesn’t expect his town to pay any of the cost for the school. Usually the state reimburses about 80 percent of the cost of new public schools. It will probably reimburse 95 percent of the cost in this case because the new school will also be a regional magnet.

“We’re looking forward to” the project, Picard said. “Science and engineering are important to our community.”

Some of his constituents in West Haven, however, are bristling at the idea of tax-exempt land in their city supporting a school with lots of New Haven students, according to this article in the New Haven Register.

Mayor DeStefano is under pressure, too, to avoid having his tax-strapped city pay a cent toward building the school. The Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee directed the city to seek outside sources of cash to fund that remaining 5 percent.

DeStefano said he wasn’t ready to comment until Friday about cost-sharing. He noted that lots of West Haven teens already attend New Haven high schools, especially the Sound School.

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