New Haven Independent

Posted by: anon | March 5, 2009 1:17 PM

"The policy requires all city contractors to give a certain percentage of construction jobs to city residents, minorities and women who qualify."

This would be a good idea if it worked well and actually attracted a significant number of minority/women/resident workers. The current CW is that the program is simply a poster child, with very little actual impact - the same *relatively small* number of workers trotted from one site to another.

Unfortunately, it is hard to implement because unions and contractors push back significantly.

Say you are a construction company like Giordano. If you can hire your cousin Joe the Pipefitter from Providence for a job (who is out of work because of the downturn), why would you want to train a city resident?

It needs to be much larger to have an impact.

Posted by: ROBN | March 5, 2009 3:26 PM

Not that age automatically equals intellegence (no offense BOA), but it does equal some life experience. Aren't there any non-students in Ward 1 willing to run??? Like maybe somebody who's at least drinking age? Like maybe somebody who's a taxpayer?

Posted by: ANON | March 5, 2009 8:25 PM

Can you say shill for GESO, Yale unions and for CCNE? She wants hold up development for community benefit agreements (CBA) like the cancer center deal and everyone saw how that worked out.

She repeats her admiration for the administration but says she wont be a rubber stamp. Like whatever. The only question is whose rubber stamp will she be? The unions? GESO? Perhaps DeStefano? Maybe Goldfield? Or if you saw her the other day at Blue State all huddled up with Alderman George Perez sharing coffee you might claim she is his rubber stamp.

I know one thing. She is not a taxpayer and is only here for a few years at best. Not sure she should represent anyone well in New Haven.

Posted by: walt bradley | March 6, 2009 7:46 AM

I will ask again. Why has the Board of Aldermen or whomever is responsible for drawing up voting wards - allowed a district that we all know is only yale students - to be created, effectively giving Yale a seat on our governing body? The firsts ward is a rectangle surrounding the Yale campus. every other ward zig zags, has weird juts and ruts and whatnot that sometimes defy logic. The first ward should be absorbed by the downtown, dwight, dixwell and wooster square wards so we can have a representive who's actually from new haven, not a poly sci project.

Posted by: anon | March 6, 2009 10:06 AM

Anon, give the girl a break.

Posted by: The Trix Rabbit Returns | March 6, 2009 10:10 AM

Walt, I can explain. There are 30 Aldermanic wards in the city of New Haven. Given a population of around 124,000 (according to Wikipedia), that comes out to an average of 4133 persons per ward. Yale has 5,300 undergraduates, almost all of whom live on campus. Additionally, almost all of the Yale undergrads are of voting age, and considering the fact that about a quarter of New Haven's population is under 18, they actually have about 2000 more potential voters than the average ward should. While many students decide not to register to vote in New Haven, many others do, as is standard practice --university students from out of state are generally allowed to vote in local elections. Long story short, Yale students are about 5.5% of our city's voting eligible populace, and given that we generally give an alderman to every 3.3% of the voters, denying one to 5.5% would be quite undemocratic.

That said, there is a clear solution to this problem, if it really upsets you--reduce the number of aldermen. If there were 10 wards across the city, Yale would justifiably only make up half of a ward, and it theoretically could be split up as you propose to integrate the school with the surrounding neighborhoods politically. Now, about getting us down to ten wards...well, I'll believe it when I see it.

Posted by: Katie Harrison | March 6, 2009 11:24 AM

I would like to quickly clarify a few points from the development policy I presented on Wednesday. Though economic growth has enormous potential to increase city revenues and improve quality of life, I am a firm believer that development is only an effective means of addressing a city's problems when it occurs responsibly--that is with input and benefits from and for the surrounding community. The City of New Haven offers ample incentives for development and the Board of Aldermen has an active role in ensuring community benefits in return. Though the City's commitment to the hiring of local residents, women, and minorities for its construction projects is an important component of responsible development, the 2004 resolution I highlighted at my press conference was in fact that of July 6 "encouraging developers to enter into community benefits agreements in order to enhance the economic vitality of New Haven." This resolution represents an articulation of the Board's progressive vision for the development process in New Haven. However, a CBA has been reached on only one development project in the city thus far. As Ward 1 Alderwoman, I will work to encourage the inclusion of CBAs in all city development projects, as contractual agreements between developers and representative community groups present the best means for ensuring that development occurs responsibly and truly benefits the community.

Posted by: Research Assistant | March 6, 2009 4:03 PM

It's hilarious and frightening that someone, with a straight face, could argue that economic development in this City, in the year 2009, requires us to make it harder to invest and develop, rather than easier.

Posted by: ROBN | March 6, 2009 6:17 PM

TRIX,

What percentage of the 5,300 Yale undergrad population pay property taxes?

How many of the 5,300 Yale undergrad population are registered to vote in New Haven and do so?

Posted by: Alan Felder | March 7, 2009 12:00 AM

Anon, interesting insight into Chicago style politics.

Posted by: The Trix Rabbit Returns | March 7, 2009 12:11 AM

ROBN, I'm not sure how many Yale students are registered to vote in New Haven. I'm fairly sure that the number is below that of some of our wards, and that it is higher than some others. I'm fairly certain that they have a higher turnout of registered voters each election day than the majority of other wards in New Haven.
As for property taxes, Yale students don't pay them. For that matter, neither do renters (directly). People living in government housing don't even indirectly pay property taxes. The truth of the matter is that you get to vote in elections in a city if you live there, and the state of Connecticut has laws that say that the Yale students live in Connecticut enough to give them local voting rights.
Finally, I would like to point out that regardless of whether or not the Yalies pay taxes or are as committed to New Haven as other residents, they have given us some very good and committed aldermen. Think about it this way--in Ward 1, there is a real race between 3 people who have interesting and relatively informed policy ideas, who are willing to debate each other and will run a campaign based on the issues at hand. Are you sure that you can say that about your alderman, or most of the other aldermen that the "true" residents of this city elects? Maybe Yale should contribute more money to the city; maybe not. I don't think that serves as grounds to claim that Yale students should have no place in New Haven politics.

Posted by: Streever | March 8, 2009 11:49 PM

Anon2, and Katie, Anon1 is supporting Mike Jones, hence the being tough.

Posted by: robn | March 9, 2009 1:42 PM

TRIX,

There are two distinct but related issues

1) Property owners and non-public housing renters (the majority of New Haven residents) all pay taxes either directly or indirectly. This is a completely relevant issue since the primary function of the BOA is deciding how tax dollars are spent.

2) I'm pretty sure that the law allows a student to register in either their home town or in New Haven, but not both...the choice to either participate locally or not should indicate whether Yale students deserve a seat on the BOA. There are 65,000 registered voters in New Haven. Its a valid question to ask how many of them are Yale undergrads and does the volume of their participation warrant 1/30th representation.