New Haven Independent

The two aldermen (pictured) convinced their colleagues on the aldermanic Finance Committee Thursday night to approve an amendment to the city’s budget Thursday night. The amendment will redirect some money from Tweed-New Haven Airport to several city improvements, including the installation of a catch basin for the more than 10,000 street drains that wash into Beaver Pond, bringing street litter — like empty plastic bags — into the pond.

After approving that amendment and one other, the committee unanimously passed an otherwise unchanged 2009-10 fiscal year city budget. The $464 million budget now goes to the full Board of Aldermen for a final vote on May 26th.

Alderman Sandman said that he when he goes canoeing with his children in Beaver Pond he tells them not to touch the water, because it’s so filthy. Storm drains bring unfiltered water laden with street litter right into Beaver Pond from the Beaver Hills, Westville, West Hills and Newhallville neighborhoods.

The area is “littered with dimebags that come in from storm drains,” Sandman said. Dimebags are the little, resealable plastic bags used for retail-size amounts of illegal drugs.

A catch basin will catch 90 percent of the street litter, Sandman said.

Purchase and installation of the basin will cost $50,000. That money is part of $115,000 that would be taken from the city’s contribution to Tweed Airport capital improvements under the amendment. Sandman and Lemar’s amendment would reduce the city’s portion from $662,000 to $547,000.

Of the remainder of the $115,000 savings, $55,000 would go toward the resurfacing of tennis courts in Edgewood and East Shore Parks and $10,000 toward a feasibility study into whether the City Plan and Zoning departments can go paperless.

The second change approved Thursday night was a technical amendment from the city’s budget office to adjust a number of line items as a result of a surplus in utility money. The electricity bills for several city departments were not as expensive as anticipated, freeing up $271,769.

Part of the technical amendment’s reallocation of this money will allow for the restoration of three eliminated positions, an account clerk, a public liability investigator, and an elderly services specialist. Hill Alderman Jorge Perez took issue with this last, asking why the city budget included money for an elderly services specialist while senior centers are being closed.

“I would really like someone to explain that in more detail,” Perez said. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Budget Director Lawrence Rusconi promised to look into it.

Amend Early

The Sandman/Lemar amendment for a catch basin and tennis court improvement was a scaled-down version of the aldermen’s original idea, which was to pull out the city’s entire $662,000 contribution to Tweed capital improvements. The budget department told them if they did that, the airport would lose $1 million in state and $5 million federal matching funds.

Lemar and Sandman said that their experience learning the ramifications of their proposed amendment is a reason last-minute budget proposals — the kind that might be seen at the Board of Aldermen’s May 26 budget vote — are a bad idea. If they had waited until that time, and made their original proposal, it might have been passed before anyone realized that it meant giving up millions in federal and state money.

“It’s really responsible to have the amendments in early,” Lemar said.

“It’s about responsible government,” Sandman agreed, not about “showboating” and “grandstanding” on the 26th.