Candidates’ Ideas Could Transform New Haven

Second of 2 parts about mayoral campaign issues.

We interrupt the regularly scheduled campaign mud-slinging and character assassination for a public-service bulletin: The candidates for mayor in Tuesday’s election have a whole bunch of detailed suggestions for how to make schools work better, buses run more often, food-related small businesses get started, and City Hall operate smarter.

And if history is any guide, some of those ideas may actually come to fruition, no matter who wins Tuesday’s mayoral general election contest between Democrat Toni Harp and independent Justin Elicker.

Elicker and Harp have debated dozens and dozens of issues in public forums (as well as articles such as this, this, this, this, and this). They’ve also put extensive position statements on their websites.

In interviews with the Independent as the campaign comes to a close, they agreed to cull some of their most concrete and almost immediately achievable new ideas (not necessarily their biggest ideas). This story presents 12 of those ideas, evenly divided between Elicker and Harp proposals.

In New Haven mayoral campaigns, it hasn’t always mattered who generates an idea.

Sometimes the winner puts his own ideas into policy: John Daniels made bringing community policing to New Haven a central plank of his successful 1989 mayoral campaign, for instance. The labor-backed aldermen who won office two years ago partly on a local jobs platforms helped bring the New Haven Works jobs pipeline into being.

Sometimes the winner borrows from the runners-up: After the 1993 election, successful Democratic mayoral candidate John DeStefano borrowed Republican opponent Kevin Skiest’s idea of selling tax liens. That enabled him to leverage state money to rebuild city schools. In a subsequent election he borrowed an idea suggested by independent challenger Wally Grigo: building a new shopping mall on Long Wharf rather than downtown. (That one backfired.) In 2011, DeStefano heeded the call of a slate of aldermanic candidates who defeated his own team, and hired a new chief to bring community policing back again.

And sometimes a candidate’s general critique can lead to new ideas that in turn become policy: After Democrat Jim Newton gave scandal-plagued incumbent DeStefano a scare in the 1999 Democratic mayoral primary by tapping into public frustration over corruption and ethics scandals, DeStefano joined two aldermen in crafting what would become the state’s first municipal public-financing law.

So read on to sample some of the ideas that just might become catch fire from the embers of this year’s mayoral campaign, no matter who wins.

Idea: Citywide Wi-Fi

Some people who live near downtown Yale buildings can get on a university wireless internet network for free. Elicker proposed making that happen, piece by piece, throughout the city, especially in poor neighborhoods. He’d begin with stationing publicly available networks in government-owned buildings. The housing authority’s projects would be prime locations for this, he said; that will key people who now lack high-speed internet access to more commerce, job-seeking, educational opportunities, and general information. (Mayor John DeStefano proposed the idea in 2005, but never carried it out.)

Idea: The ​“6 – 6” School In Newhallville

Some parents are desperate to get their kids coveted slots in magnet schools because they dislike their neighborhood schools. Other families find their kids sent to different schools after faring differently in lotteries for magnet-school slots. Harp sees a way to start reviving the neighborhood school: Keeping it open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., filled with recreation and educational-enrichment programs (plus additional snacks and dinner). She proposes trying out the idea at Newhallville’s Lincoln Bassett School. She’d tap foundation and possibly state money for child care or early education or youth programs. She’d also enlist community groups in running programs at the school. In Lincoln Bassett’s case, she’d tap music-oriented donors like the school’s generous Class of ​‘54 (or perhaps Yale’s Class of ​‘57?) to pony up for music lessons for the kids; Lincoln-Bassett already has a tradition of emphasizing music and inviting adult volunteers (like Lt. Patricia Helliger, pictured) into the school. The 6 – 6 school would attract families to the area and start stabilizing the neighborhood, where homes are still affordable, Harp said. She would then bring the idea to Hill Central and Dixwell’s Wexler-Grant.

Idea: ​“One Card”

Elicker borrowed this idea from Boston. He wants public-school students to receive a single card that serves as school ID as well as a pass for the CT Transit bus, the library, youth programs, and free and reduced school lunches (“to eliminate the stigmas associated with being on this program, because everyone uses the card regardless of income”). Besides simplifying life for the kids, the card would provide the city data ​“to analyze what programs are being well used, which ones are not and identify gaps in service.”

Idea: 1‑Hour Train To NYC

Harp has proposed pushing Metro-North to improve the tracks and offer a quick, 60-minute train ride from Union Station to Manhattan with only a couple of stops. Critics and Metro-North call the plan unrealistic because of cost and difficulties in improving some of the curving tracks. The Harp camp argues that Metro-North has in the past balked at making improvements that later proved feasible. Harp also argues that setting the goal can at least in the short term help lead to gradually quicker limited-stop options to New York — thus helping boost development in New Haven.

Idea: ​“No Wrong Door”

Right now parents have to go Hamilton Street to sign up their kids for pre-school—if the pre-school in question happens to receive federal Head Start money. If the school happens to get state magnet money, they get turned away and sent to that intimidating central school office building on Meadow Street. Elicker proposes a ​“no wrong door” policy: A parent going to any school building, or to City Hall, or to either of the above buildings, will encounter a staffer who can answer all questions about pre‑K and elementary school sign-ups — and then sign the parent’s kid up right there on the spot. Elicker has pushed this issue as an alderman.

Idea: Register Lobbyists

Harp calls for requiring anyone hired to lobby city aldermen or officials on projects worth at least $50,000 to officially register. They’d also pay $300 and file quarterly reports on their activities. (State government already requires that at the Capitol.) That idea was part of a seven-point ethics plan she released during the campaign. When the city considered selling future parking-meter receipts (“monetization”) to an out-of-state firm in return for up-front cash to fill a budget hole, those who stood to profit took aldermen to lunch at the Chapel Street restaurant Zinc; Harp says, when asked, that her policy would cover that kind of activity. She argues that the system will enable the Board of Ethics to investigate alleged improprieties — like the case of Andy Rizzo, who began paid work as a city lobbyist immediately upon retiring as a city official even though city ethics law requires waiting a year.

Idea: Simplified, More Frequent & Predictable Bus Routes

Yale should give its students and employees passes for CT Transit buses, the way Gateway Community College does, instead of running its own shuttle, at least during the day, Elicker said. That would give the system more riders and more money to afford more routes. Meanwhile, he called for simplifying the routes (such as in cases where some lettered routes change course at different hours), and stashing GPS-equipped smartphones under the seats of drivers so riders can track whereabouts of different buses along their routes. He’d also survey non-CT Transit riders, not just the existing riders, to find out how to improve service.

Idea: Indoor Local Food Market & Business Incubator

New Haven already has outdoor neighborhood CitySeed local-produce markets much of the year. Harp now wants to add a year-round indoor market to the mix — stationing it perhaps in an old unused factory, with space for local people to grow food, share kitchen, and develop, with professional assistance, new businesses. She got the idea from Phyllis W. Haynes, a local woman who had to quit her job when her husband got sick; from home Haynes developed a new line of Southern-style cabbage-based ​“Chow Chow” relish. She told Harp about her difficulties in growing the business and bringing it to market. The new indoor center would both help entrepreneurs like her create jobs and bring more healthful food to New Haven, Harp said. (A similar concept is contained in the recent consultants’ report for developing the Mill River Industrial District.)

Idea: Putting Neighborhood After-School Programs Right In The Schools

This isn’t a new idea. It just hasn’t happened. Amid all the talk about where (and how!) to build youth centers in every neighborhood, Elicker proposes putting after-school programs in each neighborhood inside the city’s beautiful and underused rebuilt public schools. To pay for it, he’d link up with a not-for-profit or volunteer organization (such as the Nation Drill Team, the Firebrids, Solar Youth) in each neighborhood to move programs into the space. (Matthew Nemerson advanced this idea as well during his Democratic mayoral primary campaign.) Elicker added that he does as well support long-term planning projects to build, for instance, a new Dixwell Community ​“Q” House; meanwhile he wants to jump start the process of bringing after-school programs to neighborhoods in affordable, sustainable ways.

Idea: Tenant Co-Ops

New Haven, with federal help, spawned tenant housing cooperatives in neighborhoods all over town in the 1960s and 1970s. For a generation they provided safe, attractive homes for working families. In recent years they’ve all failed one by one, plagued by mismanagement and tenant board infighting. The most recent failed co-op to go to private hands, and then fail again, is the old Dwight Co-Op Homes at 99 Edgewood Ave. Harp sat on the board of one co-op, Florence Virtue Homes, as an alderwoman. She remembers how ​“these old ladies brought the tenants in who were acting up. They said, ​‘If you want to stay here, you have to behave!’ People stopped drinking and smoking on their porches.” With troubled complexes like 99 Edgewood (which the city plans to sell to another private developer), and in new spots, Harp proposes reviving tenant co-ops — but this time adding a layer of city government management oversight and accountability to ensure they last longer.

Idea: Participatory Budgeting

Chicago has tried this in some neighborhoods. So has Brooklyn. Neighborhoods get a fixed amount of money from the city for, say, public improvements; then neighbors decide how to divide it up. Elicker wants to try this in New Haven. That way, he said, people can ​“take ownership” of public decisions and ​“find room to compromise.” For instance, one neighbor who wants a new playground might compromise with someone else who wants four speed bumps; maybe they’d agree to two speed bumps and a more modest playground than originally envisioned. (Read more about participatory budgeting here.)

Idea: Neighborhood Grocery Buying Co-ops

Some of New Haven’s poorest families pay the highest prices for food by shopping at neighborhood groceries. Harp proposes organizing a buying co-op for those groceries so they can purchase products at lower wholesale prices and pass along savings. That would build on work of a public-health coalition called CARE that has been trying, with mixed success, to bring more healthful food (including fresh fruits and veggies) into neighborhood stores.

Previous installment in this series:

• Mayoral Candidates Cast Their ​“True Votes”

Previous stories on mayoral campaign issues (from the primary):

• Where the candidates stand on housing and neighborhood development
• Where the candidates stand on school reform
• Where the candidates stand on public safety
• Where the candidates stand on management and budget questions