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City Hall: The Data on How He’s Still Getting the Job Done

by Paul Bass | Oct 31, 2005 10:23 am

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Posted to: City Hall

He might be running all over the state. But he’s still getting the job done at home.

That’s the message of Mayor John DeStefano’s press office. In response to a request to review the mayor’s daily schedule, it provided a list of what it called the mayor’s accomplishments since his latest term began in January 2004 (and, in a few cases, since he originally took office in 1993). Highlights:

â-ª The number of vacant buildings in town has dropped from 518 to 385.
√¢-¬™ The city’s Surplus Sales Program of foreclosed houses has overseen the rehab and sale of over 40 houses, producing 76 new housing units.
â-ª The city will pay for 120 rental/special needs housing units and is working on the $53 million HOPE VI project remaking the Quinnipiac Terrace housing project.
â-ª The housing authority committed $15 million to upgrading the Eastview Terrace project over the next five years.
√¢-¬™ The cops have seized 221 weapons off the street, added “saturation patrols” in hot spots in town, and gotten (as the press office put it) “on pace to decrease the number of shootings this month compared to last.” The press statement doesn’t mention that shootings are up this year. But it does note that the state corrections system has dropped 2,045 released inmates from all over the region into the city since January, 2004; and that the feds have cut non-homeland-security law-enforcement grants to the city.
â-ª The police department updated its Memorandum of Understanding with the Connecticut Mental Health Center after shootings of disturbed people by city cops.
√¢-¬™ The city’s school construction program created 537 jobs for blacks and Latinos and 247 jobs for city residents in 2005. It awarded $27 million in small business contractors, including $8 million to minority-owned firms, in 2004.
â-ª City small-business loans to firms owned by women and blacks and Latinos increased 50 percent in 2004.
â-ª By the end of October, the city will have completed 20 school construction and renovation projects worth $623 million and serving half the students in town. (Note: The schools look great, too. And the jobs are preserving beautiful historic details.) Eight brand-new schools have opened.
â-ª The drop-out rate has dropped almost in half since DeStefano took office. In the past eight years, the number of third-graders reading on grade level has soared from 15 to 85 percent.
â-ª The city passed a new law requiring inspection and licensing of absentee-owned apartments.
â-ª The mayor struck a ground-breaking agreement with large not-for-profits to contribute money to the city.
â-ª The grand list rose 2.4 percent last year, adding $3.6 million in new tax revenue. Meanwhile, aggressive tax-collection tactics have raised the collection rate to 98.3 percent, the highest in more than 20 years.
â-ª The last two fiscal years have ended in a surplus.
â-ª An aggressive City Hall energy conservation plan is on course to save $35 million by the end of 2010.
â-ª Pfizer finished its new human guinea-pig center on Route 34, adding up to 70 new jobs and $190,000 in new tax revenue.
â-ª IKEA opened.
â-ª More people have been flying out of Tweed.
â-ª Gateway Community College is moving downtown as part of a $200 million project creating more than 2,000 jobs.
√¢-¬™ We’re allowing drivers of hybrid cars to park for free on city streets and adding 3,000 new parking spots in new downtown garages by the middle of 2008.

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