In 2010, They Strengthened Us

At 87, one ensured a congregation’s future with a real-estate deal and pioneer-woman mentoring. Another used oft-neglected levers of democracy to give voice to trampled taxpayers and force reforms. A third followed a hunch about dumped photographs.

In the past we highlighted a ​“person of the year.” This year we chose five people and a theme: strengthening civil society.

Call them the 2010 inductees into New Haven’s Civic Honor Roll: People who didn’t always top the headlines, but who decided to do more than their jobs called and buttressed our city’s communal government and non-government institutions in the process. (Yale’s resident New Haven expert, Doug Rae, coined a phrase for such labors: ​“building civic density” and ​“civic fauna.”)

Pastor Martha Green

Martha Green did it at St. Mary’s Unison Free Will Baptist Church. Green, a former laundry worker at the Veterans Administration hospital, founded the church in 1973. Women rarely did that back then. Green built the congregation up; now it’s bursting at the brick seams of its home on the first block of Goffe Street from downtown. At 87, she’s going as strong as the congregation. She struck a deal this fall to sell the building to Yale for $1 million; the money will enable the congregation to establish a new long-term home. (Read about that here.) Meanwhile, she has been training a new generation of female ministers. Six assistants preach along with her at St. Mary’s. Another formed her own church this year.

Officer Paul Kenney

In his 22 years as a beat cop in New Haven, Paul Kenney hasn’t been satisfied merely to clock in and out on the beat. When there’s more to the story —or a way to bring make peace rather than make an arrest —he makes the extra effort to do so.

His interest in history helps, too. At least it did this October when a Lincoln Street woman called to report discovering a case of photographs in her driveway.

Kenney could have just written up a report. But he looked through the five binders of photographs. They were filled with black-and-white images of Native Americans. Looking more closely, Kenney realized that these were historic gems. Some of them were photographs taken on the Pine Ridge Reservation at the time of the 1973 Wounded Knee incident between federal agents and members of the American Indian Movement. Others were more contemporary, equally stunning, portraits.

Kenney could have written his report and moved on to other business on his East Rock neighborhood beat. Instead he put the word out, to publicize the find. (Read about that and see more photos here.) A Beinecke museum official saw an Independent article, contacted the photographer (whose work had been stolen), and the photographer contacted Kenney. He got the pictures back. And two fellow buffs had a long talk about history.

(Check out 2010’s cops of the week here.)

Michael Smart

Like taxpayers around the country, New Haveners were up in arms about their bills this year. But they had a special set of complaints based on some strange doings. A for-profit coffee shop was penalized for not filing a form required of not-for-profit enterprises. Small business people all over town had gotten $5,000 assessment hikes based not on having bought more equipment, by an across-the-board generic decision by the tax assessor. The appeals board set up to hear complaints barely met, kept no records, had no understanding of the law, and even had rulings quietly, out of public view, ignored by the taxman.

Wooster Square Michael Smart didn’t have to pay attention to their complaints. (He had plenty else to do this year, like chase a burglar who broke into his house.) He didn’t have to do anything about the abuses. Government officials whose job it is to respond to such problems and other elected officials weren’t bothering to address it. So Smart found a way to address it. He runs the board’s Tax Abatement Committee. Its narrow mission is to hear individual requests for special tax breaks. That’s all Smart’s job description required. But — like, say, former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who dusted off long-forgotten state laws to go after Wall Street corruption being ignored by the most clearly responsible authorities — Smart decided his committee’s jurisdiction could tackle the problem.

First he held hearings. Crowds showed up; an extra hearings had to be held. That alone accomplished an important civic goal: Giving voice to beaten-down citizens denied due process. And bringing abuses to light. It also revealed new problems, like confusion over botched bills sent to 394 seniors eligible for a special tax break.

Smart’s committee kept going. When city officials failed to provide requested information, Smart called them back until they did. He subpoenaed appeals board members who tried to hide out. He drew up reform proposals. He discovered new conflicts of interest.

At first he took flak from New Haven’s political powers that be. But in the end, the mayor himself had to acknowledge that Smart had a point. He had his own staff investigate the long-ignored complaints. And he announced major reforms. Among them: He appointed an all-new appeals board, with knowledgeable people, who began taking the job seriously and doing it in public. He ended the practice of the across-the-board generic $5,000 assessment hikes. He instituted customer service training in the assessor’s office.

Rather than claim victory and move on to another subject, Smart and his committee decided the reforms should go further. They’ve drawn up a list; stay tuned to see how it fares. Meanwhile, Smart showed that New Haven’s legislature can serve as an independent branch of government when the will exists.

Rob Smuts & The Recyclers

As New Haven city government’s chief administrative officer, Rob Smuts has an overflowing to-do list overseeing the day-to-day operations of departments ranging from the cops to firefighters to public works. He also took time to think long-term this year. As a result, an experiment took root in how to reverse the city’s recycling slide.

Citywide recycling rates had dropped to 10 percent. Activists were pushing the city to do something about it. Smuts, who inherited a passion for environmental policy from his mom, and the city’s sustainability office, working with groups like the Master Recyclers, rolled out a new idea: Turn households’ tall 96-gallon blue curbside garbage toters into recycling bins. Let people throw all their cans, bottles, newspapers, scrap paper into that one bin, and have it separated elsewhere. Meanwhile, distribute new, smaller, 48-gallon bins for the rest of people’s garbage.

Changing habits is hard. Just getting the word out is a challenge. Smuts’ crew distributed the first batch of new toters in August to households in one-fifth of the city, covering Westville, West Hills, and part of Beaver Hill. They used flyers and the web and free media to explain the new system. (Click here for a list of recyclable materials.) Their goal: increase recycling in those neighborhoods by between 50 and 80 percent.

People took to the system fast. Within a month and a half the rate climbed from 11 to 28 percent and the city saved a quick $83,000. The climb continued. As of this week the recycling rate has increased 200 percent in the experiment district.

How often do government plans turn out better than hoped? Smuts hopes to capitalize on the momentum in 2011 as expands the new system citywide, one fifth by one fifth (corresponding to routes for each day of the week). If the Board of Aldermen says OK, the city will move up its dates for each expansion, with full coverage by March 2012.

Luis Rosa Sr.

Luis Rosa Sr.‘s job description this year included preparing some of the kids who flock to his Boxing in Faith gym in Fair Haven for big-time bouts. Rosa started the gym in 2009 as an after-school haven. The Grand Avenue gym hit its stride in 2010, with two dozen young people (a coed bunch) flocking there to work hard and train. This year three of Rosa’s trainees made it to pro bouts at Foxwoods Resort.

But Rosa never intended his job description to end with training young people for fights. He set up the not-for-profit to train them for life. He could claim those victories in 2010 — champs like 16-year-old Carlos Casul. A declining school career led to drinking, fights, arrests, and probation. Casul landed at the gym. He started getting in shape. He worked hard. And with Rosa’s encouragement, he stayed out of trouble and got straight at school

Rosa enforces strict rules at the gym, down to no swearing. ​“I give them discipline,” he said, ​“and love.”