Thomas MacMillan Photo
Employees of New Haven government’s neighborhood development and anti-blight agency went home for the weekend with the status of their boss still unresolved.
Erik Johnson, who heads the agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), recently accepted a $125,000 job as deputy development director for the city of Hartford. He agreed to start on July 7, according to his new boss-to-be, Hartford Director of Development Services Thomas Deller.
Johnson (pictured above promoting his agency’s new city homebuyer initiative) put out word around New Haven last week about his new job. But he didn’t formally hand in his resignation to Mayor Toni Harp. Harp asked him to reconsider the move, and began negotiating. She offered to try to match the proposed Hartford salary. (Johnson’s New Haven salary had been slated to rise to $98,230 in the new fiscal year beginning July 1.)
Read a full story about the fluid, unusually public episode and about Johnson’s career in New Haven here.
Harp originally said Johnson would let her know by this Tuesday if he would stay after all. Instead, negotiations between Johnson and Harp’s team continued through the week. According to people familiar with the negotiations, they center not so much on the salary as on the future direction of LCI. Johnson sought a new vision for the agency, including more of a focus on neighborhood development. Harp had promised during last year’s mayoral campaign to look at reconfiguring the agency and updating its mission. All sides saw this sudden will-he-stay-or-will-he-go negotiation as a chance to address that broader issue.
Negotiations were expected to continue through the weekend.
Deal time! Make sure you call your Alder and tell how you feel about this matter....I am an Erik fan because he has a vision and he is moving the agency out of stagnation and DeStefanosis.
This is exciting. Will the Alders make this happen? Can leadership flex? Can the Mayor pull this off? This process has become very public.
Memo to Hartford: Repost the job.....we are not letting him go! We have other staff for you to poach from LCI.
Let's see how the Ducks line up on this one.