nothin $10K Offer Sparks Budget Debate | New Haven Independent

$10K Offer Sparks Budget Debate

Markeshia Ricks Photos

Westvilians make their top picks.

Before Westville and West Hills neighbors decided on how to spend an annual allotment of $10,000 from the city, they asked themselves a bigger question: Should they even accept the money?

That question is being asked in a year when Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed new fiscal year budget is counting on $31 million in additional, and now threatened, state aid.

Krenisky questioned accepting the money.

John Krenisky asked his neighbors to think about whether it should be spending even $10,000 when the city is so strapped for cash, noting that the amount represents about 70 percent of one property tax bill in Westville.

Should we refuse the money and stop this discussion right now?” he asked during the monthly community management team meeting at Mauro-Sheridan School this past Wednesday.

Each year for the last three years, the Liveable City Initiative, the city’s anti-blight agency, has provided $10,000 to each neighborhood management team through its Neighborhood Public Improvement program. The teams are supposed to come up with a project or series of project ideas for spending the money.

Over the last two years, Westville has used the money to purchase equipment to help keep up green spaces and common areas in Westville Village, and for major events like Art Walk.

The money also has helped pay for two self-powered speakers and a snow blower and a used flatbed utility golf cart with a water tank on the back to maintain planters, new street trees and green spaces at Beecher Park. Other management teams have used their funds to establish youth ambassador initiatives, paying young people to help keep their neighborhoods clean. That program was so successful,LCI has sought ways to expand the program without neighborhoods spending the $10,000 on it.

But should neighborhood priorities matter as much when the city’s finances are looking shaky? West Hills neighbor Doug Losty asked. He said $10,000 represents the taxes on two houses in his neighborhood.

I can’t conceive right now almost any worthwhile reason that would come up to the parity of the current budget crisis that the city is in,” he said. That to me trumps everything.”

Gabriel Da Silva pitches for poles.

Neighbor Amy Marx said she saw the money — if there were worthy projects — as an opportunity to maintain some community autonomy and have a direct say in how tax dollars are spent, while also signaling to the city what Westville/West Hills residents care about.

Neighbor Laura Cahn also pointed out that if the neighborhood refused the money, it might not ever see it again, and there stands a chance that it would be absorbed in another part of LCI’s or some other department’s budget.

New Westville/West Hills LCI Neighborhood Specialist Jillian Driscoll confirmed that has happened with other community management teams: Not that they’ve rejected the funding, but that they’ve failed to spend it and found it hard to get later.

I know in the past CMTs have not used their whole $10,000 and now, they want it back and it’s a problem,” she said.

The Bradley proposal, poles and WVRA get the votes.

The neighbors put the question of whether to reject the money to a vote. It was 18 to 3 against rejecting the money. Neighbors ultimately decided to give the $10,000 to the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance with the recommendation that it support the following three uses:

• $2,000 to support a plan proposed by Bob and Katie Bradley to have Block Watch 303 spearhead improvements to programming for Beecher Park and Mitchell which include a large storage box for tools, two large benches, replacing a clock that was stolen, fix or replace broken planters and tree maintenance.

• $6,000 or $7,000 to purchase two poles for hanging banners about events in Westville across Whalley Avenue as it is done further down Whalley in the Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills community.

• Remaining money for WVRA’s general operations.

Tags:

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

Avatar for Bill Saunders

Avatar for budman

Avatar for new haven can do better

Avatar for dandelp

Avatar for Bill Saunders

Avatar for Paul Cezanne