Alder Decker: LLC sunshine law will help keep renters safe.
Shooters, slackers, slumlords, and students better watch out, if four new measures passed Tuesday night accomplish their aims.
Votes to approve the new legislative measures took place during the latest bimonthly meeting of the full Board of Alders. The in-person meeting was held in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
The four items in question received few comments and no debate from local legislators before they unanimously cast their votes in support.
Nevertheless, the votes granted final approvals to several consequential — and in some cases controversial — initiatives promoted by the Elicker Administration and the New Haven Public Schools to address gun violence, safe housing, the future of adult ed, and classroom-computer surveillance.
Thomas Breen photo
Board of Alders meeting Tuesday night.
The legislative items unanimously approved by the alders Tuesday night included:
• An ordinance amendment that requires landlords who register their multi-family rental properties with the city through the residential rental licensing program to provide an actual — or “natural” — person’s name and contact information.
“This ordinance amendment helps LCI [the Livable City Initiative] have a contact on file for an actual person for rental properties in New Haven rather than just a limited liability corporation,” East Rock Alder and Legislation Committee Chair Charles Decker said before Tuesday’s vote, “so that they have someone they can contact in the event of emergencies or follow up on enforcement or compliance issues. This will help ensure safety in our rental housing stock in New Haven.” Click here and here for previous articles about this initiative.
• An order authorizing the Board of Education to enter into a three-year contract with the California-based tech firm GoGuardian for the period of July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2024. Per a presentation by the school system’s IT director at a recent Finance Committee meeting, NHPS is already using GoGuardian to allow teachers to monitor students’ activities on their computers while students are logged in to Google Classroom. Promoters of the program argue it’s an effective and necessary tool for keeping students on task as digital devices — and the myriad distractions that come with Internet access — become even more entrenched in the classroom. Critics lambast the program as spyware that breaks down trust between teachers and students. Click here for a previous article about this contract.
• An order authorizing the mayor to sign a four-year, $1,676,919 contract with ShotSpotter that will expand the gunshot-detection program on the far east and west sides of town. The police chief and other supporters of the program laud ShotSpotter as helping police better respond soon after someone fires a gun. Critics claim it’s a way of spending money without helping solve crime. Click here for a previous article about this contract.
• An order authorizing the Board of Education to enter into a three-year, nine-month lease agreement with SP Ella LLC for the period of Oct. 1, 2021 through June 30, 2025. That lease would keep New Haven’s adult education center in place in its long-time home, a 40,000 square-foot building at 540 Ella T. Grasso Blvd, for the next few years. It would see the Board of Education’s annual rent at the rundown property jump by tens of thousands of dollars each year — and it would also require the new landlord to make a host of fixes to the property, including repairs to an old HVAC system, leaky ceilings, and damaged carpeting. Click here, here and here for previous articles about this controversial lease.
A simple search for GoGuardian shows that many municipalities have concerns for this software. GoGuardian products allow teachers and administrators to view and snapshot students' computer screens, close and open browser tabs, and see running applications. GoGuardian can collect information about any activity when users are logged onto their accounts, including data originating from a student's webcam, microphone, keyboard, and screen, along with historical data such as browsing history. This collection can be performed whether students connect from school-provided or personally-owned devices.
Having access to the webcam, viewing browsing history on not only NHPS equipment but the students or teachers own devices (as mentioned in this article by the IT Director and on the GoGuardian site) does not seem like a good idea and I am guessing will result in privacy lawsuits against the City. Also if this requires a BOA approval since multiple year agreement why has the NHPS IT department already rolled out this software and started using it without prior approval due to privacy concerns or following the City procedure to have the BOA approve prior to using it? Seems like the IT director was not providing an accurate description of the software, and based on this and other issues with her management of the NHPS IT department it may be worth another look at whether she is the right candidate for that position. Obviously she is not following procedures getting permission first from BOA, but I have heard she does not follow procedures.
Simple safeguards on the devices or at the firewall level can accomplish the same result by restricting access on NHPS devices without resulting in any privacy issues at no cost.