Rookies Run To Boost Small Biz, Affordability

First-term Alder Gary Hogan is meeting with some of his new colleagues this week to see if they can find more money for nonprofits when they vote next week on a new city budget.

First-term Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith is speaking with colleagues about whether they can find more money for a school system facing up to 129 staff layoffs.

If they find themselves back in City Hall’s alder chambers to help decide the following year’s budget, they hope to bring forward ways to boost library programming and budding catering businesses.

Smith, who represents East Rock and Fair Haven’s Ward 9, and Hogan, who represents Beaver Hills’ Ward 28, discussed those plans during a conversation Tuesday on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.”

Smith has filed papers to seek a second term in November’s election. Hogan announced on the program that he, too, will seek reelection.

Democrats Hogan and Smith joined the board this past term at different ends of their community-connected careers. Hogan, who’s 66 (and took his seat mid-term after the death of Alder Tom Ficklin), has spent his adult lifetime in New Haven government and civic roles, from working in city housing agencies to overseeing the revival of the Elks Club. Smith, 32, who co-founded the grassroots entrepreneurship program Collab and chaired the Downtown Wooster Square Community Community Management Team among other civic projects, is digging in for decades more of community leadership.

Both described responding to constituent requests (for traffic calming, public safety) and organizing campaigns like neighborhood clean-ups and emergency help for nonprofits as central to their work as alders. They said they’re eager to continue that work in a second term.

“The secret sauce of New Haven is that people love this place,” Smith reflected.

“They want to be active. People want to create events, and they want to create festivals. And I think that’s a competitive advantage. How do we make it easier? How do we make government an entity that’s easy to navigate so that people can do good in their neighborhoods?”

After decades of testifying before alders as a city official, Hogan will vote for the first time as an alder on a city budget at next Tuesday night’s meeting. He said he noticed some youth and senior-focused nonprofits receiving a cut in city funding this year to as little as $15,000. Arguing that they need more, he’s putting heads together with some other alders later this week to see if some money might be available within the budget to fund some increases, he said.

Another concern he noticed in the budget: Funding for programming at branch libraries like Stetson stands at $3,000.

“That’s not a lot for a library, not that I can change that in this year’s budget,” but he’s gearing up to make the case for increases in future years’ budgets if he’s reelected, Hogan said. ​“Libraries seem to be the only place where there’s a sense of community” for people across age groups, he said.

He’s also putting together a ward ​“affordability committee” to focus on ways to cut energy and insurance and property tax bills. ​“I have an aging population on the west side of my ward, retired, living on a fixed income. Utility costs are going up with that. Many of us have tried to figure out how to reduce our insurance.”

Tanbee Smith is focused this coming week on discussions about how to boost the education budget. Like Hogan, she also has her eye on a part of the budget she’d like to address in a second term: licensing costs for caterers, including people looking to launch cooking businesses.

Tanbee Smith, who just received a degree from Yale School of Management, said New Haven’s catering license fee — $650 for the first year, $550 a year after that — is higher than that charged by other cities. Hartford, for instance, charges $250. She’s working on a proposal for next year that would slash the annual rate and charge budding entrepreneurs no fee for the first year in order to help them get new businesses off the ground.

The proposal grows out of work Tanbee Smith has done with small business owners and with the city’s economic development department to streamline the business permitting process and better inform applicants of the rules. 

“New Haven punches above its weight in terms of individuals who want to start something. How do we encourage that as much as we can and potentially actually beget more revenue growth by them being able to be more successful and kind of get their feet on the ground?” she said.

Among other plans, Tanbee Smith looks to work with people looking to convert the area behind Ralph Walker skating rink into a park connecting Fair Haven and East Rock; and continue helping to spearhead an effort to redesign four I‑91 exits in her ward to make them safer for pedestrians and cyclists and connect severed neighborhoods. That effort succeeded in winning a $2 million federal planning grant, launching what will become a long-range project. Like Gary Hogan, she’s looking at the long game in playing a part in making New Haven a richer community.

Click on the video below to watch the full conversation with Alders Gary Hogan and Caroline Tanbee Smith on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of ​“Dateline New Haven.”