Steve Winter Resigns As Alder, Tapped As City Climate Director

“With a bittersweet mix of sadness and excitement, I write to submit my resignation from the Board of Alders, effective the end of the day today, December 9th, 2022,” Winter wrote. ​“On Monday, I will join your administration as the City’s Executive Director of Climate and Sustainability. I’m thrilled to serve the City in a new role and believe that effectively addressing the City’s climate and sustainability goals will improve the lives of New Haven’s residents by positively impacting issues such as health, housing affordability, and new employment opportunities.”

So the new age hippie is going into the big house.Here is two new age hippie songs as you depart.

Chicago - Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? (Official Audio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FzCWLOHUes

Starbuck ~ Moonlight Feels Right 1976 Disco Purrfection Version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpGg8U7Wg8g

My bad.Taking bets.He will run for mayor down the road.

Steve knows his neighbors. He listens closely and thinks deeply about community needs. He is humble, and also deeply educated on climate resilience and environmental sustainability. Grateful he is stepping up and leaning into this natural-fit stewardship role what we all need.

We need this like we need a $25 million tax increase.

I have worked on sustainability/climate policy for 30+ years. I cannot think of a person better suited for this position. David Weinreb is exactly right.

The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act appropriates billions of dollars for sustainability across a broad range of areas, including housing, transportation, and urban tree planting. The city and community groups are eligible for much of this money. Among Steve’s most important tasks is ensuring that they get, and effectively use, this funding. There will be a regional webinar on this topic next Tuesday,. Registration information is available at https://neep.org/event/ready-set-scale-neep-series-7

Three/Fifths, yeah, Steve is a hippie. You and I are old enough to have known hippies back in the day. Not a bad thing. (And as an expatriate Chicagoan, I’m very fond of the first song you listed.) 🤓 On a more serious note, climate policy has largely been determined by white, college educated people. Having represented Ward 21, Steve understands the need to broaden the conversation.

@ NHI - Salary? How plum a job is the new posotion?

What is the job description? Was it advertised? Other applicants?

@averagetaxpayer. I was wondering the same thing. Found this on google, looks like it was open for about 4 weeks.

https://www.jobapscloud.com/oec/NewHaven/Jobs/Bulletin?R1=2209&R2=0993&R3=01

"Special focus is on addressing the health and economic impacts of climate change on already distressed populations from COVID-19 and other factors."

Climate change and covid. Those villainous bastards! Around every corner they seem to appear...

Bad for the city (Steve was a very responsive alder (both sides of the hill) and was very studious about our budgetary problems).
Good for the city (Steve cofounded a non-profit that helps people access energy data in an open-source manner....so he isn't just an enthusiastic hippy...talking to you 3/5).

Sounds like administrative madness in New Haven. This is a BS job which only affects the recipient of the appointment. So much nonsense and that’s what voters in New Haven deserve for voting in the current leaders

I will gladly give you a job today, if you don't run against me tomorrow!!!!!!

"This guy wants me to do my job. What do I do?"
"Give him one. That'll shut him up."

Our Youngish, White, Able, Middle-Class Mayor chose to ignore the responsibilities of his office and not appoint anyone to the Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunities, Disabilities, Aging, Fair Rent or any of the city's other civil-rights commissions. Alder Winter was the only member of the Board of Alders who cared and to get the Mayor to do his job. Weird, right? None of our Black Alders care that New Haven's Affirmative Action Commission has no members. The Female and/or Hispanic members of the Board didn't care that the Equal Opportunities Commission had no members.

(That info is taken from the city's website so it's likely to be wrong The city's IT Dept. doesn't have a frim grasp of the reason for its existence and/or maybe it thinks that "Accuracy" is a city in China, I dunno. I know that Incompetence is on Church St.)

My guess is the he would have voted against making the Mayor 'Emperor for Life' or whatever term extension he wants so he can be held less accountable than he is now.

The most disadvantaged communities most at risk for climate change impacts live in our poorest neighborhoods with the least amount of trees and parks. I hope Steve Winter will focus on the unhoused encampments along the rivers and streams and underpasses to provide them shelter, and stop the sale of Kensington Park which provides much needed carbon capture and relief from the urban heat effect to a neighborhood with one of the highest asthma rates and lowest access to green trees and other plantings. The city should also prevent building new developments in the undeveloped land between the West River and Whalley Ave to keep it intact for flood mitigation and urban heat island mitigation and carbon capture. The city should also encourage more pocket parks and community gardens on empty lots not suitable for housing to give residents more access to healthy food, carbon capture, a relief from extreme heat. The city should encourage more solar panels, compost pickups for food waste and leaves, and pass laws making developers put in more green landscaping around their new builds and installing solar panels and storm water capture devices for watering their landscaping.
We also should not be putting residential buildings within the 100 year flood plain, and should put in flood mitigation public park infrastructure in those areas instead with the only buildings there being complimentary to public enjoyment and use of our waterfronts, and easily evacuated in the event of a storm. Property owners should also get a one time tax credit for installing solar power panels and storm water runoff capture and planting and caring for carbon capture trees on their properties.
It wouldn’t hurt to increase electric bus routes and have longer bus schedules to encourage more people to ride the bus to get around the area.

Cngratulations! Mazel Tov Steve, you are a mensch of mensches and someone committed to a sustainable New Haven. Steve, I hope you realize the real criminals in the destruction of the environment and contributors to climate change is the Military Industrial Complex. Lets stop the personal shaming of individuals in terms of energy usage and really focus on the cost of wars to the devastation of this planet. Energy usage of the United States MilitaryStates Military-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_usage_of_the_United_States_military
Steve, please continue to work with the City of New Haven Peace Commission and other local peace groups that are committed to sustainable goals. Lets get the youth of New Haven ready for careers in sustainable energy not serving "Uncle Sams" imperialist wars of aggression. Send the youth abroad to learn what other countries are doing to ameliorate the effects of climate change. We dont Junior ROTC in high schools, we need Junior Citizen Peace and Environmental Diplomats.
PS: THREEFIFTHS, What is this characterization of Steve as a New Age Hippie, evidently you dont know Steve. In my books Steve is a genuine revolutionary who knows and cares about the citizenry of New Haven. Give Steve a call and discuss over coffee. Zei Gesunt!!

Will miss Steve's independence on the BOA. That leaves Alder Festa as the only sane voice protecting New Haven taxpayers.

I don't get big planning a run for mayor vibes from Steve(but I could be wrong!). My prediction of the next open primary if it happens this decade is Carmen Rodriguez, Eli Sabin, Richard Furlow.

Winter is a good guy and has been a very capable Alder. But why does a municipality need to create a whole new agency for Climate Change?? City workers are running for the exits, labor contracts are years overdue, and taxes are always going up.

Beyond Discussion,

You just asked the best question of this whole discussion!
COVID RELIEF MONEY at WORK? There is an absence of information presented in this article in that regard.

Is this position funded in any other way???? I am only left to surmise!

If this position is truly necessary, I think it should be about managing State and Federal Initiatives that flow down to the local level. If this position is about turning into it's own local czar-ship, there is a really big problem going on at CITY HALL.

The City has no real authority in this regard, and the optics are just hypocritical -- banning leaf blowers while ignoring raging cyclists is part of the 'perception problem' that the 'powers that be' need to really start looking at, if anyone is to take these 'expansions of government' seriously, especially in the wake of a tax increase.....

The best candidate might not be the one you know personally, and that is the beginning of the problem here....

No need to place bets on this one...it's a no-brainer...

Beyonddiscussion, the creation of a new department is partially a bandwidth issue. There are a number of agencies that are already promoting sustainability, most notably Engineering under Giovanni Zinn and Dawn Henning. But they are responsible for dozens of issues, and can spend a limited amount of time on sustainability.

As I have noted, the Inflation Reduction Act appropriates billions nationally for sustainability. The city is eligible for funding in a very wide range of areas, including housing, transportation, schools, ports, and tree planting. Someone in City Hall needs to coordinate the city's efforts to go after this funding. If there were 48 hours in the day, Giovanni might be able to take on this task, aa well as his current responsibilities. But there are only 24 hours in the day.

Bill, the city actually does have the authority to affect climate in a wide variety of ways, with regard to mitigation and adaptation. With regard to mitigation, it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions through its land use, economic development, tax, and purchasing policies. For example, the city currently provides property tax breaks for all commercial developments. It could instead limit tax breaks to developments that promote specific city policies, which include sustainability as well as affordable housing. And it is already addressing adaptation in its planning for the Long Wharf and Mill River districts.

Curator, the mayor should definitely fill the vacancies you note. But people with disabilities are among those most at risk of climate change. The response to hurricanes Katrina and Sandy were particularly vivid illustrations of this. (Climate change does not create hurricanes. But it tends to make them more intense and less predictable.)

Didn't he vote FOR the New Tweed lease and expansion?