Len Fasano has many titles: Republican president pro tempore of the state Senate; Republican legislator from North Haven; attorney at law..
As of Friday afternoon, he can add one more title to his name: “honorary state senator representing New Haven.” The job comes with some new responsibilities.
New Haven Mayor Toni Harp dubbed Fasano with his new title in their latest epistolary fencing.
Harp issued a letter to Fasano on Friday afternoon in which she informed the top Republican official that if he wants to scrutinize New Haven finances, then he better be prepared to do his part by advocating for the Elm City up in Hartford.
She was responding to a letter Fasano sent on Oct. 17. The letter ramped up his public criticism of the Harp administration in recent months, including calling the city a “place of despair” after August’s wave of over 100 overdoses on the Green. In this latest letter, Fasano called for a forensic audit of New Haven city finances based on embarrassing news stories about Harp administration spending.
Harp responded with the letter that city spokesperson Laurence Grotheer passed along to the media on Friday afternoon. In that letter, Harp “thanks” Fasano for his interest in New Haven fiscal affairs.
In response, Fasano called the letter “very snarky” and written in “typical Toni Harp fashion: Everyone is to blame but her.”
“You have to show me what you’re doing with your money before you can ask me for more money,” he said. He said that the state money already makes up nearly half of the Elm City’s annual budget.
“She just wants what she always wants,” Fasano said, “which is more money.”
Click here to read the full letter from Mayor Harp.
“I welcome what I’d like to think is your intention to serve as an honorary state Senator representing New Haven,” she wrote.
“To start,” she continued, “so you’ll have an accurate and complete picture of New Haven’s financial opportunities and challenges, I’ll be happy to arrange a time for my team to provide you with the facts about all it takes to run what is arguably Connecticut’s most successful city in an era of state funding cutbacks.”
Harp then writes that she is prepared to consider his request for a forensic audit “as a courtesy” if Fasano in turn advocates for four specific state-led solutions to New Haven’s fiscal crunch.
• Introduce and shepherd through the legislature a 2 percent commuter tax to “compensate New Haven for covering the costs to provide assorted regional services to North Haven Residents,” such as transportation infrastructure, public safety, emergency, and other public services that North Haven residents use when they visit the Elm City.
• Push North Haven public officials to build more affordable housing projects beyond the 10 percent requirement under CGS 8 – 30g.
• Ask North Haven public officials to support budget allocations from North Haven to New Haven for social and human services. He can start by sending over $250,000 to help pay for New Haven’s homelessness services, and another $250,000 to help pay for the Elm City’s public health services, and another $250,000 to help pay for New Haven’s prison re-entry services.
• Help pass legislation that would require North Haven to forward Education Cost Sharing (ECS) monies from North Haven to New Haven. “In addition,” she wrote, “this legislation should include a count of all suburban students so New Haven can recoup education monies from other feeder towns for all their students and have the appropriate resources to serve all students in city schools.”
“Since I understand you will need North Haven’s First Selectmen and other town officials to assist you while making these improvements to the benefit of our respective municipalities,” Harp’s letter concludes, “I have copied them with this letter and look forward to their support of New Haven’s expanded Senate delegation for the betterment of the City of New Haven.
“Sincerely, Toni N. Harp, Mayor — City of New Haven.”
There’s more.
“p.s.,” reads the postscript, “Once you’ve completed these items, I trust you to find the money among state funds to pay for the forensic audit you requested.”
Harp's pleas for more money will fall on deaf ears so long as she and the BoA continue to waste the money she is given on: police drivers for the mayor, trips to China for multiple, favored persons, illegal pay raises for the mayor and others, meals and entertainment for the mayor and other favorites, a bloated mayoral and BoA staff, "uniforms" for the mayor's staff, etc., etc. As it is, North Haveners and other suburbanites already pay a very large share of New Haven's budget, primarily through ECS and PILOT, but through other state aid programs as well. Meanwhile, New Haven fights development proposals which will increase its own revenues, and engages in absurd tax abatements that lock-in reduced city revenues.