LCI Finalists Include 2 Insiders

Two city government veterans are among the four finalists to oversee local government’s neighborhood anti-blight agency.

Mayor Toni Harp said she expects by next Monday to announce her choice to run the agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI).

The position became vacant on Nov. 14 when Executive Director Erik Johnson stepped down to take a new job in California, despite having received a raise to try to keep him here.

Harp said in an interview Monday afternoon that she has narrowed the search down to four finalists, all either locally based or with local roots. She said she could name two of them because they currently have city government-associated positions. Both of them have worked in city and neighborhood-development positions for decades.

One of the finalists, she said, is Serena Neal-Sanjurjo. She currently works as a real estate development and planning consultant for the quasi-public Economic Development Corporation. In 1994 Neal-Sanjurjo ran a federally-funded job-creating, poverty-fighting ​“enterprise community” organization in town; she is currently helping the city seek to obtain a federal grant to promote a neighborhood-building ​“Promise Zone.” (Read about that here.)

Another finalist, according to Harp, is William MacMullen, who currently works in the Engineering Department as architectural capital projects coordinator. Read about some of his work here. MacMullen previously worked for the private agency that managed Monterey Homes, the successor to the old Elm Haven public-housing development in the Dixwell neighborhood.

“They both are really good,” Harp said. ​“I respect and admire the work that they’ve done.”

The LCI position pays between $72,268 and $125,426 a year. Click here to read the job description the city posted.

Matthew Nemerson, the city’s economic development administrator, said he is running LCI in conjunction with the agency’s three top deputies, Rafael Ramos, Cathy Schroeter and Frank D’Amore, until the new chief is named.

The LCI chief is New Haven government’s point person for improving neighborhoods, from inspecting properties enforcing building codes to cleaning up vacant city-owned lots, from wrestling with slumlords and out-of-state banks to developing new housing and commercial plans.

Harp said Monday she’d like to see the new chief bring new energy to that latter task.

For instance, the new LCI chief will oversee a ​“charette,” or public planning process, for the rest of 16.2‑acre ​“Route 34 West” project to follow the initial construction of a new 5.39-acre retail-office-hotel complex on Legion Avenue across from Career High School.

“We promised the community it would be driven by them” with more of a focus on housing, Harp noted. She said other important neighborhood planning roles will include the future of the Dixwell Plaza as well as the rebuilding of Newhallville. The LCI chief will also need to follow through on inherited plans like the rescue of the former Dwight Garden co-ops.

Harp also said Monday that she expects Victor Bolden to continue working as her corporation counsel through the end of the calendar year before leaving to start work as a federal judge. She said she will conduct a statewide search for a successor.