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Goldson.
As the city pays $7 million to make way for a “mecca” of high-tech jobs downtown, Alderman Darnell Goldson urged his colleagues to invest $5 million to fight New Haven’s unemployment rate.
Goldson made that argument at a hearing Wednesday evening, as he took a local hiring proposal to a community hit hard by unemployment. He didn’t have an answer for where that money would come from, despite hearing the question repeatedly from his aldermanic colleagues.
Their discussion took place during a meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Human Services Committee Wednesday night at the Katherine Brennan School on Wilmot Road.
The evening’s topic was a program West Rock’s Alderman Goldson has put forward to encourage companies to hire local city workers. The program, Hiring Incentives for Residents Employment (HIRE), would pay businesses extra to hire New Haven residents.
It would cost the city an estimated $5 million to implement HIRE with 338 workers. Goldson said he has not figured out where the city would find those funds.
“First we have to develop the will to pay for it. Then we’ll figure it out,” he said.
He acknowledged that his proposal will likely be pared down before it can pass.
If the city could plunk down millions for a “high-tech mecca” at Downtown Crossing, then it’s also possible to pay for HIRE, Goldson said.
“We just spent $7 million to build a highway that goes into a garage,” he told the committee, referring to the overhaul of the Rt. 34 connector. “Is it going to create jobs for the people that live in my district? The answer is a resounding no.”
Mayor John DeStefano has alternately blasted and praised Goldson’s plan. He has focused on developing the city’s science and medical potential, and made the argument that the city can best ready people to work through school reform and job training.
The controversial Downtown Crossing redevelopment proposal was one of several recent and ongoing construction projects aldermen mentioned as they discussed who’s being hired for construction jobs. They also mentioned school construction, Science Park, and Brookside.
Goldson brought up the recently-inaugurated project to rebuilt the Brookside public housing complex at the base of West Rock Park as one example of construction jobs going to non-New Haveners.
Ward 30 Democratic co-chair Honda Smith (pictured) disagreed: Over 30 percent of workers on that project live in the city, she said.
“It seems like this is a political thing that’s going on,” said Smith, who got into a spat with Goldson after endorsing his opponent in September’s primary elections. After stating she’d rather have a basketball game in the school cafeteria than the meeting she was at, she left.
“Don’t be confused by those numbers,” Goldson told the committee later. What Smith meant, he contended, is that 30 percent of new hires for the Brookside project were New Haven residents. Construction companies brought in significant numbers of employees they already employed, he said, most of whom aren’t from the city.
Ralph Inorio, business manager for Local Union 455, said the same. “I know for a fact those figures she gave you are false,” he said shortly after Smith testified. “I don’t know where she came up with 30 percent.”
City Hall’s Nichole Jefferson, who heads the Commission on Equal Opportunities, later provided figures that show that 23.9 percent of workers at the Brookside project live in New Haven. Jefferson said of the 398 workers on the site, 95 are New Haven residents. The New Haveners collectively earned $304,702 on the job as of one month ago, she said. She cautioned that those numbers will change as the project is ongoing. The city’s requirement is for 25 percent of workers to be from New Haven.
Newhallville Alderman Charlie Blango followed up with a question about another construction project, this time in his district. “How many New Haven residents worked on Science Park?” he asked Inorio, who represents 350 construction workers in New Haven.
“That’s a sore subject of mine” Inorio responded. “I brought in 53 New Haven residents who could throw a rock from their house [to the building site] … and not a single one of them worked on that project.”
He added that he supported Goldson’s proposal not because it might support temporary construction jobs but because it supports job sustainability.
“These contractors are coming into town and they’re abusing the longevity of the system,” he said. Construction companies hire New Haven workers for the minimum period of time necessary to get the bid — maybe just six weeks, or even less — and then let them go, he said.
New Haven cop and small business owner Shafiq Abdussabur (pictured) called it an “extended warranty component.” He also proposed that the city add an extra bonus for businesses that hire New Haven residents from some of the worst-off neighborhoods.
“That’s something for you to look at, Darnell,” human services committee chair Sergio Rodriguez told Goldson. Alderwoman Maureen O’Sullivan nodded.
Goldson introduced the legislation 20 months ago and, when he couldn’t get a hearing through the finance committee, he decided to try Rodriguez’s committee instead.
Rodriguez.
“I’m happy to hear him in this committee,” Rodriguez said before the meeting. “I thought this was a good moment to have a public debate in an area of some of the highest unemployment.” He added the hearings are timely given President Barack Obama’s national jobs bill and the discussions going on about job creation on the state level.
Rodriguez and Goldson said the HIRE proposal as it stands is unlikely to pass. It’s more likely to exist as a pilot program for fewer workers, and possibly as a private-public partnership. “I don’t see us investing a [tax] mill in this,” said Rodriguez. The current plan asks the city to set aside property taxes to fund the program.
Goldson agreed. “I am not opposed to seeing an adequate pilot program started,” he said. “This is certainly going to be amended. It will probably look 90 percent different than it looks now,” he said.
The Human Services Committee will hold three more public meetings on the bill. The next one is scheduled for Oct. 19 at 6:15 p.m. at Newhallville’s Lincoln-Basset School. Two more will be scheduled next month for the Hill and Fair Haven.
“If we could get it done before the end of the year, I would be ecstatic, because I would still be on the board,” said Goldson, who is running for re-election to run in November after being defeated by City Hall-backed Carlton Staggers in the September primary.
But he said he could live with waiting if need be. “The new board, whether I’m on that or not, is going to be a lot more job-friendly.”
This is an interesting and important issue, and I think it is relevant to include Downtown Crossing in this conversation as it provides an interesting comparison to Alderman Goldson's proposal.
From what I have read, the TIGER II project is expected to create 2,000 construction jobs, and up to 960 permanent jobs in the 100 College Street building. Plus, the project will generate over $1 million in new tax revenue. That's a better bang for the buck than short-term employment subsidies, in my opinion. Alderman Goldson's proposal would be a huge one-time expense that wouldn't necessarily provide any long-term benefits for the city, compared to a capital expense like this road infrastructure that provides long-term benefits and opportunities for development, job growth, and new tax revenue.
I still think Alderman Goldson raises an important point, and we should be talking about how we get more unemployed New Haven residents trained and working. I'm just not convinced that his plan is the best way to do it given the price tag and the lack of identified funders beyond city taxpayers. Taking $5 million out of the general fund to pay for this program would mean layoffs. I don't think we should take one person's job away to pay for another person's job, particularly when there is no real public service rationale.