Rossi Sees Sunshine

In these dog days of summer, Nancy Rossi sees a bright future for West Haven.

Rossi, West Haven’s mayor, joined the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities’ and WNHH FM’s ​“The Municipal Voice” to talk about economic development in the works, and how COVID has impacted her city including one area that’s being impacted by both – West Haven’s beaches.

“I think we’ve done good with this,” Mayor Rossi said. ​“We had to shut off our boardwalk for some time like other municipalities, but it’s since been reopened […] under the guidance of our health director and emergency management director.”

One of the keys was cooperation with other towns and cities. West Haven has for the time being kept access to the beaches for city residents only, and she believes that cooperation will keep residents safe until she is able to welcome back out-of-towners.

As with everything in the shutdown, there was a learning curve, but it’s seamless now, according to Rossi. Police officers or constables haven’t been walking up to every group with a tape measurer to check the distance. But measures they have taken with limiting parking – first 50 percent, and increasing over the summer – have encouraged residents themselves to safely distance.

“I’ve been checking up on the beach,” she said, ​“And [the residents] have been maintaining order.”

The area is ​“ripe for development,” Rossi said, with projects raising the road on Beach Street to eliminate some concerns over the flood zone. With funding from the state and local bonds, Phase 1 is already underway, with an additional two phases getting them down to the empty Deboniar Hotel.

Her hope is that once developers see that something is really happening, they’ll have some interest.

Economic devleopment plans for Allingtown around the University of New Haven had a bit of a setback because of Covid-19, but are getting closer to opening, she said. And according to Rossi, The Haven retail project, which has been in development for nearly a decade, is still going forward exactly as planned.

These developments are a big part of West Haven’s future.

West Haven was placed under the supervision of the Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB) just before Rossi took office in 2017. While the collaboration was rocky at first, ​“it’s gotten better,” she stated.

Among the improvements was the bond rating outlook, which was improved along with the fund balance, which she attributes to the state’s restructuring funds as well as grand list growth. Because of this, she hopes to have West Haven off of MARB in the near future, she said.

She said she had to raise taxes as part of the Five Year Plan for strengthening West Haven’s finances. She notes that with universities and hospitals, the state can be doing more for PILOT, the payments-in-lieu-of-taxes program, for these exempt properties, saying she doesn’t want to pass that burden to residents.

Acknowledging that Covid might have set some plans back, Rossi said shel remains optimistic for the outlook of West Haven. ​“We continue the progress we made, but with economic development and thinking outside of the box instead of taxes.”