There was nothing unusual about the scene playing out in the Board of Aldermen chambers at 6:30 Tuesday night: one member of the public attending a hearing held exclusively for, well, the public.
That one individual was budget watchdog Ken Joyner (pictured, right, with Board of Aldermen President Carl Goldfield), a regular to aldermanic meetings.
On one hand, Joyner came to ask a single question of the Committee on the Whole, which was meeting for the expressed purpose of complying with statutes mandating public hearings in advance of large city purchases: How much, he wanted to know, will creating the long-awaited Solid Waste Authority cost “me, the taxpayer?”
On the other hand, Joyner simply wanted to make a point about citizen involvement at City Hall.
“I’m here,” he began his testimony, “in an attempt to legitimize this process.”
That’s why the New Haven Citizens’ Action Network member was, at least at first, not happy when he learned afterwards that another board committee — Aldermanic Affairs — unanimously endorsed a plan this week to eliminate the city’s announcing of public aldermanic committee hearings in the legal notices sections of local newspapers.
“That’s a big change!” he said.
The resolution, proposed by Goldfield (pictured) and slated to be voted on by the full Board of Aldermen in August, was, he said, an attempt “to run the Board of Aldermen and its operations at a lower cost.”
The proposed change could save the city upwards of an estimated $15,000 a year.
Goldfield — a proponent of saving costs by migrating toward paper-free governance — and some other leading aldermen say they believe the move would have minimal tangible impact otherwise.
Edgewood Alderwoman Liz McCormack, the chair of the Aldermanic Affairs Committee, emphasized that full board meetings would still be publicized, and controversial committee hearings would still garner free press. The city is also migrating to an electronic mailing list for aldermanic notices — one need only call Legislative Services at 203 – 946-8371 to sign up — and usually posts agendas online.
“We already comply with more than we’re required to by law,” McCormack said. “It’s not a question of wanting to shut anybody out. It’s a matter of saving money and still being accessible to the public.”
Hartford’s Turnouts Higher
The matter raises a larger (and perhaps Herculean) challenge for New Haven’s elected representatives: how to make hearings like Tuesday night’s more interactive and well-attended. Interviews suggest the city might have fallen behind one of its urban rivals in keeping its constituents engaged at City Hall.
In Hartford, where a nine-member City Council reigns as opposed to a 30-member Board of Aldermen, a typical “slow” regular meeting (held, as in New Haven, twice a month) attracts upwards of “30 to 40” people, if not more, according to Petrel Maylor, the executive assistant to the Council’s majority leader.
“We have our regulars come in here for everything,” she said.
Hartford, however, has not relied on legal notices. Maylor said each committee chair handles his or her own publicity, and usually electronically, by taking advantage of either a central mailing list or e‑mailing targeted individuals directly.
But New Haven’s structure may not allow for such empowerment. The Hartford City Council members have executive assistants since there are relatively few members, Goldfield pointed out. “It sounds like a huge responsibility for the committee chair.”
And even if the city’s e‑mail list were employed liberally, it would — as it stands — be unlikely to yield much more public interest in committee meetings, which tend to be well-attended only when massive word-of-mouth campaigns are launched.
A review of the subscribers, as provided to the Independent on Tuesday by the Office of Legislative Services, indicates that there are fewer than 53 who could, by any stretch, qualify as regular residents. In total, the list contains 133 names plus the 30 aldermen; the vast majority are city officials and employees, Yale administrators, directors of local non-profits and reporters.
Asked whether the city might put a sign-up box on its website for e‑mail updates in light of the possible legal-notice change, Goldfield said he would consider doing so as long as the technology proved to be in place.
Beaver Hills/West Hills Alderman Tom Lehtonen (pictured), who sits on the Aldermanic Affairs committee, had some concerns about a system that relied to heavily on the Internet, to which he noted not all residents enjoy easy access. Ultimately, though, he said he was convinced that the cost-saving benefits outweighed the cons.
“We’re not trying to keep anyone in the dark,” he said. “The time has come to move to the electronic age.”
As for Joyner, he, too, ultimately said he could live with the change given its fiscal benefits. But, he said, the city will have to make up for the loss of legal notices inventively.
“They should substitute other ways of doing it,” he said, suggesting posting public notices at central city locations. “If they don’t, how are they really going to legitimize themselves as a body of the public and for the public?”