On Wednesday June 24th, I participated in a debate with the Real Estate Finance Association of Connecticut, which focused on issues like downtown development and the mill rate. We didn’t capture good audio/video, but here’s a transcript of my responses to some of the questions:
ON THE EXCEL CENTER:
“The XL center is critical to downtown’s health, and to the city’s health… It has to be where it is… We’ve got to get in a position where we can compete for the best athletic and entertainment events, because we’ve lost almost all of that. What’s also critically important is that we change the way the XL center relates to the rest of the street and downtown. You shouldn’t have a two block, superblock of concrete running down the middle of downtown Hartford. That’s a real opportunity. Let’s reconstruct the inside so that it can compete, let’s reconstruct the outside so we can get retail that’s inviting and not closing off the city.”
ON SELLING OFF THE CHURCH STREET PARKING GARAGE TO CRDA:
“We [Mayor Segarra’s City Hall] sold off the parking garage, but we didn’t sell off the debt. That’s like selling your house and keeping the mortgage. If we’re going to make short-term, unsustainable financial decisions, let’s not make them worse than they already are.”
ON THE HOUSING MARKET:
“The investment that the State has made in creating residential units downtown is hugely important for Hartford. We’re going to maybe get to that point where we have enough feet on the street that we can start getting some retail and start that virtuous circle that creates a vibrant downtown. If we’re going to really be successful in getting those folks who move into those rental units to buy a home, build equity in Hartford, we’ve got to address some of those bigger issues. It’s about education. You’re not going to keep young couples, or young families, in Hartford, if they’ve got to depend on a lottery to send a kid to a decent school. We’ve got to focus back on our neighborhood schools and making sure that we’re making that a real option. We’ve also got to make sure we stop the annual increase in taxes. There is talk about this year’s budget as a no-tax budget, but taxes are going up. The mill rate is staying the same, but the assessment rate is going up, and homeowners have to feel that there’s an endpoint, that we’re going to draw a line, and say, ‘we’re not going to keep raising the cost of living in Hartford.’ So we’ve got to focus on those core issues if we’re going to be able to attract a strong housing market.”
ON RETAINING HARTFORD COMPANIES:
“First of all, we’ve got to make sure that all of our companies feel like they have a partner in City Hall. And they’ve got to know somebody is going to answer the phone when they call. They’ve got to have somebody who’s reaching out to them on a regular basis and saying, ‘how are you doing, how are we doing, what would it take to help you grow and stay here?’ It’s frustrating to them when the main arteries for a lot of their employees who commute into the city turn into one-lane roads in the winter, those things matter…. It’s not just about what we can give to them. I really believe it’s also about trying to establish an emotional commitment to the City of Hartford. Because none of those big companies have to be here. But if we’re working with them the way that New Haven worked with Yale University, for example, to try to create rehab programs, employment programs – if we’re working hand in hand with them every day and they really feel like they have a partnership to make this city better every day, I think we are going to be much more effective at keeping them here.”
ON REGIONALISM:
“We’ve got to be a stronger advocate for PILOT reform, absolutely, but let’s be honest: the State’s cup does not exactly runneth over right now, so we’re not going to be getting a massive increase in PILOT funding. What we should be fighting for, is a reform of the formula. State property is reimbursed at the lowest rate of all non-taxable property. And that burden falls way too heavily on the City of Hartford. So we’ve got to be out there, hand in hand with our legislative delegation, fighting for a reform of that formula. We are incredibly inefficient as a city. There are things that we can do locally to make ourselves more efficient; it’s not just about regionalization. It doesn’t make any sense for a city of 125,000 people to have a Finance Department on the Board of Education side, and a Finance Department on the city operations side. And there are similar duplications and inefficiencies throughout Hartford City government. We’ve got to take government restructuring seriously at home first, then I’d like to go to those neighboring towns and say, ‘what can we work on to partner together?,’ whether it’s information systems, or back office functions, that will help us to build those partnerships without threatening home rule.”
ON THE MILL RATE:
“For the mid-size residential buildings, those with four or more units, they’re getting hammered. Their taxes are going up 80 percent this year. I’m concerned we’re going to start seeing a rash of building owners literally handing in the keys because they can’t sustain that level of increase. So I think we need to very quickly figure out how in that midrange, as we’re equalizing residential and commercial property assessment rates, how we figure out how to soften the blow for those residential building owners, because number one it is getting passed on to renters, and number two, it is very dangerous for our city.”
ON NOT USING ENTERPRISE & HUB ZONES:
“Every other major city in Connecticut that has an enterprise zone has seen hundreds of new jobs created in the enterprise zone. Hartford has seen 13. And we’re talking about over a period of years. We have to actually take advantage of the designations we’ve got. You do give up a little bit of tax revenue by utilizing an enterprise zone – you get some of it back from the state. But you’ve got to really work to bring those companies in, to partner with them, to get them situated there. That’s what it’s meant to do. We are doing terribly compared to other cities in Connecticut at taking advantage of our enterprise zone. The same goes for our historically underutilized business designation, a HUB designation. That is huge. The federal government commits to buying 3 percent of all federal government acquisitions from HUB zones. We have three companies that are registered as HUB-compliant companies. That’s an opportunity missed. And the Promise Zone holds a lot of promise. But it is only going to be able to deliver on that promise if we actually focus on the implementation side of it that we have. The press release announcing the designation can’t be where it ends.”
AND MY CLOSING STATEMENT:
The job of mayor in Hartford is not the same as it was 15 years ago. We have a strong mayor form of government. We don’t have a city manager anymore; it’s the mayor’s job to be in city hall. And right now we’ve got a city where we have an interim corporation council, an interim public works director, an interim health and human services director, an interim finance director – who I think is about the seventh finance director in about 7 years. The key to leadership is getting a team in place that is strong, that is smarter than you, and better than you in their areas, setting priorities, holding them accountable, making sure things get done. And we haven’t had that.
Mayor, you said earlier you were a champion for the city five years ago when the city needed a champion. I think you’re exactly right, and I appreciate what you did.
What we need now, is a manager. We need somebody who is going to get under the hood, who’s going to be at the table with all of the directors and the deputy directors around, making sure that we are setting a common course, so that businesses and residents when they go to City Hall don’t hear one answer from one department and another from another department.
We have to function more effectively. Once we function more effectively, we’ve got to make sure that we are doing everything we can to get back to the basic city government. That means much more aggressive about economic development. Led by the mayor personally, not delegated.
We need to be doing everything we can to improve our neighborhood schools so that there is a real choice to go to a neighborhood school, and you’re not stuck with the results of a lottery. And we’ve got to make sure that all residents feel like they are part of something that’s on the rise. To make sure we take advantage of what’s happening downtown, we have to look back to the neighborhoods, we’ve got to focus on our main corridors. We can do it if we can partner with the state, if we can partner with our federal partners, if we can get our own act together inside City Hall, we can do much better. and I hope I have the chance to do that, and to do it with you guys.