Final Public Hearing On The Budget. Bring Friends
City Hall, 165 Church Street, New Haven, CT 06511
Archive for the ‘Accountability’ Category
Come Wednesday, April 28, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
Monday, April 26th, 2010WQUN Interview, this coming Saturday 7:00 am
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010A radio interview on The New Haven Citizen’s Action 2010 Tax Relief Rescue Mission, with Susan Campion, volunteer, will be aired:
Saturday, 4/24 at 7:07 am (Early Bird Special)
John Deandre’s Newsmakers program
Tune in on 1220 am on your radio or click here for live streaming.
Learn more about Performance Based Budgeting from Susan Campion.
Sign the Petition to Cut 10%
Thursday, March 25th, 2010Click here to sign the petition.
This petition has been created in response to Mayor DeStefano’s newly proposed 2010-2011 budget. The linked petition was written in collaboration with people from across the City. We now need your help in taking action against the proposed budget. First, we ask you to use this link:
http://www.petitiononline.com/NewHaven/petition.html to sign the petition electronically.
Then, we ask for some volunteers to help circulate the petition through out our neighborhoods. You can also forward it to others who you think would be interested and reading and signing it. If you want to get involved, please e-mail us in response as soon as possible.
Lastly, we need some of you to commit to attending BOA meetings where we can stand as a united front in opposition to the current budget and make the same proposal as outlined in the below petition. You do not need to speak at these meetings, though you certainly can if you want to. We just need to attend these meetings in numbers so that the board of alderman know that we mean business.
The April 28th meeting is the one where we need the most attendance as this is the final meeting where we can speak our voice. After that, the budget is put to a vote. So please e-mail us if we can count on you to attend these meetings.
So now I present to you the petition. Please read it and sign. Thank you!
Online Petition – Cut The Budget By 10%
Friday, March 19th, 2010A Petition to the Members of the Board of Alders Finance Committee
The undersigned residents and taxpayers of New Haven wish to register our opposition to Mayor DeStefano’s proposed 2010-2011 budget. The $670,448,590 proposal is a large one and calls for a city-wide 9–11% tax increase, regardless of taxpayers’ ability to carry this burden. This is unacceptable.
We agree with the Mayor that these times are not normal. We disagree emphatically, however, with the Mayor’s proposed responses to these events. The Mayor’s proposal does little to attack the real problem, which is rapidly escalating costs, well beyond the rate of inflation. We refuse to be deflected from this focus.
In normal times, those who want work can generally find it. In normal times, wages and salaries increase, real estate values rise, the stock market expands – and we can support tax increases. But these are not normal times. In households throughout New Haven, families are re-learning how to “do without”. In New Haven’s businesses, and in our churches, colleges, and universities, responsible officials are finding ways to cut costs – not to control their growth, but to cut them. We affirm that, in these decidedly not normal times, New Haven’s city government must do the same. As City Alders, you have the authority to demand changes in the proposed budget and not simply accept it with minor changes As those who voted you into office, we deserve your protection and support.
We urge you to request that every department head identify ways to cut their actual expenses– not their proposals, but their current budgets – by 10% and to submit such reductions in a revised budget proposal. These are competent professionals who know how best to do this. They alone know how the dollar is spent and which activities provide the least value.
As an outside group we cannot presume to dictate where those cuts must be. We are confident, however, that competent professionals in every department know best how to cut 10% from their expenses with the least pain to New Haven’s quality of life and critical City services. Let them use furloughs, freeze hiring, wages and salaries, health care benefits, or simply turn the lights off earlier. Let them identify the ways to achieve the 10% reduction. We expect that some services will be sacrificed, and we are reluctantly ready to deal with that. We are not ready for yet another tax increase.
We know that what we propose is difficult. But these are not normal times. We urge you to send the Mayor’s proposal back and demand accountability from each and every department throughout this city. We love this city. We want this city to remain a great place to live for all.
To sign our petition to cut 10% of the budget: http://www.petitiononline.com/NewHaven/petition.html
Or if you want to print out the petition and help gather signatures. Return it to Jeffrey Kerekes, 43 Lyon Street, New Haven, CT 06511 203-676-0880
Budget Panel Gets WTNH Coverage
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009Check out this Channel 8 piece. Nice work on the interview Tim!
Blue Ribbon Budget Panel Reports to BOA
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009The final recommendations to the New Haven Board of Aldermen from the Blue Ribbon Citizen’s Panel on the Budget is ready. Its a worthwhile read. Thanks to all the panelists and city staff that contributed to its construction.
Is the official Drop Out Rate sanitized?
Thursday, June 11th, 2009Support Youth Rights Media’s documentary on the Drop Out Rate in New Haven. New Haven was recently labeled a “drop out factory.”
Youth Rights Media Premiere
Pushed
In this new documentary, youth pose urgent questions about the local impact of the nation’s largely invisible “dropout crisis.” Along the way they ask how many of our city’s students really graduate from high school, and do we really understand why others
fall short of completing? Their search for answers yields inspiring, puzzling, and often troubling results.
Friday, June 19, 2009 at 7pm
Yale University Art Gallery
1111 Chapel St
New Haven, CT
Please RSVP to: lmc@youthrightsmedia.org or 203.776.4034
Directions:
Direct access to the Gallery Auditorium from High Street.
Parking is available on the street or in the lot on York Street
between Chapel and Crown.
Urgent Action
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009Contact the Police and Fire Pension Fund Commissioners to let them know you are outraged by people trying to game the system. Tell them they cannot afford to squander the pension fund when it is underfunded by 100s of Millions of dollars!
Read this article from the New Haven Register.
Background about the story from the New Haven Independent here, here, and here.
If someone is innocent, then they should continue in their job. The possibility of false accusations is a terrible reality for any police officer. That is why we have a judicial system, of which the police are an integral part. If this person is guilty, he should be fired and not given special treatment — which is all too common in New Haven (CJ Cuticello and Billy White). Check out this outrageous practice in Long Isand.
Contact the Board and tell them we want this to stop!
RETIREMENT BOARD – POLICE AND FIRE FUND
| Name | Address | Phone |
|---|
- Bishop Theodore L. Brooks, 271 Stevenson Road, New Haven, CT 06515 203-387-3899
- Wendy Mongillo, 12 Oliver Road, New Haven, CT 06515 (203) 387-7948
- Richard Epstein, 59 McKinley Avenue, New Haven, CT 06515 Home Phone: 203-397-2299, Cell Phone: 203-982-4838, email
- John DeStefano, Jr., Ex-Officio Representative, 150 Judwin Ave, New Haven, CT 06515 203-946-7660, email
Former Mayor Disapproves Rubberstamping
Friday, May 22nd, 2009Read Mayor Daniels’ OP-ED piece in the New Haven Register. I believe he is right about the reason the citizenry does not show up at meetings. It is not because people don’t care, they believe the process has already been decided before hand. It is the citizen’s responsibility to speak up and to be better organized. There are small ways for busy people to be heard and the people are beginning to do so on a fairly wide scale.
Citizens Budget Commission – NYC
Saturday, May 16th, 2009The NYC Citizens Budget Commission provides an interesting website reviewing NYC finances. Their mission: “The Citizens Budget Commission is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civic organization devoted to influencing constructive change in the finances and services of New York City and New York State government.” Check out their Myth of Uncontrollables, which directly confronts the notion of “its all fixed costs,” the mantra of the New Haven BOA and Administration.
