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Monday, March 14, 2016

MAYOR BRONIN'S STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS

MAYOR BRONIN DELIVERS FIRST ‘STATE OF THE CITY’ ADDRESS
 
— NEWS AND COMMUNITY STATEMENT —
 
(March 14, 2016) Today, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin delivered his 2016 State of the City address at Hartford City Hall.  Below are Mayor Bronin’s full remarks as prepared.
Council President Clarke, Members of the Court of Common Council, Treasurer Cloud, Members of Hartford’s Delegation to the General Assembly.
Thank you for your service to our city. It’s a privilege to work in partnership with you.

To the citizens of the City of Hartford, thank you for allowing me to serve you as your Mayor.

To our local businesses, small and large, to our non-profit partners, to our faith-based leaders and community volunteers — thank you for your commitment to our great city.

And to the hardworking employees in every city department, thank you for everything you do, every day, for the people of Hartford. I’m proud to work alongside you.

Finally, to my wife Sara and our three children, thank you and I love you.

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Our city is the economic and cultural heart of this region.

It is the capital city, home to cultural institutions that outshine cities much larger than ours. Home to a business community that includes world-class, global companies, and small, creative local entrepreneurs.

Home to residents who work so hard, who serve their community and who persevere.

One Hartford, diverse, resilient. With a downtown that is increasingly vibrant. With distinct neighborhoods that remain the true soul of Hartford.  With magnificent architecture and parks, a legacy of our proud history.

And so, I can with confidence report that the state of our city can and will be strong — if we face our challenges honestly, with clear vision and with an unflinching willingness to do the difficult things those challenges demand.

I stand here as a new mayor. You have put your faith and trust in me, and in this new city council, to lead our city forward. I will honor that trust by being forthright with you, always.

And so I must also report, as directly and as plainly as I can, that while our city is strong, the state of our financial condition is dire.

We are in a state of fiscal emergency. How did we get here? Part of the answer is that, for too long, Hartford failed to make tough choices.

Past administrations borrowed liberally.  To make things easier in the short-run, they refinanced debt, pushing payments into the future. The bill is now coming due.

This year, the amount we will pay for debt service — the equivalent of mortgage payments on a home — was $10 million. Next year, it will be close to $30 million.  By 2019, it will be nearly $50 million. That’s if we don’t borrow another dollar, which isn’t realistic.
Past administrations promised benefits that Hartford’s tax base cannot support.

Our annual contributions to the pension fund have gone from under $10 million in 2010 to more than $40 million this year and next. And our healthcare costs rise dramatically year after year.

The City of Hartford administers more than sixty different health insurance plans for retirees, a costly burden that defies logic, but is required by past negotiations.

When some employees leave service, they receive six figure payouts of sick and vacation time. And when some employees retire today, they retire with annual pensions that far exceed their base pay.

I don’t say this to disparage our hardworking city employees, who earned their benefits under the contracts they negotiated. I believe that those who serve the public deserve good benefits and a safe retirement.

But the reality is that for too long, the City of Hartford made promises that are not sustainable.

And, of course, past administrations raised taxes. Again and again. Today, Hartford’s small businesses pay the highest taxes in the state, more than twice what they’d pay in most neighboring towns.

Those tax increases raised money in the short term, but they drove businesses out and made it harder and harder for Hartford to grow.

Facing big deficits, past administrations bought time with one-time revenues — selling parking garages, raiding employee benefit reserves.

If you look at the budgets of the last few years and take out the one-time revenues, our city has been running tens of millions of dollars in deficit year after year.

Today, we are in a full-blown crisis and we cannot avoid it, we cannot ignore it, and we cannot solve it unless we all make very difficult, very painful decisions.

On June 30th, we will finish this fiscal year millions of dollars in deficit, and will draw down nearly half of the city’s reserves.

This year’s problem is small in comparison to next year’s problem — and the years beyond. Without painful changes, we will soon face deficits so big that even eliminating our entire police department and our entire fire department would not close the gap.

We’re like a household that’s taken out a second mortgage, maxed out the credit cards, and borrowed money from family and friends to keep up with the payments.

While we made some changes in the household budget, we didn’t make enough. As long as our expenses are higher than our income, the problem will get worse.

In years past, we might have hoped for relief from the State of Connecticut. Today, the State of Connecticut faces its own crisis, and the best we can probably hope for is to avoid getting cut.

We can’t expect any bailouts from the State. What can we expect?
There must be cuts in services and there will be layoffs. Difficult cuts that no one wants to make, and that in better times we wouldn’t even contemplate. Cuts in services that are important. Not cutting fat, but sacrificing things that matter.

There must be significant changes in labor contracts even with those layoffs, because we have no choice.

We must consider decreasing our pension contributions. Not because our pensions are fully-funded, but because a city in our financial position doesn’t have the luxury of fully-funding pensions in the near-term.

There must be help from our tax-exempt institutions. Institutions that are a vital part of our city — as employers, as centers of excellence, as points of pride. Institutions whose financial help we still need.

We must have a conversation with our largest property owners. These companies pay large tax bills already — and their philanthropic giving supports countless organizations serving Hartford residents. But we must nonetheless ask them to do more.

We may need changes in state law to achieve some of these things, and we will seek whatever changes we believe are necessary to put Hartford on a sound foundation, working in partnership with our outstanding Hartford delegation.

I’ve been blunt about the mistakes that got us here. I’ve been blunt about some of the steps that we must take. But let me be equally blunt in saying this:

Over the long-term, we can’t do this on our own here in Hartford.

The deepest cuts, the most painful concessions, the elimination of services, and even the most generous help from partners in Hartford — all of that will only get us part of the way toward closing the gap in the years ahead.

Because while part of the problem was a failure to make tough choices in the past, part of the problem is beyond the direct control of any Mayor or City Council.
Our city is less than eighteen square miles. Property taxes are our only real source of local revenue, yet more than half of our property is tax- exempt — because we’re home to institutions that serve the region and the state, but which pay no taxes to the City of Hartford.

We live in a region that is among the most affluent in America, yet we shoulder the responsibility of serving neighborhoods that are among the poorest in the nation.

We shoulder a burden that we cannot sustain alone, and that must be shared more broadly.  Not just for Hartford’s sake, but for the region and for the state.

This region needs a strong, healthy urban center at its core.

If we allow Hartford to fall into a cycle of crisis and decline, the impact will be felt not just in Hartford, but in home prices, home sales and unemployment numbers in West Hartford, Simsbury, Windsor, Glastonbury, Bloomfield, and every surrounding town.
If, on the other hand, we position ourselves to compete with the Austins, the Pittsburghs, the Louisvilles of America, the entire region will reap the rewards in jobs, in home prices, and in a virtuous cycle of innovation and growth.

In the long run, aside from getting our own house in order, there are three parts to the solution, all of which require us to build a consensus for change well beyond Hartford’s borders:

One is greater support from the state, despite the state’s budget crisis. Hartford is the state capital, and we all share an interest in — and responsibility for — Hartford’s success.

Another is to stop talking about regionalism and start regionalizing.

Regionalizing can take many forms. Sharing of services. Sharing of revenues. Or, as nearly every successful metro region in the country has done, actually breaking down boundaries.

Let there be no mistaking this reality: if we collectively cling to our New England provincialism too long, we will — sooner rather than later — find ourselves mourning the loss of the New England we love.

And a third part, which rests in the hands of the broader American electorate, is for the federal government to make real investments, once again, in state and local government — in transportation, in infrastructure, in education, in public safety, in research and development, in youth employment. The kinds of investment that helped make America great in the first place.

I have spoken at length tonight about our fiscal position. I will continue to speak publicly, in town halls and in community meetings, where residents have the chance to ask me questions directly.

This administration will tackle our challenges head-on, regardless of the political cost.

But this administration will not be defined by crisis alone. Even as we work hard to make the changes we need to survive, we will fight for our priorities.

We remain committed to doing everything we can to make our streets safer, and our neighborhoods stronger. By recruiting the next generation of police officers as so many Hartford police prepare to retire; by modernizing law enforcement, using cameras and other technology; and by engaging our community more effectively.

We embrace the principle that small things matter. Blighted properties, empty lots and litter can weigh a neighborhood down, and fixing those small things can change a whole community.

We will use every legal tool available to us to combat blight, and transfer chronically blighted properties into productive, caring hands.

We will continue to seek private resources to help put our young men and women to work — with a particular focus on building a Youth Service
Corps that gives our young people a chance to earn a paycheck while working for their community.

And I will advocate tirelessly for changes in our criminal justice system that will help make Connecticut — and Hartford — a true second chance society. That means lobbying private employers to “Ban the Box.”

That means reforming pre-trial detention, so that jail time has more to do with your crime and less to do with ability to make bail. And that means continuing to reform the pardon and parole process.

Most important of all, we will do everything we can to recruit and retain employers, small and big. We will help build a city that fosters innovation, incubation and entrepreneurship, because that’s what drives real, long-term growth — not expensive buildings or baseball stadiums.

When I launched my campaign for Mayor a year ago, I said that Hartford is at a moment of tremendous challenge and tremendous opportunity. Today, I believe that more than ever.

Next year, the University of Connecticut will open its doors downtown. In 2018, we will see commuter rail service linking New Haven, Hartford and Springfield.

The Capital Region Development Authority, which has fueled the residential development in downtown, now has capital set aside for investment in our neighborhoods.

There is increased interest in developing in Hartford, and a renewed excitement about Hartford in our surrounding towns.

The opportunities are real, and they are near. The challenges, too, are real. And they’re already here. The only way to seize our opportunities is to confront our challenges.

Tonight, I ask all of you to join me in securing Hartford’s future by confronting its financial challenges boldly.

We will not accept a future of decline for our city.

We will build Hartford on a sound foundation, so that what we build will last.

We will do whatever it takes to ensure that sometime in the future, a mayor will be able to stand in this chamber and declare that the state of our city is as strong as it has ever been.

Thank you all. May God Bless the United States of America, the State of Connecticut, and the great City of Hartford.
 

Sunday, March 13, 2016

WE NEED TO CHOOSE OUR BATTLES MUCH BETTER, THE TRUMP CONTROVERSY

A Hartford Police Officer is potentially in hot water tonight after what many would consider him exercising his free speech rights. But then others would differ and there really is two sides to this story, maybe I should call it the sane version versus the insane version.

A Hartford Police Officer, someone I will admittedly know and consider a friend, made what some might call a poor decision, but the fire storm that is now erupting is ridiculous. The officer, who happens to be assigned to the neighborhood I call home, had stuck a "Trump" bumper sticker on the cover of the laptop in  his cruiser. When the laptop was open, the "Trump" bumper sticker  was visible through the windshield.

I saw the sticker first hand last Thursday when I was walking my dog in Asylum Hill. The officer, who was aware that I have had some health issues, pulled over to ask how I was doing and offer me some encouragement in my recovery. I saw the bumper sticker and laughed it off and told him he should remove that before it became a problem.

I guess I was a little too late because some one had already taken a picture of it. The officer did in fact remove the sticker. I wasn't offended by the bumper sticker , and saw it as more  of a joke than anything else. I was a little amazed when I started getting text messages that the picture of the "TRUMP" bumper sticker was creating a Public relations storm on social media. My response was
"why even respond , it has been dealt with"

I also questioned, if it wasn't "TRUMP" would anyone care? I wish we could have conducted a social experiment and see if it created as much of an uproar if they were Hillary or Bernie stickers? I think not, but we will never know.

Any way, I explained to the officer that the issue was the sticker was on City property (the laptop cover). He got that and the sticker was removed. I told him feel free to plaster his personal vehicle with TRUMP stickers or load his front lawn  with TRUMP signs. If that is who he believes in, that is his right to do so, but on City property is not appropriate.

That would seem like a logical ending at that point, but then a press release was put out by HPD this morning throwing more fuel on the fire.

Media, please see our statement below regarding picture circulating on social media:

We, the HPD command staff, were made aware of the irresponsible application of a political sticker in an HPD patrol car yesterday morning. We immediately addressed it.  Now the matter will be referred to an internal investigation. 

Specifically:

"This political sticker situation has been addressed. The sticker, which was conspicuously affixed to the top of a HPD laptop computer within the marked patrol vehicle, has been removed. The officer was counseled on the critical importance of remaining neutral and impartial. We also reminded all HPD officers to remain politically neutral. Specific daily roll call training is being given at all shifts. The matter will now be referred for an internal investigation. 

I am, and we are, embarrassed and sorry for this lack of professionalism and judgement.”

I guess I just don't get it. Are we now prepared to ban all political buttons being worn by Public employees? Are we going to ban cars with bumper stickers from parking on City property? To what extreme will we go to disavow political candidates we may not agree with?The officer already admitted he used poor judgement placing the sticker there, why the need for an "Internal Investigation"? For what ? To decide if he was telling the truth when he said he was wrong?

And aren't there far worse things we could "Investigate" besides a police officer supporting a legitimate presidential candidate. Folks, that is what a Democracy is all about, choose a candidate, and let the masses decide on election day. The bumper sticker might have been the wrong way to do it, but I seriously doubt that one sticker inside a cruiser on a laptop in Hartford Connecticut is going to damage another candidate or propel Donald Trump into the White House.

And just a little bit of background. I don't support every one that wears an HPD badge and has a  City of Hartford patch on their shoulder. But this officer is one of the good guys in my neighborhood. He "gets" the concept of community policing. Not just for me the loud mouth blogger that many fear and sometimes treat differently. But this officer has called me on many occasions when he has needed a little help or someone to call to help the people less fortunate in  our neighborhood.

One such call was asking if I could push anyone on the state level to find shelter for a homeless veteran  who was being passed around  and having a hard time to get any assistance. This is an officer who regularly works with community court and Capitol Region Mental Health to  assist so many of those "dumped' in Asylum Hill without any safety net. Ask the prosecutor at Community Court and he will most likely tell you this officer has a hotline to the court because they work so closely together.

I guess it just amazes me that we can focus on a good caring  Officer who happens to support Donald Trump over a bumper sticker on a laptop, but there was hardly a peep when I posted about a drunken Hartford Officer running around Foxwoods Casino yelling the "N" word. How can we launch an "internal Investigation " ,if there really is one, when we can't complete an IAD Investigation into hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing ammunition, quite possibly at the hands of a dirty cop?

 And finally, no one has to apologize to me or be embarrassed for me over this officers actions. I am proud to say I know him , consider him a friend and feel very comfortable he is keeping my quality of life in Asylum Hill through his efforts.

Friday, March 11, 2016

LOVE FOR HARTFORD

There are many people  out there that love and care for our City and its future.

That love is expressed in many different ways. Here is just one more example, and it shows the creativity of Hartford's people


HMEA SAYS NO "OVERWHELMINGLY" TO BRONIN REQUEST

At a meeting today of the Hartford Municipal Employees Association (HMEA). Members apparently voted unanimously to turn down a request by Mayor Bronin to withdraw their contract negotiations from the arbitration process.

Apparently Bronin had requested the withdrawal from Arbitration as part of the process to start getting Hartford's budget mess in order. This step would have been part of the process to re-open Union contract issues, what many say is a necessary first step.

On the other side, there might be an issue of the trust factor between the Union's and the   City Administration. Previously Hartford's Unions were requested to agree to give backs, furlough days and various concessions. They did their part at that time, only to see Mayor Segarra then hand out raises to his staff, including a $20,000 raise to his Chief of Staff Jared Kupiec,

Unfortunately, Hartford's "Massive" budget deficit continues to grow daily.

The unfortunate pat of these actions is that many of HMEA'S members are actually Hartford residents and any layoffs of HMEA  members would hit them and the City very hard both in unemployment stats and difficulty paying taxes on their homes and vehicles.

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY WEEKEND IN HARTFORD

The annual Saint Patrick's Day celebration begins tonight with the pre-parade Mass at Saint Patrick-Saint Anthony Church at the corner of Church Street and Ann Ucello Street, directly behind the XL Center. The mass will be celebrated at 7:00PM

The parade steps off tomorrow morning fro the South side of the Connecticut Capitol at 11:00am. The parade route is below, arrive early and stake out your seat along the parade route. The weather is supposed to be great, and the parade always draws large crowds to downtown Hartford and its businesses.

Enjoy what Hartford has to offer, but please act responsibly. According to the Hartford Police
"We know people are going to be drinking.   We want to encourage everyone to do is to be responsible with any drinking that they do as well as how they travel; designate a driver, take a cab, use Uber, whatever.  We want people to be safe and enjoy the parade."



STATE OF THE CITY MONDAY NIGHT