Last week the minority Republican city councilors criticized the manner in which the ruling Democratic majority is proposing and passing policy for the city.
GOP Councilor Rob Pero said the Democrats have abandoned the process the City Council uses to enact laws.
“There has been no consistency,” Pero said in an interview last Wednesday. According to the City Council’s rules, councilors normally propose matters during regular meetings, then send them to one or more of the body’s seven committees for further debate. If the matter passes in committee, the action is brought before the whole council for ratification.
But, it doesn’t always have to work that way. Often, if there is a pressing, time-sensitive matter, the council will discuss the issue during the course of a regular meeting. Pero claims the Democrats have been rushing through agenda items on issues that have not been thoroughly debated.
The disagreement, which Pero said has been brewing for several months, came to a head at the June 23 meeting over two agenda items. The first is a new ordinance requiring contractors to hire minority laborers, as well as workers who are residents of New London County and affiliated with a certified apprenticeship program. Contractors must also offer prevailing wages.
The second item was the dissolution of the Redevelopment Authority. Both measures passed 5-2 along party lines, after attempts by Pero and Councilor Adam Sprecace to put both matters in committee.
According to Mayor Kevin Cavanagh, who sponsored the ordinances along with the four other Democrats, time was of the essence in passing both motions, as companies soon will be bidding on contracts to undertake the reconstruction of Nathan Hale and Winthrop elementary schools as magnet schools.
“That was an urgent thing,” Cavanagh noted.
The Board of Education just last week passed the educational programs for the new magnet schools that will be sent along to the state for approval. School board Vice President Elaine Maynard Adams said if all goes according to plan, the projects would be put out to bid “sometime during the summer.”
Maynard Adams also said the prevailing wage condition would have been met regardless of the council’s vote because there are federal funds in the project, and it is a national law to pay the standard union wage to unaffiliated laborers.
The Democrats passed the ordinance even though the director of law Tom Londregan admitting during the meeting that he was “confused” about some of the language in the motion. The law director’s unease spurred Sprecace to suggest the council put the matter to the Economic Development Committee, a motion that failed along party lines.
“How is this any way to do business?” Sprecace asked during the meeting.
The council also did away with the nearly 50-year-old Redevelopment Agency that in the 1960s and ‘70s presided over the destruction of many of the city’s architectural gems in the name of urban renewal.
Councilor Michael Buscetto said the dissolution of the Redevelopment Agency, which has only two properties at its disposal—the vacant lot on the Bank Street side of Shaw’s Cove office park and an industrial parcel under the Gold Star Bridge—would help “streamline” development of both pieces of land.
“Developers can come directly to us,” Buscetto said.
Pero, again, asked that the matter be put into the Administration Committee to make sure there are not any federal funds the city could be eligible for that would be channeled through the agency. Economic Development Director Ned Hammond said at the June 23 meeting that he is “unaware” of any federal funds being directed toward the agency.
Cavanagh said the city had to deal with the Redevelopment Agency issue before the start of the 2009 fiscal year. Echoing Buscetto, the mayor said the city wanted to “streamline” the process.
The Democratic proposal to ax the Redevelopment Agency comes on the heels of the June 10 announcement that a major company is planning to shift 150 workers to Shaw’s Cove but needed more parking.
Two members of the four-member Redevelopment Agency, Barbara Goodrich and Richard Frederick, expressed doubts that a 92-space parking lot is the best use for the 3.23 acres.
Buscetto, in a recent interview, denied that Goodrich’s and Frederick’s apprehension about a parking lot played a role in dismantling the agency.
“I asked the law director to research it during the budget process,” he said.
Buscetto noted that he has not yet decided about the best use of the property either.
Cavanagh said the Redevelopment Agency’s dissolution would take place over the coming weeks, as the city needs to examine its records.