What would it truly take to regionalize Hartford?

[jcrc]

VOR, you are stating the rationale and benefit of a regionalized Hartford, but MadVlad's question is what would it take. But sounded like those kiwis are smart, can't say that about what we have in Hartford. At any rate, where will our fearless leader Eddie Perez be in this regional scheme? I am guessing he wants to be at the top of the totem pole. Wouldn't that turn those nice folks in West Hartford off?

[The Voice of Reason]

well, like I said, its about sports and transport.

I will add that economic stressors help quite a bit as well. so, since it did not even come up during this recession, we can only hope to see tiny inching towards some co-operation untill the recession, or 3rd recession from now acts as the stressor to make the decisions easier to save money by giving up local controll or independent authority.

this is bigger and longer termed than eddie.

taking him out of the equation or leaving him means no difference to me.

Obviously the standing Mayor of Hartford would want to think (s)he had a chance to lead the larger entity, but the reality is that this larger entity would require someone to put hat in hand and accept a lower position.

but because I am an ass I will use the biggest lies in the world to make a point.... (statistics)

to win the mayorship of Hartford currently you need.....

Hartford Results: (AP)

• Mayor Eddie Perez: 6,217 - 49 percent
• I. Charles Mathews: 4,456 - 35 percent
• Minnie Gonzales: 823 - 6 percent
• Stan McCauley: 703 - 5 percent
• Thirman Milner: 444 - 3 percent
• Raul DeJesus: 155 - 1 percent

  if Waterbury were part of this new vision, apparently we would have a different chief

  Waterbury: (AP)

  • Michael Jarjura (D-incumbent) 8,133 - 50 percent
  • Dennis Odle (I) 4,337 - 27 percent
  • Anthony D'Amelio 3,747 - 23 percent
  • Joseph Zdonczyk (Concerned Citizens) 102 - 1 percent

but being more realistic, an entity involving E-Hartford would

would be another 4400 who voted for their mayor and even 3000 who voted for the republican challanger

more info to be found here

http://www.wfsb.com/...734/detail.html

the point is that even though Eddie keeps widding, he has not faced other competent democrats, and even more interestingly, the demographic of the city would now include more middle class and upper class residents, so maybe those 3000 republicans would team up with hartfords reps and moderate dems and independents..

just saying, is that an additional 50000 voters is a game changer, and you can absolutely not count on anything.

the good people of hartford, and the people of E-ast Hartford would have voted against Eddies complacent core supporters.

mind you as much as a crook as he is I still love that he thinks big. maybe its because he is a tiny dude. I mean I tower over the guy and I am just 6'1" 215 but whatever Im not a gangerster, so I shouldnt talk smack

[jcrc]

Those numbers are irrelevant, for one thing Waterbury is in New Haven county, it would have no impact on regionalization of Hartford county. If we ask what the region think about the city, without a doubt the majority will say it's a cesspool of crime and poverty with a corrupted city hall, e.g. Eddie Perez. And you think they want that in any kind of regional cooperation? The original question is WHAT WOULD IT TRULY TAKE TO REGIONALIZE HARTFORD. I am thinking it it not happening. You are not saying how to accomplish it.

[The Voice of Reason]

Those numbers are irrelevant, for one thing Waterbury is in New Haven county, it would have no impact on regionalization of Hartford county. If we ask what the region think about the city, without a doubt the majority will say it's a cesspool of crime and poverty with a corrupted city hall, e.g. Eddie Perez. And you think they want that in any kind of regional cooperation? The original question is WHAT WOULD IT TRULY TAKE TO REGIONALIZE HARTFORD. I am thinking it it not happening. You are not saying how to accomplish it.

[jcrc]

Excuse me while I de-evolved. I thought I make it pretty clear. I am thinking it it not happening. The rest of the region is not going to vote for it because they don't want to have anything to do with Hartford. If pointing out this reality means I am negative, then I am negative. Sports authority and regional transportation authority will lead to regionalized Hartford? I am laughing while I type, but go ahead with your Quixote impossible dream. The way I see it, the only shared services our suburbs are for is social services, you know sending all the undesirables to Hartford in centralized clinics and half way houses. It saves them money, and ahem problems. Does this count as pooppooing your post?

[drc72]

It's always boggled my mind why the State of CT allowed Hartford to split up into three different towns, Hartford, West Hartford, and East Hartford. Why?????? Even when combined,it's nowhere near as big as NYC, Chicago, LA, etc. Not even close to those major cities. Driving down Farmington Ave in Hartford from downtown, I'll hit West Hartford in a matter of a few minutes. It would of been interesting to see how a combined Hartford of would fared compared to the split up?

[beerbeer]

Step one: Lose Eddie Perez and clean up Hartford city hall.

Step two: Run the city so well that others want to be a part of it.

Step three: Set up a multi-municipality "advisory" council to foster co-operation and efficiencies.

Step four: Combine some departments that save all partners money.

[The Voice of Reason]

Step one: Lose Eddie Perez and clean up Hartford city hall.

[LOV]

ladies, no need to be rude to eachother.

ok, i'll add something constructive on how to make this happen along the lines of what beerbeer wrote.

except that "Step two: Run the city so well that others want to be a part of it" should be Step 1.

would anyone really care as much about eddie if the city was boooming?

hartford has to offer something to other towns, even east hartford, in order for this to happen. even with east hartford, it can't be just "lets unite for misery's sake" and one weakling is better than two.

as much as we hoorah for the front street beind developed, how much idle, empty space sits downtown already? have any tenants signed up prior to building front street? every week the story is getting gloomer with northland, closing of goodwin, every two month another major building is going into foreclosure. the old chan 3 building... all the low fives everyone was passing around because we're getting a nice green highrise office... how long has it been now -- at least a year, nothing but another carcass right in the middle of the city. mcdonalds is gone too.

don't even get started on the grocery store... some of the highest incomed individuals in hartford reside downtown and downtown still doesn't have a grocery store.

plan:

1) steal, rob, borrow, get into the grocery business yourself, but the city should put a grocery store in downtown asap. actually, cancel that ai building contract and build it right at the old chan. 3 space. right on the bus line, right downtown and right next to east hartford, people can walk across the bridge and do some shopping.

2) fill the already emptry spaces in hartford before building any more crap that no one but the contractor benefits from. mandate tax breaks, get into landlord's business, but do what it takes to get the occupancy rate downtown up.

2a) work, really work hard, with the state to bring some new industry and companies and give them incentives to come to downtown hartford. right now we have no one coming to ct in general and the big companies that are here are trying to move off jobs, all we can come up with is to sue them and prolong it by a year. this is not going to work.

3) if 2 and 2a don't work (failing #1 is not an option), apply for grants and move and start more technical schools downtown, become the regional educational center. this is going to be a long work in progress, but in 10-15 years it will address poor schools and poverty issues in hartford and the city will start turning around. more kids will not only have advanced education but will have ability to retain it. now kids from other towns that don't make it to colleges will have an incentive to come downtown and hartford can try to leverage this into some sort of benefit gains from those towns.

4)really down the line, consider building monorails to surrounding towns.

right now, hartford really has nothing to offer, so for any sort of regionalization to take place, hartford has to get its head out of their ass and finally do things that will benefit hartford directly. salvation will come from within, not from a union with another town -- at least not for a while now.

[MichaelQReilly]

ladies, no need to be rude to eachother.

hartford has to offer something to other towns, even east hartford, in order for this to happen. even with east hartford, it can't be just "lets unite for misery's sake" and one weakling is better than two.

-snip-

right now, hartford really has nothing to offer, so for any sort of regionalization to take place, hartford has to get its head out of their ass and finally do things that will benefit hartford directly. salvation will come from within, not from a union with another town -- at least not for a while now.

[The Voice of Reason]

there ya go.

thats exactly what im talking about! nice post LOV.

I like the tech school thing.

let me add one.

one job, that most people think is generally a crappy one would be great for hartford.

Call Centers.

the communication infrastructure is here, and there are actually loads and loads of people more than capable and willing to work at call centers.

If the state/city could bring these entry level jobs to hartford, a hunge number of people would have jobs to look forward to, and depending on the industry that the call centers were in, training towards later careers. as much as a call center is kind of a dead end job, its a lot better than no job at all.

we need to retain our high paying jobs, but if we could bring in more entry level positions we would be much better off.

Omaha NE, was once the call center mecca, but it has now grown to support a huge amount of business operations.

finance companies realized they had allready trained the call center people, so they just utilized them in Ops.

Just another idea for the jobs, not so much regionalizations.

I do think that if hartford can continue to improve(not the little things like vacancies) the built environment like it has, it will attract more life and living and become the center of it all again. this will help make places like E-Hartford see some value in co-operation.

for me its still all about adding more affluent downtown residents.

while we need the grocery, we need to build and convert more buildings (demand is there even without grocery, but would be better with a grocery) for residential use. downtown is around 90% for residential occupancy, so we clearly can support another building or two. with a grocery i bet we would be booked out.

[jcrc]

In all seriousness, what would it take to convince the towns surrounding Hartford to merge with Hartford and form one city? What incentives could be given to the West Hartfords, the East Hartfords, the Windsors, Bloomfields, Wethersfields, etc? I know the hurdles, I understand the intense resistance to the idea. However, I still feel the area would be better off if Hartford were a city of 311,000 people and 128k sq/mi, with merged services (Police, Fire, Emergency, a regional school system, etc). There has to be some trigger which could convince people this would be a good idea, i just don't know what would snap people out of their misconceptions.

[HartfordTycoon]

If the question is simply what would it take for Greater Hartford to combine and form one city I would say the answer is that only action at the state level could possibly accomplish this at any time now or in the future. Even if Hartford has a clean bill of health and is booming and viewed favorably locally, nationally, internationally, or whatever grand dream we want to have, the towns are run by governments who will not go for it. In my understanding towns and cities do not have sovereignty though and the charters are basically just a contract with the state that the state can amend if it sees fit. The only way that we end up with one city in all municipal definitions would be for this to be imposed from the state level for the benefit of the state.

Regarding regionalization, I think some of the seeds are sewn with the MDC and GRCOG taking on ever increasing roles in planning and development, and land use policy, and transportation. At this point I want to see this continue to develop and expand into other areas. I think there should be a regional planning body, a regional sports authority, and a regional mass transit agency of some sort. Let's start there and work our way up to annexations and what not.

[LOV]

not to derail the conversation further, perhaps a separate topic should be started on this, but getting back to all the things we discuss on what hartford should do to better itself/survive/persevere, i think we're looking at it very from a one sided perspective (myself included).

i've lived downtown for a few years and i'll be the first to admit that when i "think" hartford, i think downtown. what i myself so often forget are stretches of of buildings, streets, neighboorhoods outside of downtown.

yes, downtown probably has some of the most affluent residents, albeit a good portion of them are just renters and are not tied to the city by a mortgage obligation, but west end by elizabeth park isn't too shabby. my point is, and what i'm guilty of, is that i always end up thinking that fix downtown and "hartford" will be fixed: put a grocery store there, more people will move in, etc.

yes, these people will move in, but who will they be? more empty nesters, divorcees, elderly/older couples that are downsizing? there's only so many of them. younger people will move in you say -- true, they'll probably move in, but when starting a family they'll most likely leave. this is where we run into the bigger problem with hartford, all the outside areas, where the schools are actually located, and some of those areas are by multiple factors worse off than downtown. intersections of park and main, the split of wethersfield, franklin & maple, northend will also have to be developed and brought up right along with downtown. the area around barnaby park has great potential and need for ressurection. the colt park area both from wethersfield and frankling ave has major residential buildings. a lot of them are now condos, a lot of them are older, solid brick buildings. image if that area was to be reclaimed from poverty, how many residential units you've just added to the city? you'd also be reclaming buckley highschool now and the middleschool right down the road from it, because the area now has become more affluent and can support more police presence, etc.

[MadVlad]

This site pisses me off, I just had three paragraphs with a defined plan for the city, and when I hit "add reply" it just refreshed the screen..... wtf.

[HartfordTycoon]

not to derail the conversation further, perhaps a separate topic should be started on this, but getting back to all the things we discuss on what hartford should do to better itself/survive/persevere, i think we're looking at it very from a one sided perspective (myself included).

i've lived downtown for a few years and i'll be the first to admit that when i "think" hartford, i think downtown. what i myself so often forget are stretches of of buildings, streets, neighboorhoods outside of downtown.

yes, downtown probably has some of the most affluent residents, albeit a good portion of them are just renters and are not tied to the city by a mortgage obligation, but west end by elizabeth park isn't too shabby. my point is, and what i'm guilty of, is that i always end up thinking that fix downtown and "hartford" will be fixed: put a grocery store there, more people will move in, etc.

yes, these people will move in, but who will they be? more empty nesters, divorcees, elderly/older couples that are downsizing? there's only so many of them. younger people will move in you say -- true, they'll probably move in, but when starting a family they'll most likely leave. this is where we run into the bigger problem with hartford, all the outside areas, where the schools are actually located, and some of those areas are by multiple factors worse off than downtown. intersections of park and main, the split of wethersfield, franklin & maple, northend will also have to be developed and brought up right along with downtown. the area around barnaby park has great potential and need for ressurection. the colt park area both from wethersfield and frankling ave has major residential buildings. a lot of them are now condos, a lot of them are older, solid brick buildings. image if that area was to be reclaimed from poverty, how many residential units you've just added to the city? you'd also be reclaming buckley highschool now and the middleschool right down the road from it, because the area now has become more affluent and can support more police presence, etc.

[The Voice of Reason]

This site pisses me off, I just had three paragraphs with a defined plan for the city, and when I hit "add reply" it just refreshed the screen..... wtf.

[The Voice of Reason]

so, besides the MDC, riverfront recapture, and CRCOG, we forgot about CREC

the regional education council runs the magnates I think.

[HartfordTycoon]

so, besides the MDC, riverfront recapture, and CRCOG, we forgot about CREC

the regional education council runs the magnates I think.

[The Voice of Reason]

well their office is right next to the candycane building, thats for sure.

cant believe i forgot them working right next door

[MadVlad]

We just got my daughter into a magnet pre-school, I think CREC has it's fingers into some of the Hartfiord magnets as well...

[The Voice of Reason]

Major step in the right direction here.

mind you this is NOT law yet, it needs to pass the senate still, but read on!

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-hotel-tax-increase-0430,0,575148.story

The state hotel tax would rise from 12 percent to 15 percent under a bill that passed the state House of Representatives

One-third of the 3 percentage point increase would go to the cities or towns where the hotels that collected the money are located; two-thirds would go to the regional planning organizations on a pro rata basis.

so, 2% of all hotel bookings in the state will go to funding regional planning organizations.

The state has 15 regional planning organizations

"The property tax is choking our state," Sharkey said, adding that regionalization efforts could result in future savings. "We have to do something. We have to act now."

also see

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/hotel_tax_passes_house

The Office of Fiscal Analysis estimates that the hotel tax increase will generate $9.4 million in 2011 and $18.8 million in 2012.

so the good thing is that this new revenue even though generated from another tax will allow the regional planning organizations to take more controll, and hopefully save the communities they serve by attracting more business, and combining services etc. there is some hope in my opinion with this funding.

9.4 million/3 is 3.1 million for the towns, and 6.2 million to the planning organizations.

and a yar later, 6.3 and 12.6 or so each.

these kinds of funds can help to Bond a heck of a lot more than 12.6 Million, so if we are talking about some of the larger regionals like CRCOG, these revenues might allow for some significant projects or grants. no idea how they will sploit up the monies, or even what those 15 organizations are, but very very interesting stuff.