“I think we have some work to do.” That’s how New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker recently characterized the relationship between town and gown. For three centuries the city and Yale University have coexisted in a state of uncomfortable equipoise. Sometimes they’re like two scorpions in a brandy snifter — the cause of riots in 1824 […]
“I think we have some work to do.”
That’s how New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker recently characterized the relationship between town and gown.
For three centuries the city and Yale University have coexisted in a state of uncomfortable equipoise.
Sometimes they’re like two scorpions in a brandy snifter — the cause of riots in 1824 and 1968. Other times they find ways to work together for mutual benefit, as they did during the 1994-2013 détente when Rick Levin and John DeStefano ran Woodbridge and City Hall, respectively.
The city and Yale are in one of those silent-but-deadly phases now. Since he took office Jan. 1, Elicker has insisted that the tax-exempt university (whose $30 billion endowment makes it the second-richest private university) pay its “fair share” to help its financially strapped host city. Practically since it relocated to New Haven in 1716, the school has made it clear that it will never, ever pay taxes. Instead it pays voluntary tribute in the form of PILOT payments to the city — some $120 million since 1990.
The COVID crisis exacerbated the already frosty relationship. In March after Yale sent students home indefinitely, the university brushed off the city’s request to house first-responders in now-empty residential spaces — a PR disaster for Yale.
Shortly thereafter Yale President Peter Salovey wrote to the Yale community asking for gifts to the Yale Community for New Haven Fund, a COVID-assistance initiative in partnership with the United Way and Community Foundation for Greater New Haven that had a $5 million fundraising goal primed by Yale’s $1 million cash gift.
The law-enforcement reckoning following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis touched New Haven in early June as activists (including Yale students) called for the dismantling of the 93-member Yale Police Department, upon which many city businesses depend for safety and security.
But hope springs eternal: The city’s Board of Alders in early June approved a budget that included a $2.5 million increase in Yale’s “voluntary” payment to the city — an increase to which the university did not agree and is not obligated to pay.
Good luck with that.
