🔒Leadership of next administration key to Hartford’s future success

The 2016 mayoral and city council elections represent a seminal moment in Hartford's political history and will require the city's businesses, education and healthcare institutions, and residents to coalesce with the November winners around a comprehensive agenda that drives the economic and revenue growth fundamental to the Capital City's quality of life.

As a representative of the private sector, the MetroHartford Alliance recognizes our responsibility to work closely and collaboratively with November's winners to eliminate the impediments to the city's ability to capitalize fully on the significant federal, state and private investments of the past 15 years.  The election by voters of competent and energetic leadership in November will be the first and most important step in galvanizing the sustained commitment of all parties to such an agenda.   

The Alliance respectfully raises the following issues as fundamental to Hartford's future success:

Public safety:  The safety of residents, businesses and visitors in all neighborhoods must remain the top priority of the next administration with that priority manifested in the adequate staffing of an effective community policing program.  Similarly, the administration and the police chief must continue to engage private-sector support of valuable neighborhood programs like PAL and Project Longevity. 

Property tax and grand list growth:  The new administration must adopt the recommendations set forth in the report of the 2014 Tax Task Force, the most recent in a series of task force reports that collect the proverbial shelf dust. 

Such implementation will begin the long overdue reformation of an antiquated tax structure that continues arbitrary and unproductive property classifications that unfairly punishes motor-vehicle owners, and, most importantly, that precludes private-sector investment without significant public subsidies.  Action must be taken to abolish this threefold combination that has produced a steadily declining grand list, a diabolical mill rate, and an unsustainable burden on commercial property owners of all sizes — property owners who serve as the city's primary employers.

Relationships with CRDA and CRCOG:  The city's administration must have a fully engaged and constructive working relationship with the Capital Region Development Authority, which oversees more than 1,000 new units of housing, the relocation of a UConn campus to Hartford, and the renovation of the XL Center.  A similarly effective relationship with the Capital Region Council of Governments is vital to identifying regional approaches necessary to controlling growth in the cost and improving the quality of municipal services.

Downtown North development:  The new administration must work with the Hartford Stadium Authority to ensure that the repayment of the authority's bonds issued to fund the construction of the minor league stadium do not increase the city's operating budget.  

The Alliance has consistently emphasized this critical point as well as the equally important principle that the stadium must be the successful catalyst to completing the Downtown North development as approved by the city council earlier this year.  If completed, the DoNo development will provide a critical link between the downtown and the north end, spur additional economic activity, increase amenities for residents and visitors, and integrate with the highly valued goals and accomplishments of the iQuilt initiative.  

Education: The future of the city and the region depends to a large degree on Hartford's high school students graduating with the skills necessary to pursue higher education and quality employment opportunities and to contribute to the region's civic infrastructure. 

That graduation goal requires that the administration, school board and superintendent, and organizations such as Achieve Hartford and the Hartford Consortium of Higher Education, continue to work together to accelerate the pace of reform that has produced significant gains in closing the performance gap between city and suburban students.

The Alliance applauds all those responsible for the past 15 years of improvements in the city's economy and quality of life.  At the same time, we remain eager to work with a mayor and a city council recommitted to fulfilling our fiduciary responsibility to ensure that those improvements produce an ever-stronger Hartford region.  As the city's voters go to the polls on Sept. 16 and Nov. 3, we urge them to elect those individuals who will provide the leadership necessary to attain that goal.

Oz Griebel is president and CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance