The President’s Vision
Greater Hartford has many community leaders that have a proven track record of working with the people of Greater Hartford. If we as leaders are going to be servants of the people we have to realize at we no longer have the luxury of not working together. We must all have a seat at the table if we are going to fix our communities many issues.
We must all work together as an association of leaders that love Greater Hartford and more importantly, the people of Greater Hartford. I have a 5 Point Plan to realign Hartford’s priorities, and a solid ACTION PLAN to implement it and get it done!
So here is my vision, I hope that it can be a starting point!
PRIORITY# 1 – Education and Youth Development: I believe that education can be transformative and that it can be transformed to meet the needs of every child in our city. It is the moral imperative of our time and a true pathway out of poverty. I was a public-school kid AND benefited from a school environment that allowed me to develop as an engaged learner. Working over the past twenty years with Hartford parents and community organizations, I remember how schools served as community anchors and a source of pride in the neighborhoods. The potential for creating highly effective schools is there, but it is not realized because we don’t have the leadership to bring about the kind of connections that are necessary to bring about the change to create the kind of schools we need. By neglecting our schools through the absence of both a well-articulated “one city- one plan” vision for education and our young people and a political commitment to implement that plan, the current administration has done great harm to our city.
As Constituents we can encourage candidates to embrace the following:
The Appointment of City Department heads – to also serve on the Board of Education – to embed collaboration and bust silos. Schools and the communities within which they reside are inextricably linked. City planning and our schools are siloed even though they have shared visions and goals. Planning for the city and planning for the schools must be addressed in a wholistic way.
- I would choose the following:
- Finance Department
- Community Engagement
- Metro Hartford Innovation Services
- Procurement Services Unit
- Department of Families, Children, Youth and Recreation
Appoint an Education Chief – to execute on an education agenda for the city by forming strategic public -private sector partnerships and fostering coordination between youth serving organizations. Be the connector across all facets of education, youth development programs, parents, residents, business and community leader involvement.
Expand Support to Teachers – Our current system is leaving everyone frustrated and burned out. Let’s start a new conversation by working with the union and saying – in this city your teachers are out gunned. When you signed up to teach you – you didn’t sign up for this – you expected a lot more support. You can’t extinguish a five-alarm blaze with a fire extinguisher. I’ll work with you and with the administration and with the private sector to rally the resources you need to get additional training and support so that you can be the most effective teachers in the classroom.
Promote Full Implementation of Student Success Plans – Planning to graduate is not enough. Our students must graduate with a plan and that plan must be created with the help of as many caring adults from the residential and private sector as possible.
Call for Dream Directors in Every School – Exposure and aspiration are the key – Dream Directors are Youth Development Experts who will spark the curiosity, purpose and imagination to uncover our student’s limitless potential. They train students to become leaders to engage their peers and shift the culture of the school.
Address Remediation – Our kids are behind and we must provide additional supports to catch them up – as a community we must come together and summon an Army of Academic Resources to wrap around our kids.
Youth Development as a City Priority – Developing our young people is not a school issue alone, these are issues for the community. They are citizens of the city, they are with us before school, after school, nights and weekends and all summer. We are largely overlooking the insights and potential of our cities’ most important constituents – our future leaders. We can create civically engaged adults starting now by inviting young people to the urban planning and policy making table.
Kick Start School Governance Councils – Fully support functioning SGCs in every school as a primary means of engaging community and parent involvement..
PRIORITY# 2 – Communications: City of Hartford driven communications must be understood as part of the larger work of driving change in Hartford. I believe communications is the most critical factors to making Hartford’s growth successful by bringing the community along in all City efforts and building trust. Our digital world is inundated with information and constituents deserve and need reliable sources of information about their city government. The goal must be to translate city and department happenings in ways that speak to distinct constituencies and provide clear avenues for partnership in the work.
As Constituents we can encourage candidates to embrace the following:
Establish Systems that Support Open and Consistent Communications – Institute stronger systems that raise the level of importance for communications between all city departments that force more coordination and consistency of services. Connecting with neighboring municipalities, as well as with state and federal government entities will be prioritized.
Advance a Culture of Open and Honest Communications – weekly Live broadcasts – Open Forum Q&A with the Mayor.
Utilize Deeper Community Pathways and Partners – To inform the community of key initiatives and issues, utilize various methods for disseminating information using neighborhood newspapers, public access TV (channel 95 & 96), radio (WQTQ), YouTube, social media, text messaging, and emails.
Strong Focus on Public Relations and Marketing – Lack of community engagement and awareness causes resources and assets to go un-utilized or underutilized. The city website must be well designed with up to the minute information on city proceedings, community events, resources and timely information residents need such as parking bans, road closures etc.
PRIORITY# 3 – Mission Driven Collaborations Working Outside of our Silos: Multiple efforts to address the health and well-being of city of Hartford residents and neighborhoods are happening across a multitude of organizations in isolation. Areas such as, housing, healthcare, education, job readiness, business development, to name a few, are all linked. Most are measuring their potential impact using different metrics leading to little progress toward the goal of creating a vibrant city with thriving communities. This lack of communication and coordination across the city makes it challenging to assess the impact of initiatives and programs. This makes it difficult to prioritize needs and leverage opportunities. I believe in taking a proactive and purpose-driven approach to city-wide collaboration across sectors – education, philanthropy, corporate, small business, and community.
We must work with others toward a holistic approach to an effective poverty mitigation strategy by imploring our institutional and community leaders to deploy themselves in a much bigger and meaningful way. No single institution can fix Hartford alone. When unified around a common goal, once-isolated initiatives become collaborative powerhouses.
As Constituents we can encourage candidates to embrace the following:
Bring Together the Different Community and Organizational Stakeholders – to ensure we are communicating and working in partnership on a realistic and integrated picture of a healthy Hartford. Build a culture that encourages everyone to speak openly about creating new initiatives, sharing resources, or even combining different organizations’ initiatives without fear of negative repercussions.
PRIORITY# 4 – Public Safety / Quality of Life: The elected leaders number one responsibility is to ensure the protection of their constituents, organizations and institutions against threats to the general well-being of individuals and societies.
I believe that good quality of life goes beyond public safety and includes everything from physical health, family, education, employment, wealth and safety, to freedom of religion and beliefs.
Elected leaders need to implement an effective public safety strategy working with police, fire and the city’s health and human services departments. Because effective public safety requires an engaged community. We need effective and meaningful community policing.
As Constituents we can encourage candidates to embrace the following:
Establish an Anonymous Tip Line – Anonymous crime and violence reporting systems include mobile apps, which allow community members and individuals to report crimes. School students can even share concerns about issues like bullying, drug use, suicide, and planned school attacks.
Promote, Recruit, Hire and Retain – Police, Fire, and other City Staff – If career development is a key factor in retention, then the city must focus on developing our staff in order to increase our retention rates. The costs to the city are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss of productivity around the resignation, rehiring and retraining processes.
Without a quality recruitment and retention program, hiring new employees becomes a never-ending cycle of wasted time and money.
Support the Civilian Police Review Board – Which acts to review investigations of citizen complaints against police conduct and to make recommendations to the chief of police in connection therewith. We must establish a Civilian Academy and allow the CPRB to must be allowed to do their job unhindered.
Blight and Abandoned Properties – Urban decay (also known as urban rot and urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude.
This is a huge QOL issue and Blight by definition is a manifestation of the decline of our community. It must be aggressively combated with intentional vigor. I will supplement and support the NRZ Legislation to revitalize affected communities.
Use the Tool of Technology Responsibly – Proper behavior as it relates to the use of technology resources in public safety, education, or any other area of use with in the city of Hartford should respect all establish local, state and federal laws and all city staff and department will be expected to use proper behavior at all times. All users are expected to use all technology resources in a responsible, ethical, and polite manner.
Establish Reckless Driving and ATV Task-force – In recent years more people have died as a result of vehicular homicides than criminal homicides in Hartford. This is an unacceptable trend that requires a focused resolution.
Establish Neighborhood Block Watches – A Neighborhood Block Watch program empowers citizens to become active in community efforts through participation in Neighborhood Watch groups.
PRIORITY# 5 – Economic and Community Development: Economic development is the process in which Hartford enjoys improvements in the sector of the economic, political, and social well being of our people. Therefore my administration will be intentional in an intervention endeavor with aims of improving the economic and social well-being of the people of Hartford whoever they may be.
I will quote the last paragraph from a report by the Economic Innovation Group titled: FROM GREAT RECESSION TO GREAT RESHUFFLING: CHARTING A DECADE OF CHANGE ACROSS AMERICAN COMMUNITIES. Findings from the 2018 Distressed Communities Index October 2018.
Policymakers at every level should use this period of national prosperity to reinvest in communities and rekindle the dynamic ingredients of the economy—to make opportunity more accessible, healthy risk-taking more viable, and people more empowered to choose which community to call home. The scale of challenge demands an embrace of localism and a re-commitment to the basic ingredients that created the world’s most formidable engine of prosperity in the first place: entrepreneurship, education, competition, and civic commitment to community and place.
When you have Elected leadership that is focused on building and strengthening neighborhoods and community instead of the wanton and blatant colonization and exploitation of Hartford’s obvious and hidden resources the future of Hartford looks brighter than bright!
As Constituents we can encourage candidates to embrace the following:
Strengthen the Neighborhood Revitalization Zones – I see these as critical to the success of community development in the city of Hartford. I believe that the NRZs have been kept on life support to be used as tools to hinder growth vs helping to stimulate growth. Our elected leaders need to take them off of life and use this well established vehicle by empowering the NRZs with staff so that they can function much like city commissions.
Move Hartford incrementally to prosperity – Hartford is a Distressed City! Every zip code except 06103 is classified as being in “Distress” I want to move Hartford form “Distressed”, to at “At Risk”, to “Mid-tier”, to “Comfortable”, and finally to a city that is considered “Prosperous”
Hartford has to develop the economy for Hartford – We must realign our economic development interests away from real estate business to finding ways of putting money in the pockets of the residents who are economically distressed.
We do this by attracting companies. We have to sell Hartford as a city whose residents are willing, ready and able to work.
We need a one-stop shop for economic development – Whether or not Entrepreneurs are born or created they all want to start businesses. They need the same kind of services and incentives Hartford would give a fortune 500 company relocating to Hartford. How can we help their their enterprise succeed?
A comprehensive plan to strengthen skill sets – Our residents should be at the top of the list when it comes to opportunities in Hartford as it relates to the construction trades. This can be done by working with the Minority Construction Council.
Leadership that Cares – Hartford’s Elected Leadership can’t be on the quest of resume building! It must be as deeply concerned about the general welfare of the Citizens of Hartford as it is about Hartford Incorporated. Hartford’s financial situation is just as important as the people.
