Celebrating 100 days in office, Mayor Harry Rilling gave Norwalk residents a rundown of the budget and development projects the city will be working on this year.
Easier permitting and parking top the agenda.
But before rolling up his sleeves and getting down to business, Rilling took a moment to applaud the Department of Public Works for its handiwork during the weather, making history this year as one of the coldest winters in Connecticut history.
“My hat goes off to the DPW crew for all they”™ve done,” said Rilling, describing how more citizens called to praise the snow removal efforts rather than complain about it.
The first item on the agenda was a $1.5 billion reduction in the city”™s grant list. As a result, most taxing districts will experience a reduction in medium property taxes except for Norwalk”™s sixth taxing district, which will see a significant increase, the mayor said.
“The good news is there”™s starting to be a shift in the tax burden from the residential to the commercial side,” Rilling said. “Hopefully, with the developments that are moving forward, we”™ll see that continue to happen more frequently.”
When it comes to barriers to business development and growth, the “No. 1 problem” is the lack of parking, which hinders people from spending money and setting up shop in south Norwalk, the mayor said. In response, he said the city has formed a task force to put together a subcommittee that can make recommendations to the parking authority and the administration about how to resolve the issue.
The wheels are turning as the city strategizes on how to bring drivers to Norwalk”™s main attraction sites. One idea is taxing the business improvement districts to help fund initiatives that improve the streets promote safety.
Rilling said his business advisory council next month will hire an economic development director who will work closely with the business advisory council, redevelopment office and himself to encourage people to invest in Norwalk, bring new businesses in and assist the existing businesses in the city.
“With the business advisory council, the economic development director will review the permit process in Norwalk,” the mayor said. “I know that it”™s challenging for somebody to come into Norwalk and get permits to either develop or add something to their home. We”™re going to look at our permit process and find ways that we can make it more efficient, more effective and much easier.”
Some development projects in Norwalk are under way, including the Port Chester-based Poko Partners L.L.C. project and the Head of the Harbor redevelopment project led by Norwalk developer Michael F. DiScala. Both are making “significant progress” and plan to have shovels in the ground within six months to a year,” Rilling added.
Meanwhile, Chicago-based General Growth Properties has yet to present plans to develop the 95/7 parcel in South Norwalk after acquiring the property last year. Another in-city development project called the Pearl recently received funding to move forward with a construction project for a three-level residential building.
The budget, which the city departments and the mayor put together, is very lean, the mayor said. The overall increase in budget for the fiscal year 2013-2014 was $9.4 million with $7.6 million, or 84 percent of the increase, contractually obligated, Rilling said. The city responded by cutting more than $3 million in department head requests.
“The result was a budget that fully funds the board of education,” Rilling said. “Opening the south and north branches of the library in Norwalk on Sundays during the school year and ensuring a school resource officer at each of the high schools and all four middle schools, all while maintaining a significant fund balance to keep our ”˜Triple A”™ bond rating.”
With education funding dwindling on the state level, Rilling said he is pleased with the budget Superintendent of Schools Manual J. Rivera and the board of education put together despite the overall increase in the budget set at 3.6 percent.
He added that he will continue to stress how “unfair” the so-called Educational Cost Sharing formula is for Norwalk. “Even fully funding the board of education”™s request will not produce the resources our children need because state funding of local education remains fundamentally inadequate, especially for Norwalk, Stamford and other major areas,” Rilling said. He plans to continue meeting with the Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes to “continue our fight.”
He said he plans to keep Norwalk involved in the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, a nonprofit focused on revamping the Educational Cost Sharing formula, which is intended to equalize state education funding by looking at a town”™s wealth and ability to raise property taxes to pay for education.
To bring the Norwalk community together, Rilling said he”™s been hosting a Mayor”™s Night Out event for the past two months. This gives members of the community a chance to meet members of the city”™s administration and interact with the mayor face to face. Likewise, Rilling said he plans to bring all departments heads in city hall together through monthly meetings.
As a former Norwalk Police chief, Rilling emphasized the importance of holding Police Commission meetings. The meetings will start later to accommodate working residents and a public comment section will be added to the agenda to give citizens a voice.
The mayor ended with a discussion of energy efficiencies and initiatives the energy and environmental task force will take to research federal and state grants that are available as the city plans to help developers move toward green.