Finances Lead Mayor Stewarts’s 2015 Goals
By Robin Vinci | Editor at January 8, 2024 | 6:15 pm | Print
Each New Year the New Britain City Journal asks the Mayor what his/her goals are for the year. Here are the top 5 goals from Mayor Erin Stewart for 2015.
1. Balance The Budget with No Tax Increase
“Last year when we obviously tried to fix what happened in years prior we realized it was not a one year fix,” said Stewart. “Last year we wanted to balance the budget. This year we want to get through the budget. It is not as difficult, but we are still carrying that budget deficit gap. It will take three to four budget cycles to fix that.”
Stewart said she has made a pledge not to raise taxes, but cannot lower them either. She said it would take several years before she could lower taxes.
“We had to do what we had to do to get us out of the situation we were in. After cutting $16 million from the budget, raising taxes was the only other option that we had to keep us from bankruptcy,” said Stewart. “We are still operating in a $7 million hole. It’s incredible how quickly someone can do so much damage and how long it can take to fix it.”
2. Increasing Economic Development Opportunities
“We have Costco coming, Polymer Precision is expanding, Admill Machine is expanding. We have run out of space almost on John Downey Drive. We sold another lot in the medical business park. There are a lot of exciting things like the Farmington Ave. development coming,” said Mayor Stewart. “We can still do better. We are waiting for sales to finalize and then there will be more.”
Stewart said that although there are a lot of great things on the horizon, she cannot release that information at this time.
“There are other properties we need to do a better job of marketing for the City,” she said. “We need to help business owners market their properties as well. It will all benefit us in the long run.”
The areas around the CTFastrak will be available for new business. In front of the CTFastrak there will be a pocket park that will be deeded to the City and can be used as a business as well.
3. Continue to Improve Schools
“We want to move forward with aspects from the Blue Ribbon Committee Report. We already started to do that, but we would like to push further,” said Stewart. “We want to increase the City bid threshold, so that we can use the purchasing agent to bid bulk for goods like toilet paper, pens, paper and more to get a better price. Right now each school buys them separately.”
Stewart said she would like to continue to work with Sharon Beloin-Saavedra, school board president.
“We also want both sides to remember there needs to be mutual respect. It sometimes gets lost in the banter,” Stewart added.
4. Online Services
“We are going to put a focus on moving more City services online,” said Stewart. “We want to get snow operations online in the next year so people can actually see where the plows are and have real time information.”
Stewart said residents’ number one complaint is always snow removal.
“We can’t control Mother Nature, but we can do our best to get those streets cleaned as quickly as possible with the resources we have. It will help tell people who are anxious, when the truck is coming. There will also be a complaint form and an emergency need in case they need to get out of the driveway right away,” said Stewart. “The City website is more difficult than we thought and pricey. We want to do it at an affordable price. But we still want good quality. We need something more user friendly. Right now, t is not conducive to getting info from the building department for permits etc.”
Mark Bernacki, town clerk, has helped with putting a lot of things from the state system online.
“We will eventually be an online City Hall. You won’t have to come here to get a dog or marriage license,” Stewart said. “We are moving to being all online in one central place so we can access all those things.”
5. Continuing to Work in a Bi-partisan Manner
“We’ve seen how much we can accomplish in one year by working together. It speaks volumes to the people on the Council that realize what we can do when we can see across party lines, said Stewart. “When you look past labels you can do so much more and it benefits the City of New Britain.”
Stewart said not much can be accomplished if people can’t work together. She will still reach out to the opposing side and expects debates. But, is hoping all Councilmen will listen and do what is best for the City.
