DeStefano said public safety is one barometer. Other indicators to measure are education and taxes.
A place like Hartford has its challenges. If you live in the city, you’re far less likely to have a high school diploma than your suburban neighbors. Same with a college degree.
If you live in Hartford, you are twice as likely to be unemployed as others in the state; you are three times more likely to live below the poverty line than the average Connecticut resident; you’re more likely to be disabled; and if you’re a woman, you’re more likely to have a child as a teenager. As for feeling safe on the city’s streets: violent crimes may be trending downward over the years, but that’s little comfort in a year when homicides are up.
So that gets to this question: as the city’s Democrats rally to pick their next mayoral hopeful in a primary this week, faced with all of those challenges and more, what is a city mayor to do?
"The sum of the challenges and opportunities of a city like Hartford or New Haven, for that matter, are the result of decisions that people inside and outside these cities have made over time," said John DeStefano, who served as New Haven's mayor from 1994 to 2013. "Yeah, sure, there's some big problems and issues that people face in their lives. But there are also some big opportunities. And a mayor is in a unique position on the ground to help shape our communities' responses to those challenges and opportunities."
Take public safety. True, Hartford is seeing a spike in homicides that is unrivaled in New England. But other New England cities aren't. That, DeStefano said, has to do with policing.
"I don't think it's an accident as to how many homicides and shootings that you have," he said. "Look, places like our central cities are going to be the places that host low-income communities that are often faced with challenges. But just because communities are poor doesn't mean they have to be violent."
DeStefano said public safety is one barometer. Other indicators to measure are education and taxes.
"It's not just tax rate, but the big, long-term liabilities of pensions and health care -- are they being addressed?" DeStefano said. "In public safety, it's not just homicides; it's frankly shootings. It's number of arrests. It's adverse behavior by police or by community. In schools, to me, it's graduation rates; pre-K enrollment rates; the persistence in success rates of high school graduates going to college."
The man who used to run New Haven said a mayor has to be more than a manager.
"Mostly, you're everybody's touchstone," DeStefano said. "It is the one thing that the business community, the neighborhoods, the kids in the schools, the homeless in the streets all have in common... You're not going off to Washington or to the state capitol. You're shopping in the local Stop 'n Shop, or wherever you go. You're going to church with these folks. You're seeing them each and every day. Your kids go to school with them in the public schools. All of that is part of the job."
DeStefano said it's that proximity to the people that makes the job worth running for.
