Thank you to everyone for your support in our campaign for Mayor.

I want to give my sincerest thanks to everyone who helped with and supported our campaign to change New Britain for the better for everyone in our city. So many people did so many things to support our campaign and I want you to know that your efforts mean the world to me.

Even though we came up a little short - this year - we should be proud of what we accomplished. We gave hope to thousands of people in our city that we can change things for the better...

• That we can reform property taxes to help seniors and everyone who lives in New Britain by requiring slumlords and abandoned building owners to pay their fair share.
• That we can improve education opportunities for New Britain's kids by accepting the interdistrict magnet school funding that the state provides to cities like ours.
• That we can improve neighborhood quality of life by strongly enforcing anti-blight laws to hold slumlords and abandoned building owners accountable.
• That we can create good paying jobs by enforcing and strengthening our living wage ordinance, by rebuilding neighborhoods and by finally creating a good plan for New Britain's economic future.
• And that we can have a city hall that truly represents everyone in New Britain.
• Most of all, we spread hope that we, everyday people, working together as a community, can truly improve life for everyone in New Britain.

The work that we started this year is not over. It is just beginning. We should keep building and organizing to win a brighter future for our city.

In the meantime, I just want to say to you all, thank you so much!

New Britain should choose to accept magnet school funding.

I have worked hard at the State Capitol to increase state support for our local schools and, together with the other New Britain legislators, won millions of dollars of increased education aid to benefit our city's kids.

But other cities, like New Haven and Hartford, have taken advantage of additional resources that New Britain has not - interdistrict magnet school funding.  Since we have the largest high school in the state, the fact that New Britain has choosen not to receive this important funding is unfortunate - unfortunate for New Britain's kids.

With the state interdistrict magnet program, communities like New Britain can receive state funding to build and operate interdistrict magnet schools.  Even though the schools have students from more than one town, most of the students are from the "host" community - the city operating the schools.  New Britain can receive these resources by choosing to be a host community.

This program has been the biggest opportunity made available for cities to enhance the education for their kids - but New Britain has chosen not to be a part of it.

All of the years that New Britain has watched as other cities got these resources have taken away opportunities for New Britain's kids.  In fact, at the State Capitol, there has been serious discussion of stopping the creation of new magnet schools.  As a state legislator, I strongly advocated to keep the program open long enough for New Britain to receive its benefit - something that our city should have had the leadership to get done long ago and must now before it is too late.

This is why, as Mayor, I will strongly advocate for New Britain to apply for the state funding for multiple magnet schools, to relieve school crowding, provide new education opportunities for our city's kids and bring more education resources into New Britain.  We have a lot of catching-up to do, but I will get it done.

It is just the right thing to do.

O’Brien Unveils Property Tax Relief Initiative

This is from the New Britain Democrat E-Letter:

O’Brien Unveils Property Tax Relief Initiative

Democratic Mayoral candidate Tim O'Brien announced Friday his plan to address high and rising property taxes in New Britain -- responding to tax hikes that have hit "the overwhelming majority of taxpayers under the current City Hall."

“I believe that New Britain needs a Mayor who fights strongly for reform to lower unfair property tax burdens,” said O'Brien.

Rep. O'Brien (D-24), known as the toughest fighter in the state legislature for property tax reform, announced his three point plan:

• Enacting local senior property tax relief to increase relief provided under the current state-funded relief program and to extend relief to seniors whose incomes are modest but exceed current limits under the state program.
• Extend property tax relief to all homeowners by requiring owners of blighted buildings in the city to pay their fair share through a strong anti-blight assessment ordinance.
• Strongly advocacy for state property tax reform.

“It breaks my heart to see many senior citizens struggle to pay their bills and stay in their homes because of property tax unfairness,” said O'Brien. “Senior property tax relief is just the right thing to do.” O'Brien added, “And it is unfair to homeowners who work hard to keep up their properties that they are paying more in taxes, while the owners of blighted buildings get the benefit of lower assessments exactly because they don't keep up their properties. That is unfair, it is wrong and it will change when I am Mayor.”

O'Brien builds his local property tax reform plan on a strong track record in the legislature fighting for property tax reform, including winning property tax relief by expanding the state property tax credit to $500, gaining tens of millions of dollars in new state aid to New Britain that kept property taxes from rising even higher and winning approval of important property tax reform that would have provided millions of dollars tax relief to New Britain taxpayers each year (a measure that was vetoed by Republican Gov. Jodi Rell).

O'Brien added, “I have already told my colleagues in the legislature that, as Mayor of New Britain, they can expect to see me at the State Capitol fighting hard for property tax reform, state property tax relief and state support for education and other local services. I have my program for property tax relief in New Britain. I also plan to be the most active Mayor in the state advocating for reform of unfair property taxes.”

Arts funding for New Britain in State Budget.

New Britain's arts community is a real gem that, most people agree, can be a core for the revitalization of our city - especially but not limited to our downtown.  That is why I fought to make sure that New Britain is included in the state allocation of arts funding.  Two years ago, my efforts paid off when New Britain, for the first time, received an annual appropriation to support local arts organizations.

With the budget crisis this year, there was a lot of concern that this funding would be eliminated completely.  That is why I am so pleased that the New Britain legislative delegation was able to keep this important funding in the state budget.  This truly means that regular support for New Britain's arts community is a now a state priority.  As the New Britain Herald reported:

The recently approved state budget allocates just over $80,000 out of the general fund for the Greater New Britain Arts Alliance, which will redistribute the money to area art organizations.

“Support for arts and culture is essential to move New Britain in a more positive direction,” said state representative Tim O’Brien, D-24th District, who pushed to include the grant money in the budget. “We need to continue to lay the foundation now. I envision New Britain as a vibrant cultural center, with performance spaces, studios, and all of the creativity, innovation, and economic activity that a thriving arts community can bring.”

State Rep. John Geragosian, D-25th District, the Chairman of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee commended O’Brien.

“Rep. O’Brien has been one of the strongest advocates in the legislature for community arts. These grants [totalling $81,225] bring a worthwhile return on investment for the city and its residents,” Geragosian said.

I would also extend my thanks to Rep. Geragosian for his work, as Appropriations Chair, to preserve this funding.

Restoring New Britain industry with renewable energy.

New Britain resident Rick Ciervo contacted me recently, very excited about the solar panels about to be installed on his family's home.  Not only are they getting renewable energy that will save them money and help save the environment, but the panels were installed by a local company.

PV-Squared (PV²), the company that Rick and his family hired to install their panels, is a solar-panel installation co-operative company located in downtown New Britain.

And, as part of what they do, I am told, PV² does some light assembly here in New Britain.  This is an important point.  This means that New Britain, right now, has, if not a foot, then at least a toe in the door into what could be renewable energy manufacturing.

New Britain has been getting into solar for a little while now.  As I have visited people door-to-door in our city, have met residents in various neighborhood who have gotten solar panels on their rooftops.  And New Britain High School has solar panels, paid for by the state Clean Energy Fund - which I and other legislators have been working so hard to defend from cuts by Gov. Rell.

But our local economy can really benefit if we get more people converting to renewable energy... and if we build up local industry to make these things.

First, family budgets are helped by lowering electric or heating bills through solar or other renewable energy.  Second, we can help re-create New Britain's industry by getting into manufacturing what could be the next big thing.

This is why I introduced legislation to greatly expand what the Clean Energy Fund does to help homeowners and businesses convert to clean energy and to create the new manufacturing, especially in cities like New Britain, to make renewable energy products - like solar panels, for example.

This idea went very far in the legislature this year.  Similar legislation moved forward in the form of House Bill 6635, An Act Concerning Solar Energy.  I made sure that this legislation was designed to not only help people get solar panels on their homes, but also to promote manufacturing in cities like New Britain to make the solar products themselves.

This legislation could, for example, have helped PV² to get more customers by being credited for assembly work done in New Britain.

Unfortunately, even though this legislation was unanimously approved in the State House of Representatives, it was not taken up in the State Senate this year.  Hopefully, the Senate will approve it next year.

In the meantime, however, it is time for New Britain to take the lead in rebuilding our industry by promoting clean energy in our city.

That is why, as Mayor, I will initiate a program to assist homeowners in converting to clean energy, and to assist local companies in manufacturing these clean energy products right here in New Britain.

With this program, we can create new jobs and get our local economy onto the cutting edge of the future, while we save people who live in our city on their electric and heating bills.

It will be a real win-win for our community:

• New jobs
• Building New Britain's industry for the future
• Saving people on their utility bills
• Protecting the environment
  

The Ciervo family's vision and spirit is something that can grow across our city.  In fact, Rick told me that if the type of program his family used to made their solar array possible already existed here in New Britain, they would have used it.  I applaud the Ciervo family's community spirit and forward thinking, and I want that kind of spirit and vision to help rebuild New Britain.


We can get it done, working together.

Fighting blight - protecting neighborhoods and taxpayers.

Over the years, I have worked hard, both on the City Council and in the state legislature, for anti-blight ordinances and laws to improve neighborhood quality of life.

For too long owners of slum housing and other irresponsible absentee property owners have brought down the quality of life in whole neighborhoods with their neglect and bad management.  This harms everyone.  It hurts people of meager means who live in slum housing.  It hurts the people whose neighborhood quality of life is torn down because they live near boarded-up buildings and slums.  And it means that taxpayers watch as their money ends up spent dealing with the problems caused so that out-of-town investor-owners can make money on the backs of New Britain residents.

That is why, when I was on the City Council, I re-wrote our city anti-blight ordinance to include strong quality of life standards that give the city sweeping ability to hold absentee property owners accountable.  Unfortunately, our city has not received the benefit of these strong anti-blight protections because these rules have not been fully enforced. As a result, slumlords and abandoned absentee-owner buildings continue to bring down the quality of life in neighborhoods, hurt the people who live in these buildings and cost homeowners more property taxes.

On top of this, I was recently surprised to learn that, there is actually a proposal in the City Council to remove the very neighborhood protections in the anti-blight ordinance that should be enforced.

I spoke up against this plan a City Council meeting.  Here is what I said (as reported in the the New Britain Herald):

"There are people in our neighborhoods who have shown me the blighted buildings in their neighborhoods that have been a problem for years, if not decades,” he said. “These are the types of things that inspired me to write our city’s anti-blight ordinance to make it stronger, so that we could actually go after the chronic blighted buildings in our city.”

O’Brien said he believed the changes would reverse what little has been done to enforce the current blight ordinance. If changed, the new ordinance would strip the ability of the city to deem a structure blighted, he said.

“Stripping out the most important fundamental neighborhood protections is a very bad idea,” O’Brien said. “If you pass the ordinance the way it is proposed tonight, it will help slumlords, it will help the owners of abandoned blighted properties and it will hurt neighborhoods.”

I would add that I said that I do think that there are a couple of good ideas in the proposed change.  One idea would allow the city to take advantage of state anti-blight laws allowing collection of anti-blight fines and fees through irresponsible property owners' tax bills and the other would activate the state Urban Homesteading law.  Adding these, rather than subtracting good things from the current anti-blight ordinance would be a good idea.

One of my priorities when I am Mayor will be to protect neighborhoods, tenants and taxpayers by strongly enforcing New Britain's anti-blight ordinance. Hopefully the City Council will see the wisdom of not weakening the anti-blight ordinance before then.