LG:<\/strong> We need to make sure that we are funding our budget appropriately because right now we are in a situation where our fund balance, it\u2019s like what your rainy day fund is, is at .61% of our operating budget. It should be between 6 and 10 percent of our operating budget for a healthy town. We\u2019ve got to budget honestly and we also need to start getting to work on growing our economy so that the economy grows with the town.<\/p>\n\n
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When you have an economy that\u2019s flat or declining for a couple of decades, it really hurts mill rate, the taxes and the town. We need to grow an economy that actually supports the rising costs of running the town. <\/p>\n
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So that is my primary focus. Getting more economic development, bringing more business into Hamden. We really have to work with our partners, like Quinnipiac. We need to work with people who own commercial real estate in Hamden and make sure that we\u2019re putting in businesses that attract foot traffic. <\/p>\n
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Q: <\/strong>When you talk about bringing businesses to Hamden, what is your strategy to get them here?<\/p>\nLG:<\/strong> Well, we have a couple of tools at our disposal. So, one is a qualified opportunity zone. It\u2019s a federal program that\u2019s designated by census tract. This is the area of southern Hamden, from the border of New Haven, up to Putnam Ave and then from about Fairview to Newholm and this gives us access to money that we can use to develop southern Hamden and make it ripe for businesses wanting to come here. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
We have areas of town where we can simply put in some sewers north of Quinnipiac on Whitney Avenue. There are no sewers, so do businesses want to come here and put in septic? Nope. So there are some simple areas where we can put in a simple fix and generate growth. <\/p>\n
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Q:<\/strong> On your website, you talk about wanting to eliminate the achievement gap. Why is that a priority and how do you plan on getting rid of it?<\/p>\nLG: <\/strong>We want to decrease the achievement gap. Everything we do in Hamden public schools should be to lift test scores for all of our students. We have great programming in our Hamden public schools for kids who are doing very well. AP tests, AP classes that give college credits to kids who pass the test. We\u2019ve got a new engineering program at Hamden High. It\u2019s called HECA, Hamden Engineering Career Academy and there is so much being done for high achieving students, we need to make sure that we are also putting in a lot of effort into making sure that students are coming to school. That we don\u2019t have chronic absenteeism. We need to make sure we are giving students every tool available so that they can learn well in school. Making sure that they\u2019re well fees. Making sure that they\u2019re not going to school hungry. They have the supplies they need for the classroom. Everything we do needs to be about engaging our students and helping them develop into the career or college after school. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>You talked about bringing in more diverse teachers because 61% of Hamden students are black or brown. How do you plan on bringing in more representation?<\/p>\nLG:<\/strong> I organized a panel discussion last January about recruiting and retaining more teachers of color and the Board of Education has some really great plans that they have developed since then. Their goal is to get some of their faculty who has a college degree already and put them on a path to getting their teachers certificate while being substitute teachers in our Hamden public schools. So they can be long term subs, they can go through all their professional development training that our teachers go through, while getting their teachers certificate. This can reduce the cost of our subs and it\u2019s a great opportunity for us to encourage the minority faculty that we have already in our schools to have their teaching certificate and teach our kids. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t really address the overall percentage of our faculty. It\u2019s a step in the right direction though. I\u2019d also like to see active recruitment of black and brown teachers from HBCU\u2019s and make sure that we are really seeking out these great teachers. I would be more than happy to go on a tour of schools recruiting some teachers for Hamden from schools. But we have to make sure funding is available earlier on in the season.<\/p>\n
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What typically happens in Hamden is that we don\u2019t really know how many teaching spots we have available for the fall until pretty late in the summer. It\u2019s a lot of last minute hiring and by then people have already made decisions about where they are going to go to school. We have to make sure that we are being more active earlier on in the season. <\/p>\n
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Q:<\/strong> Quinnipiac and the town of Hamden have always had a rocky relationship. Where do you think that relationship comes from?<\/p>\nLG: <\/strong>Quinnipiac has a new president. That\u2019s more of a clean slate that we\u2019re working with there. I want to make sure we\u2019re coming to the table with an understanding of each other\u2019s goals and each others needs. I know that Quinnipiac wants to be a good partner and invest in Hamden but they want to do it in ways where they can put their stamp on it and say \u2018Look what we\u2019ve done for Hamden.\u2019 For Curt Leng to put in his budget that Quinnipiac is going to give $2.2 million, that sets things off on a bad foot. We have to have those conversations in order to have a good working relationship instead of putting it out there in the press, putting it out there is a public document that this is what you\u2019re demanding. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In addition to that, he didn\u2019t attend President Olian\u2019s inauguration. That\u2019s not a good way to start a relationship. <\/p>\n
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Q:<\/strong> How do you plan on building a stronger relationship? <\/p>\nLG:<\/strong> We need to have good communication. We are sharing goals and needs. It\u2019s in Quinnipiac’s best interest to have Hamden in good financial standing as a town. And it\u2019s in Hamden\u2019s best interest to have a vibrant university as part of our town.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>You have built your campaign around the promise of financial responsibility. Can you explain what that means?<\/p>\nLG: <\/strong>It starts with a budget. So we need a budget that is honest. An honest representation of what we can expect for revenues and funds, honestly, what we are required to fund. And that\u2019s not happening right now and as a result we are seeing deficits every single year. Last year, it was almost $10 million. And the way that it\u2019s being solved at the end of the year is by not contributing what we should towards the pension as well as taking money that was borrowed to infrastructure repairs, not doing the repairs and then putting the borrowed money into the budget to offset expenses. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>Overall, what has surprised you most about the campaign process?<\/p>\nLG:<\/strong> I was in full expectation in the amount of work that it would be. I knew this was going to be full-time, nights away from my family. I guess what was unexpected was maybe negativity. I have been focusing on the issues and focusing on communicating with voters and making sure that I am knocking on as many doors as possible. And I feel like that\u2019s what it\u2019s really going to take to win. I think when you have face to face conversations, there\u2019s more respect in person and social media can just be a little bit nasty so sometimes that\u2019s hurtful. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>So speaking of negative. There was a Tesla incident a while ago. A lot people claimed that you endangered the lives of your children. What\u2019s your response to that?<\/p>\nLG: <\/strong>I don\u2019t think that the best decisions were made that night but I think that when people are the victims of crime, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re expected to act perfectly. Women get raped and then take a shower because they feel disgusting and destroy evidence. Are they doing the right thing? How can I judge them for that. There\u2019s a lot of judgment for my family and we\u2019re the victims of crime and I think it\u2019s hard to think about how would you make these decisions. I don\u2019t really like passing judgement on other people when that\u2019s not my experience. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>Looking back on the experience, was there anything you would have done differently?<\/p>\nLG:<\/strong> Of course but I\u2019m trying not to victim blame or victim shame myself. I have friends who are mental health professionals who are constantly saying \u201cdon\u2019t do that to yourself.\u201d It\u2019s not good for me to do those kind of things to myself. So, of course there are things that I would do differently if I was not a victim of a crime. But I am not concentrating on that. I\u2019m trying to move one and what ultimately was the most harmful for me and my family was the negativity, the judgment and the shaming. My daughter was bullied the next day at school and that was the result of the social media negativity. <\/p>\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Adrianna Lovegrove Councilwoman Lauren Garrett is a longtime Hamden resident who is in the running to become Hamden\u2019s next democratic Mayor. The primary is on Tuesday Sept. 10 to determine who will be running against endorsed republican Jay Kaye in the general election. Councilwoman Lauren Garrett Q: What was it that made you want … Continue reading Q&A with Democratic mayoral candidate Lauren Garrett<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,142,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hamden","category-homepage","category-quinnipiac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1875,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions\/1875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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