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'Inappropriate'? Us?
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Business New Haven
8/23/99
By: BNH
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Your [July 19] editorial that [downtown New Haven] merchants were "hosed" by Mayor [John DeStefano Jr.] at our last meeting with him was inappropriate and did not begin to capture the context in which the meeting was held. Also, it did not present an accurate picture of what the merchants want from the city or what they were promised at the meeting.
The United Merchants Association (UMA) started in June with a few small meetings as a truly grassroots organization which determined the immediate needs and concerns of the downtown merchants. Within a few weeks we had more than 50 merchants on board and met with the mayor to present him with our needs and concerns. This was the beginning of a process which has been rapidly accelerating ever since.
What the mayor and his staff presented to us the night you say we got "hosed" was their initial reply to what we had presented to them just one week before. The mayor in good faith presented us valuable programs and initiatives and the beginning of a process in which the merchants have become intimately engaged with every important function in the city which affects them. This has never happened in recent history in New Haven.
As a result, the merchants have a voice and are now involved in programs and meetings on marketing, parking, police patrols, façade improvements, street and sidewalk maintenance, retail recruitment, downtown lighting, coordination with downtown events, residential development, with more items being added every week.
Of course, what the mayor presented was not completely new; the merchants and various city factions have had many of the same concerns for years. What is new is that everything the mayor presented to us had deadlines by which progress is now accountable. As a result we are now making things happen and we will soon be announcing significant "quick wins" and the development of many new programs which will significantly change the face of downtown and the dynamics of business in the region.
Furthermore, the UMA will be going beyond what was presented in the meeting by raising and directing funding, working with Yale - the other major force in the city - developing educational programs and developing a system to help the merchants help themselves.
This is an exciting time in the history of downtown New Haven. Certainly there is the specter of the mall looming over us, but it has become a catalyst uniting us as never before. We now are determined that downtown will be strong enough to compete and become a unique, viable alternative to the mall. In fact, downtown New Haven is already unique in that we have one of the best collections of small, independent, entrepreneurial stores in New England. Now we intend to make it grow into one of the best in the country.
- Charles Croft
President
United Merchants Association
The editor relies: One point raised by Croft requires clarification. What the editorial in question said, literally, was that Mayor DeStefano's tactics had effectively "hosed down" a nascent downtown merchant uprising against the mall. That's what we said - and what we meant.
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