Valentine insists Stamford needs more 'ownership properties'

By Scott Benjamin

STAMFORD – Bobby Valentine says that Connecticut’s third largest city has “a lot of rental properties but we don’t have a lot of ownership properties” and if he’s elected mayor he will try to provide incentives that would allow more people to both work and live here.

“It seems like we have a real gap between those who rent and those who own,” declared Valentine, who is running as an unaffiliated candidate. “Most of the owners have properties that are a quarter of a million dollars up. The rental at $3,000 a month to the $750,000 home is not the perfect scenario.”

“The condominium that you buy for $500,000 downtown with a dog and two kids is non-existent,” he remarked in an interview with Patch.com. “But it is a major factor in other developing cities of our size around the country.”

“Those builders probably need incentives,” said the former Major League Baseball player, manager and ESPN color commentator who is on a leave of absence from his job as the Executive Athletic Director at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.

“You need situations where an office building is converted into condominium space, which is difficult,” Valentine, 71, added. “The economics of a condominium vs. an apartment building: The loan is different, the tax is different when you sell. The capital gains when you sell it long term. Those builders probably need incentives to build what is needed – the transitional housing.”

“I don’t want people only working here, I want them living here,” said Valentine, who owns two businesses in Stamford. “I want their kids to go to school here. I want them to be the total fabric of the community. Where do they go when they grow out of their thousand-square-foot apartment? They go to Easton. They go to Westport, where they can own something.”

He also said some older residents whose children have graduated from college and want to down-size, don’t have many options in Stamford.

State Rep. Caroline Simmons (D-144), who is seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor against two-term incumbent David Martin, recently told Patch.com that 30 percent of the commercial space in Stamford is currently vacant. Valentine said that the transitional ownership housing could be built in those spaces and some of the buildings that currently are zoned for residential housing.

The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2020 that as a result of the pandemic, there had been a surge in real estate activity as residents in New York City and Westchester County who now work remotely are moving to Fairfield County.

Said Valentine, “That has happened in Stamford, but the major benefit is to our rental market.”

Simmons told Patch.com recently that with real estate prices surging she would delay the upcoming re-valuation of properties.

Valentine exclaimed, “I’ve paid taxes in this city for over 40 years. We have been in the same home for over 20 years. The burden that the residential homeowner has is extraordinary. What we need to do is not kick the cans down the road, as many administrations have done, and find additional sources of revenue.”

“I think looking at the re-Val on the apartment complexes that we have is one way.” he continued. “One just sold for $100 million and it was on the books for $45 million for the last five years. I think there is a gulf between what some of these properties are paying now and what they should be paying in the future.”

Valentine said many local small businesses have struggled as a result of the pandemic.

“We’ve lost businesses and we’ve lost employees,” he explained. “I have friends who own small businesses that are doing the work they used to have [employees] do. One restaurant: had 10 applicants. One showed up and he didn’t want to work weekends and nights.”

However, Stamford has three Fortune 500 companies, with a fourth on the way, and its skyline includes signs for NBC Sports, Henkel, Thomson-Reuters, WWE and Indeed. Steve Cohen – the owner of the Mets, the second richest person in Connecticut – has his hedge fund there. The city has an AAA bond rating – the highest possible – from Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.

Last fall, Yahoo named Stamford as its Connecticut boom town, noting that per capita income had increased 26.15 percent over the last five years.

“I think we’re an attractive location for a Fortune 500 company,” Valentine remarked.

“I think that’s also the case for a Fortune 5000 company,” he added. “Little businesses see us as a nice place to land. The amenities that we have. We have the office space. We have the restaurants.”

However, when he was touting his tolls plan in 2019, Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) said there are real estate professionals in Stamford who won’t show houses to prospective clients during the rush hours when Interstate-95 becomes a parking lot.

“The state highways give us a black eye,” Valentine declared. “I-95, [CT] 15, when you get to Stamford becomes everyone’s worst nightmare.”

Former Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, who was mayor of Stamford from 1995 to 2009, appointed an ad-hoc committee in 2015 that recommended the state spend $100 billion over 30 years on transportation infrastructure. Little progress has been made.

Some state legislators that represent Stamford supported the governor’s tolls plan, noting that, among other things, the special transportation fund was nearly depleted.

Would Valentine have supported Lamont’s tolls plan, which never got to a vote in the General Assembly?

“I couldn’t imagine asking someone to pay a toll to come and work here,” he said. “A lot of our workforce doesn’t live here.”

What about the condition of the municipal roads?

“I ride a bicycle every day,” Valentine said. “I’m terrified of riding on the streets of Stamford. They are inadequate for what I do as an exercise program, and I think they’re inadequate for most people around the city. You can tell as you leave our city: Your tire meets a different road.”

As mayor would he increase bonding for road paving or place the bulk of it in the operating budget? Danbury, for example, bonds for about 75 percent of its repaving and utilizes federal grants for the other 25 percent. In some suburban towns there is a combination of money utilized for road repaving from bonding and the operating budget but municipal officials sometimes attempt to get more funding to come from the operating side so there are smaller interest payments.

Valentine said that he is not sure what percentage would come from bonding or from operations. “But I’ll get it done.”

Regarding education, he noted that except for building projects, the schools are largely the province of the Board of Education, but as mayor he would use his “bully pulpit” and “voice an opinion.”

Valentine said he believes that graduation rates could improve by “specifically focusing on the third grade reading level,” indicating that there is more value in early intervention.

“The idea of cutting some of the para-teachers out of the budget doesn’t compute for me right now,” he added.

Valentine, who led the drive to fund the health and recreation center bearing his name at Sacred Heart, said he would promote public-private partnerships in the schools to secure funding to, for example, improve the athletic facilities at the high schools and generate internships, particularly for students who don’t plan to attend college.

Valentine also said that public-private partnerships could help raise funds to alleviate the mold in some of the schools, which was identified more than a decade ago.

After formally launching his campaign on May 7, he raised $300,000 by the end of the June quarter - the most of any of the candidates in the mayoral race.

The Stamford Advocate reported that Valentine received contributions from almost 1,000 individuals, half of whom are Stamford residents. The contributions include $125,000 from Stamford residents and $95,000 from residents of neighboring municipalities.

Hartford Courant political columnist Kevin Rennie wrote on his Daily Ructions blog that, “The early innings are going well for Bobby Valentine.”

Valentine even garnered a $500 contribution from former President George W. Bush, who was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers during Valentine’s last three years as the field manager.

"George W. Bush was one of the best guys I've ever been around," Valentine told Patch.com in 2019. "He had a wonderful combination of humor, understanding and youthful exuberance about the game that was refreshing."

The Democrats represent the biggest block with 31,114 registered voters as of June 23. The unaffiliated voters number 27,456 and there are 13,365 Republicans.

Martin annexed a second term in 2017 with more than 58 percent of the vote

Regarding municipal operations, Valentine also has said he would establish an ethics office to ensure “good government practices” from municipal officials.

What about constituent outreach? For example, when John DeStefano was mayor of New Haven he had office hours in City Hall.

Valentine said he would prefer to hold sessions at sites in various neighborhoods and also have virtual sessions.

“I’d like to go to a place where they are comfortable,” he remarked.

But what could Valentine himself do to make the small businesses comfortable?

In the 1960s while at Rippowam High School his mother took his shirts to Wolfe’s Dry Cleaners because he always wore dress pants.

If Valentine becomes mayor would he wear dress pants each day to City Hall and help keep Wolfe’s Dry Cleaners in business?

“I’ll use Wolfe’s, but I’ll be pretty casual,” he said. “I don’t think I need to dress up to have someone understand my character.”

However, Valentine did not indicate if “pretty casual” would include stirrup socks and a baseball cap.