Hamden Spends as if the Town was Wealthy

This week the big news is that Hamden is re-surfacing two athletic fields with the latest, greatest high-tech material. The bad news is that the cost will be about $10 million. Why does Hamden always choose the most expensive solutions to everything? Why does the mayor and the council spend as if we were a rich town like, for instance, Fairfield.

Hamden has roughly the same population as Fairfield yet our grand list is only $3.5 billion. Fairfield's list is more than six times as high as Hamden yet we choose to spend more on nearly everything.

Start with the schools. Ours cost roughly $20,000 per student, thousands more than Fairfield and numerous other prestigious high-performing districts. Administrators are planning to completely re-renovate three schools, projects which will cost tens of millions of dollars despite the fact that the district is running at only 75% capacity. The administration won't even consider closing a school.

Hamden chose to spend $40 million on a new police station and continues buying new vehicles to the tune of nearly $1 million a year. The town fleet is 260 vehicles.

The town's solution to the spending addiction is to keep raising the mill rate, a practice which drives real estate values even lower and makes the town even poorer.

Spending less is the only solution. Hamden cannot spend its way to prosperity!