Board of Alders to consider halving number of wards

COURTESY HALL OF RECORDS The City of New Haven is considering redrawing the ward map.

After a year of controversy over Yale's representation on the New Haven Board of Alders, next year's campaign season is shaping up to be an even more hotly contested race for City Hall. This time, though, it looks like New Haven politicians—and not Yale students—will be the ones causing the tumult.

According to Gerry Garcia, ES '94, SOM '01, City Hall has discussed cutting the number of New Haven's wards in half—from its current 30 to somewhere around 15. For Yale, that may mean losing its near-exclusive domination over Ward One as soon as next year.

"New Haven is a city of only 130,000 people, and having 30 aldermen may be a little inefficient," Garcia said. "There's been a lot of discussion lately about reducing the number of wards in the city, to somewhere between 10 and 20."

The idea was first proposed in Garcia's Promise to New Haven, a pamphlet co-written in 1998 by Julio Gonzalez, CC '99 (D-1), and Jelani Lawson, MC '96 (D-2), to promote "a streamlined government in which members may better dedicate themselves to their duties."

But the possible implications of this streamlining are enormous for Yale. Under one plan, Ward One, which comprises the majority of the University's population, could be consolidated with adjoining wards nine, 10, or 22. Lacking a ward virtually to itself, Yale would thus lose significant representation in New Haven city government.

However, some opponents of the plan question the ability of the board to truly represent local interests via a consolidation of wards. "Reducing the size of the Board limits representation," Bob Kokta, BK '00, Chairman of Yale's Republican Ward One Committee, said. "By making the wards larger, the sense of connection between citizen and alderman becomes smaller, since the aldermen have more constituents to represent. Localized interests would have a greater chance of being ignored."

Board members stress, however, that exact plans are not definite; while one ward scheme may stifle Yale's importance in city government, others may actually increase the University's role in local affairs. "Right now, Yale is severely under-represented in New Haven," Gonzalez said. "There are 10,000 people here, which means Yale should have about three seats on the Board, not one. Currently, Ward One excludes Morse, Stiles, Pierson, and Davenport. But, if all the colleges were consolidated into one ward, we would be much better represented."

At this point, however, there is no way of knowing where the new ward lines will be drawn, or whether Yale will lose or gain power at City Hall. This may become clearer next year, though, when the results of Census 2000 are published. Yalies have the choice of claiming either New Haven or their hometown as their permanent residence. "New census data will create an opportunity for the Board of Aldermen to make New Haven's wards better reflective of their populations," Garcia said. Technically speaking, if no students say they live in New Haven, the census will show a population of almost zero in Ward One. That would indicate a tremendous population shift, thus warranting a revision of the city's current ward plan. "The findings of next year's census will be a big factor in determining whether to rethink New Haven's 30 wards," Garcia said. "It'll be interesting to see the residencies claimed by Yale students."

Still, both Garcia and Gonzalez stressed that potential changes in New Haven's current ward layout is still in the planning stages, and there is no way of knowing exactly what will happen to Ward One in the future. "One of the underlying questions that impacts upon Ward One is whether or not we need a ward solely to represent Yale students," Garcia said. "We've thought a lot about that, but much more consideration needs to take place before we make any sort of final decision. In the end, we need to do what's most effective and most fair, and we're not quite sure what that is yet."

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