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Two years ago, our fire stations were closed, our bond rating was one step above junk bond status, and there were serious questions about whether we could afford to fix our high school. Two years ago, many people felt our city stood on the edge of despair.

Today, Moodys, and Standards and Poore’s have raised our bond rating. Our fire stations are re-opened and our public library remains open. A complete renovation of our high school is underway. This semester, students at the high school will have fully functional state of the art science labs for the first time in forty years.

This year, we began the process of fixing some of our school buildings that had been neglected for decades. The boiler at the Crowell School was replaced, the roof at the Tilton School was fixed, and the council authorized a bond to replace the roof at the Whittier School.

This year marked the return of our Code Enforcement teams—a group of health inspectors, building inspectors, and community police officers who work together. The code team has been effective in getting buildings cleaned up.

Health care reform was a top priority. Working together with our unions and with our insurance advisory committee, we were able to achieve the lowest increase in the entire State in health care costs. The savings in our health care system, together with the assistance of our great legislative delegation, helped us to balance our budget for two years in a row without a single layoff and without an override or debt exclusion.
In the fire safety sector, our Bradford Fire station, partially closed only a year ago, remained open full time. We were able to obtain grant money to purchase two new fire trucks, and, for the first time in years, there will be fire trucks in the Ayers Village and Rocks Village fire stations.

We added additional patrols to hot spot high crime areas, and for the first time, joined a Gang Task force to put additional resources to bear on gang violence.

Perhaps our greatest success came in the area of economic development. Our plans for a 21st retail zone in Haverhill are moving forward. Working together with the City Council, we rezoned a portion of Haverhill near the highway, and The Lowe’s Home Improvement project has received preliminary approval to move ahead. The plans we made last year to rezone the downtown have resulted in the first ever artist’s lofts in our downtown area. With the help of Congressman Martin Meehan, we obtained the largest public works grant ever awarded to the city of Haverhill to build a new parking facility downtown.

In the new year, 2006, we will continue to face serious challenges. We continue to face a structural deficit brought on by the Hale debt and by rising health care costs.

Working together as a team with our new city council, the school committee and our legislative delegation, we are determined to continue to move Haverhill forward.

Haverhill's Future: The Downtown  Renaissance Initiatives

Over the past two years, we introduced a number of initiatives to revitalize our downtown. We established our clean sweep campaign, rezoned downtown to allow for residential uses, obtained a brownfield’s grant, proposed a downtown overlay district, and took numerous other actions to reuse downtown and the old shoe factory areas as mixed use housing.

Now it’s time to bring it all together in one plan for a new Haverhill. Over the next few weeks, I will introduce a series of Downtown Urban Renaissance Initiatives. We will start with a plan to designate portions of downtown as an Urban Renaissance Zone. Our plan will remove regulatory barriers, allowing mixed use housing as a matter of right, speed up the process of permitting; encourage the use of public transportation, and other plans to bring life to our downtown area. Our overall plan is to funnel growth to areas that are already developed and preserve the open space in our city.

Our renaissance initiatives will include going forward with our brownfield’s plans, and with a new concept: the reuse of gray fields. Gray fields are shopping centers that are unused or underutilized. Next year, I will propose plans for 21st century shopping centers that allow for mixed use new urbanism developments.

New urbanism stresses was made famous by the Seaside Development in Florida. You can read about New Urbanism at http://www.theseasideinstitute.org/.

City Wins Critical Arbitration Case Against Police Union

For the past two years, the city has been engaged in a protracted battle with the Police Patrolmen’s Union about what is called “must fill.” Must fill means that if a police officer is out, for any reason, the city must fill the position, even if the police chief believes the position is not needed and even if the city does not have the money. These provisions cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in overtime.

I refused to fund the must fill provisions of the contract, stating that it infringed upon our rights to manage the city. The union took the matter to arbitration. Now, an independent arbitrator has ruled in the city’s favor. My congratulations to city solicitor Bill Cox and to our labor Attorney David Grunebaum, for a job well done.
I am hopeful that this case means that we can, once and for all, settle our differences with the union and move forward.

Economic Renaissance Conference to Be Held in Spring

With the assistance of the Merrimack Valley Economic Development Conference and the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce, we will hold an economic development conference this spring, at a date and time to be announced.

Our conference is designed to bring together three groups: owners of old factory buildings that would like to redevelop their buildings, investors, and state officials to tell us what tools are available to assist.

Short Subjects

Haverhill Public Library Offers Free WiFi Access

Effective immediately the Haverhill Public library will offer free WiFi access to library patrons. Free Wifi access means that patron with a laptop computer that has a wireless card can go to the library with the laptop and access the internet at any time.

Crack Down On Noise And Trash

Over the past few months, the city has purchased a noise meter, which will be used by the police department. We have also adopted a new civil infractions ordinance, so that infractions can be handled civilly rather than tie up our personnel in criminal court. This enables police officers and health inspectors to issue ticket violations for noise and trash complaints.

Last month, I asked the City Council to adopt a new noise ordinance, which will make enforcement easier.
Citizen Feedback Area

Please take a moment to fill out the form below and tell us what we can do to improve service:

Topic 1—Communication

Parking rules require that citizens park on the even side of the street during even months and odd side during odd months. There are different rules during snow emergencies.

Do you feel that the city did a good job notifying the citizens about the rules? ( ) yes ( ) no

Were the notices on the web site adequate and informative ( ) yes ( ) no

Have you ever used the customer feedback request forms on the city web site/ ( ) yes ( ) no

If yes, how quickly did the highway department respond to your complaint or request?

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What can we do to improve communication about the parking requirements?

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Topic 2—Snow plowing

How do you feel that the city did so far this winter in plowing?

( ) excellent ( ) as good as can be expected given the weather ( ) not so good ( ) poor

How would you rate our streets compared to the streets in other cities? ( ) we are noticeably better ( ) about the same ( ) we are noticeably worse

Last month’s feedback

Last month I asked your top budget priorities if we had extra money. People were divided between adding additional police and adding additional teachers. One person felt we should pay down the debt, and one felt we should buy land for open space—all good ideas. However, it is all contingent upon our receiving more State aid.

Trivia

Last month’s trivia question was “Where was Haverhill High School graduation held before it was at Haverhill stadium?”

Among those who knew that it was at the Paramount Theater on Main Street were Ed Gorski, Walter Ziminski, Richard Tracy, Jason Montebianchi, George Medelinskas, and John Ryan.

This month’s trivia question:

“Riverdale” featured in the Archie comic strip is based upon Haverhill. Who was the principal, Mr. Weatherbee, in the Archie comics modeled after?

I would like to find some volunteers to do an Archie festival in Haverhill. If anyone would like to volunteer to put it together, please contact me.

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If you have friends that would like to receive this, tell them to email me at jimfior02@aol.com and I will add them to the list.

Jim Fiorentini is the mayor of Haverhill and was just elected to his second term. Mayor Fiorentini is a Democrat. No public money was used to produce or distribute his newsletter. You can E-mail Jim Fiorentini at: jimfior02@aol.com

*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The January, 2006 Edition of the Valley Patriot
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