Hamden facing many problems

Fifteen years ago, my wife and I moved to Hamden with an idea of buying a house and raising a family. We had always heard how great the town was for families and how beautiful the town was. How times have changed. Fast forward to 2020, what has changed? Many things have changed as the decline of a once-great town is on full display.

⏩ The crime in this town is skyrocketing. From car break-ins to car thefts, from carjackings to murders, crime is just getting worse, and many of the crimes go unreported by the town, but are only known about due to private citizens witnessing these crimes. Hamden residents need more transparency and ideas on how to stop the crime infecting Hamden.

⏩ The financial outlook is even bleaker. The town faces the reality where they are $1.1 billion in the red due to pensions. How do town officials respond? They say, “Stop projecting gloom and doom.” In reality, this is not gloom and doom, this is reality.

We need to curb expenses and cut the fat (as they say in for-profit industries). This means stop creating positions in the town that are not needed. For instance, there was an article regarding the new finance director being hired in Hamden. What does the administration decide to do — offer the Interm Finance Director Myron Hul a newly created position. We do not have the money for this.

Another example is the Board of Education's budget. It is $3 million more than last fiscal year with a declining student rate each year. The budget needs to stay flat.

⏩ Lastly, the residents of Hamden can’t afford to live here anymore. We are being taxed out and worse than that many of us are trapped here because we can’t sell our house due to the high taxes. One town over, North Haven residents will be paying less in taxes next year due to them growing their tax base. How do we as residents compete with that?

This town needs to listen to their residents. That is what they were elected to do.

Tom Figlar

Hamden