New Haven should put city’s money into local bank

We New Haven taxpayers should not be lining the pockets of distant corporate bank shareholders. Yet, this is exactly what the Harp administration continues to do, despite its pledge to honor requests from hundreds of City residents for it to end.

Despite some reporting to the contrary, the City of New Haven has yet to move the bulk of its funds out of Wells Fargo Bank — one of the funders of the Dakota Access Pipeline — even though a state law kicked in last January requiring it to do so due to Wells’ poor performance on implementing the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to lend at certain levels to low-income and minority customers.

The city has not yet even issued a Request for Proposal, the first step in finding out which banks want to compete for the city’s business.

New Haven Stands with Standing Rock focused on some of the banks that funded the Dakota Access Pipeline. Now, many of the same banks are financing the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana, which is the tail of the DAPL snake. It will enable the same company, Energy Transfer Partners, to bring the same dirty, highly flammable, climate-destroying oil from North Dakota to refineries along the Gulf Coast, and to export it.

In a clear-cut example of environmental racism, repression against the local people in Louisiana — including a community descended from enslaved people and indigenous activists — is escalating, just as it did at Standing Rock. Opponents have been fighting the project, with some success in the courts and on the ground, but the company is continuing to lay pipe even though it doesn’t have all its permits.

Those fighting it have set up a camp along the pipeline route, called “L’eau est la Vie” (“Water is Life” in French). They have non-violently tried to block pipeline construction by locking down to equipment and setting up tree-sits along the route. The black community of St. James has been left without an evacuation route if (when) the pipeline leaks or explodes.

Almost 900 signatures have been collected on a New Haven Resident petition requesting that our money be moved. Last year, Mayor Harp stated, “The Dakota Access Pipeline poses a huge environmental threat to natural systems all along its 1000-mile route and unacceptably disrupts the religious grounds of local Native Americans. I’ve asked the city controller to research and explore New Haven’s viable options in terms of divestment from Wells Fargo and the 16 other banks that provided loans to underwrite the bulk of that pipeline project.” Among those banks, Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, TD Bank, Citizens Bank and Wells Fargo operate in New Haven.

Putting our tax dollars in a local bank, where it can circulate here and provide benefits for us instead of providing profits for out of town shareholders is the least the mayor can do. There are several options, including Bankwell, Liberty, Patriot, People’s United, Start, and Webster. We will not know if any of these local banks can handle the city’s needs until New Haven issues a Request for Proposal.

We ask Mayor Harp to order that the RFP be issued promptly and that it exclude banks that funded DAPL.