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Hosted by Jack Pavia & Romney Daniel, Community Ties dives into conversations with people who have vision, drive, and passion, and choose to invest it in Norwalk. Presented by Nancy on Norwalk, the podcast looks to highlight the stories of people, businesses, and organizations in Norwalk.
Welcome to Community Ties, a Nancy on Norwalk podcast. I'm your host, Jack Pavia. I'm a student at American University and passionate advocate for thriving towns and cities. I love nothing more than talking to people who care about their community and seek to lift it up. Using the platform of this show, I'm gonna facilitate conversations with people who have vision, drive, and passion and choose to invest it in Norwalk.
Jack Pavia:By conducting this dialogue, I hope to search for truth and meaning in our city and the people who drive it. A big thank you to the fine people at Nancy on Norwalk who have worked closely with me to get this podcast up and running. With that being said, let's begin. Norwalk mayor Harry Rilling was first elected in 2013. To me, a 20 year old who grew up in the city, Norwalk and Rilling are one and the same.
Jack Pavia:This year, he announced that he's not gonna be running for reelection, opting to retire instead. I wanted to sit down with the mayor to talk about his time growing up in Norwalk, working his way up the Norwalk Police Department, and as mayor dealing with issues of sustainability, development, and education. In addition, I was looking to get his reflections on the future of his party, his city, and governing in the state of Connecticut. I wanna sincerely thank mayor Rilling for coming down to record with us. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Jack Pavia:Mayor Elling, thank you so much for coming on. You have a long history in Connecticut. You were born and raised here. You graduated from Norwalk High School. I must say you I have a little bit of a beef there because I'm a Brian McMahon High School graduate.
Jack Pavia:Go Senators. And you decided you wanted to stick around and and serve the city for many decades thereafter. First, I want to ask where in Norwalk you grew up, what your neighborhood was like.
Harry Rilling:Well, I grew up in a street right off of West Avenue, kind of in the area of St. Mary's Church. The neighborhood was lot of young kids. We had good friends in the neighborhood. We'd go out in the evening and play games and things.
Harry Rilling:Norwalk was a lot different back then. Probably population wise around 48,000, 49,000. A lot of the development that you see happening now wasn't there. So it's changed quite a bit.
Jack Pavia:Tell me about sort of your experience growing up in the city. Were you involved in the community at all growing up? Like where you spend your time when you were growing up?
Harry Rilling:Well, as I was younger, I joined Troop nineteen Boy Scouts out of Norwalk Methodist Church. I also was a member of the Civil Air Patrol, which was in the old armory that is no longer there down at the bottom where you now have the meeting of Connecticut Avenue and West Avenue. Other than that, you know, I was not really overly involved other than in some of my school things, but I attended Jefferson Elementary School, then at one point my family moved up to Delaware Avenue off of Main Avenue. And I went to Tracy School. And then when I graduated or when I got promoted from Tracy, I went to West Rocks and after that Norwalk High School.
Jack Pavia:Can you tell me what that neighborhood surrounding Jefferson looked like? Like sort of paint me a picture of what the Norwalk of that time was.
Harry Rilling:Well, it's interesting because the Jefferson School that's there now didn't exist then. You may recall that, maybe you don't, that the Jefferson School that was there burned down several years ago. I think back in the early or mid-70s, there was an incubator that was in the school that was left on over the weekend and something happened, maybe there was a short and the whole school burned to the ground. But that area was a lot different. A lot of the houses you see that were there now weren't there.
Harry Rilling:The Route 7 that passes right by Jefferson School wasn't there obviously. And Van Buren Avenue was on the same level as what we now call Union Park. And so when I would walk to Jefferson School, had to walk up this really, really big hill that we all used to enjoy sliding down on our sleds.
Jack Pavia:So after you graduated from Norwalk High, you enlisted in the Navy?
Harry Rilling:Yes. That time it was during Vietnam and there was a draft going on. While I never really won much of any lotteries, I did win the lottery when it comes to draft out of three sixty five days in the year, my birthday was drawn nineteenth, I believe. So the handwriting was on the wall. I was either going to enlist or I would be drafted.
Harry Rilling:My mother was a widow and so my brother was helping around the house. He was a little bit older than I am. So one of us could have taken a deferment, but I gave it to him. He was on the police department, so I gave him the deferment and I enlisted in the Navy.
Jack Pavia:Well, you so much for your service. You proceeded to join the Norwalk Police Department. You served for several decades, rose up to the rank of police chief. What drew you back to Norwalk after your time in the Navy?
Harry Rilling:My family. Again, Norwalk has always been very special to me. My roots are here, my family is here. So I knew that this is where I wanted to be. And when I was leaving the Navy, I really didn't have much of an idea what I was gonna do.
Harry Rilling:And my brother, as I mentioned a few moments ago, was a police officer and he said to me, Why don't you join the Norwalk Police Department? And I said, Well, know, that's very impressive. I think I'll give that a shot.
Jack Pavia:What were you dealing with in the police department at the time? I recall that a friend of mine mentioned that you were dealing with the issue of female police officers being able to be treated the same way as male police officers. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?
Harry Rilling:Yeah. As you probably know or others know that women in work didn't really come into play until I think probably around the beginning or mid eighties. And we had two women police officers that started about them. But yeah, it was usually we had women that worked with the police department but they were what we referred to at the time as meter maids or ticket issuing people, crossing guards and things like that. But now, you know, we have hired a lot of women on the Norwalk Police Department.
Harry Rilling:And also when I got elected mayor there were no women on the fire department. And I made it a point that look, it's time. We have to look at and give women an equal opportunity. This is, it's just not right. And it was certainly time.
Harry Rilling:So we ended up, I believe we ended up hiring four or five women firefighters. And they performed remarkably well.
Jack Pavia:I think it really puts it in perspective for me. I'm 20 years old and a lot of these issues feel as though they were just things of the past. But it really puts in perspective just how recent these things, we dealt with these issues. And just how important it is to continue pushing on them.
Harry Rilling:It is. It's really time to, you know, they talk about women not having equal opportunity and the glass ceiling and it's certainly true. And this is something that we have to look at, we have to take seriously and we have to make sure that women feel that they're treated equally and compensated accordingly to their male counterparts.
Jack Pavia:So you're a police officer for multiple decades and you make the pivot to running for mayor just over a decade ago. What inspired that transition and what did you believe you could offer Norwalk in that role?
Harry Rilling:Well, again, as I said, Norwalk's been very good to me and I wanted to give back in any capacity that I could. So after serving forty one years on the police department, I thought, well, you know, I'd like to take another step. And as I was, when I made Lieutenant back in 1983, I believe, people were saying to me, you know, someday you're gonna be the mayor of this city. And perhaps it was a self fulfilling prophecy. I never really thought about it.
Harry Rilling:But as I watched what was happening in Norwalk or more importantly, what wasn't happening, I decided it was time that I'd like to toss my hat in a ring because I think I could really help Norwalk and have a vision that wasn't being implemented now.
Jack Pavia:So let's dig into that just a little bit. What do you believe was not happening in Norwalk that you wanted to step forward and work on?
Harry Rilling:Mainly growth and becoming a city with living up to its full potential. Norwalk is their location is right on Long Island Sound. We're located right between Boston and Washington DC. We're thirty five minutes outside of New York City. We've got a lot of potential and people weren't noticing Norwalk.
Harry Rilling:Norwalk was always referred to as the hole in the middle of the donut because around Norwalk we had Westport, Wilton, Darien, New Canaan, kind of what people looked at as bedroom communities. So now, look, people are taking notice of what Norwalk has to offer. We've got development taking place. We have people moving into Norwalk. We've got the Maritime Aquarium.
Harry Rilling:We've been designated an Arts And Cultural District, the largest city in the state of Connecticut to have that designation. And so I've coined Norwalk now to be the cream in the center of the doughnut.
Jack Pavia:Boston cream doughnuts are my favorite, so I appreciate that analogy. Did you have any political inspirations at that time, sort of leaders you sought to emulate or model?
Harry Rilling:I think I just wanted to be a mayor for all people. So, you know, if you look at people like Bill Clinton, you look at people like Ronald Reagan, you look at people who served and who served well and who were serving for the right reason. People look to their government to work with them, to help them in any way that they possibly can. So, you know, I know John Kennedy said, Ask not what your country can do for you. But you know, it's fair of someone to say, Look, I'm struggling.
Harry Rilling:Is there any city program that can help me? And it's our obligation to do what we can to serve all vessels equally.
Jack Pavia:Right, absolutely. And it's not only a responsibility to your country, but you're right, a country's responsibility to you. We all have the responsibility to pitch in. But then when we all pitch in together, then that allows the people who are struggling most to be able to get
Harry Rilling:by. Absolutely.
Jack Pavia:So one of your top priorities when running for mayor was sustainability. You recently said that you want Norwalk to be one of the greenest cities in Connecticut. Can you tell me what sustainability means to you?
Harry Rilling:Well, you know, to me, mother earth is very, very important. And if anybody's going to destroy earth, it's going to be mankind. And we don't do the right things. We don't reduce our carbon footprint. We don't take sustainable energies.
Harry Rilling:We just kind of go about our day oblivious to the fact that some of the things we're doing are not good for the earth. So I wanted to make sure that Norwalk did what we could. And I've always used the term that we'd like to make Norwalk the greenest city in the state of Connecticut. And we're doing a lot. We've got seven electric vehicles now and we're looking to convert our entire city fleet to electric.
Harry Rilling:We've placed electric charging stations throughout the city. We're planting lots and lots of trees. We've got a green workforce program that is kind of interesting where we're taking people who are disadvantaged and helping them learn how to plant trees, forestry to make sure that perhaps they can move on to that and get a job with tree companies or whatever. But that's something that we thought was really unique. I don't know if there's any other community that does that.
Harry Rilling:And again, like I said, we're planting trees, we're encouraging people to walk more because we've got a complete streets program where we're looking to make our streets more navigable. Not only for cars but for pedestrians and bicyclists. We've created miles of bike lanes. We've paved miles of sidewalks where no sidewalks existed before. We've paved miles and miles of road and we're trying to put our roads on a, what you call a road diet, by building into the road things that make people slow down and so forth.
Harry Rilling:And we hired a sustainability and resilience director just about a couple of months ago now. And her job would be to do whatever we can together or what she can recommend to educate our public, educate our workers, find ways to continue making Norwalk a green city.
Jack Pavia:So that transitions really nicely into sort of the mobility aspect of sustainability. So let's dive into Complete Streets a little bit. And for listeners who are not aware, Complete Streets is essentially an ordinance that was passed that provides guidelines for when roads are redone. They have to keep in mind the fact that pedestrians are gonna be using this road and bicyclists are gonna be using this road. So sort of tell me about what value its implementation will bring to Norwalk.
Harry Rilling:Well, especially when you talk about walkability, when you talk about bikeability. You know, people rely a lot on vehicles and for some things they have to rely on the vehicle because that's the only way they can get from one destination to another. But walking is healthy, getting out in the fresh air. It also again makes it so people aren't so relying much on vehicles and again the emissions from the vehicles and reducing our carbon footprint. Bicycling is extremely healthy.
Harry Rilling:People need to feel that they can bicycle safely around the city of Norwalk. So we're looking at all the places that we can put bike lanes and bikes and vehicles can share the road, you know, and everybody has to be responsible when they're doing that. Not only the vehicle drivers, but the people who are on the bicycles, they have certain obligations as well. And so this Complete Streets Ordinance, as you mentioned, gives the guidance as to how we can continue doing that and where bicycle lanes are most proper, where sidewalks are needed, how wide the sidewalks are going to be. For instance, if you have a sidewalk that's four feet wide or five feet wide and you make it six or eight feet wide, that makes the road a little bit narrower and when people see a little bit of a narrow road, they tend to slow down a little bit.
Harry Rilling:We wanna make sure that the vehicles operating in the city of Norwalk are operating in responsible manner.
Jack Pavia:Additionally, the sort of affordability aspect. I'm not a car owner in the city of Norwalk. I rode my bike here. And so I appreciate the sort of infrastructure for to allow for street safety. And, you know, I'm a runner.
Jack Pavia:Excited to see the new sidewalks and and bike lanes we're seeing pop up around Norwalk. Longer term, what further steps that you do you think Norwalk can be taking to encourage Norwalk residents to use public transportation?
Harry Rilling:Well, again, we have to have public transportation that serves the city well. We work very closely with the director of Norwalk Transit Matt Pence. We're always talking about ways that we can enhance the bus service in town. We have what you call a Wheels2You program where people can call and schedule a time for the mini bus to come and pick them up, drive them to their destination and then drive them back. And I think it's $2 a trip.
Harry Rilling:So that's one way that we can do that, encouraging people to not use their vehicles if they have to. We're also seeing, and as you mentioned, we're developing our urban core where people will be, we want what we call putting boots on the street where people who live in the area can shop in the area and not necessarily rely so much on vehicles. If you look at the Brimming Crown over in East Norwalk, a lot of young people moved in there. It's right next to the train station. So a lot of people hop on the train to go to work in Stanford or New York, Greenwich or Bridgeport, and they don't rely on vehicles.
Harry Rilling:And some of them don't even have their license. They don't intend to get their license. So people need to be aware of alternative transportation modes, but we need to make it available for them and make it convenient for them.
Jack Pavia:Were there any cities that you visited previously that provided inspiration for these policies or do a good job in your view of executing this concept of accommodating all forms of transportation?
Harry Rilling:Not necessarily. I mean, we do a lot of reading about other communities and what makes communities operate efficiently. We do a lot of studying on the things that we can do to increase, you know, reduce our carbon footprint and increase our walkability and navigability. And we also put, a few years ago we reorganized the city government because I looked at it and it wasn't very efficient. I had 19 direct reports and you can't really manage 19 direct reports.
Harry Rilling:So we formed a cabinet form of government. And in that I have a director or a chief of economic and community development and in that I have a department called transportation mobility and parking that are studying the roads, looking where there are opportunities to again, do the things that we need to do to make public transportation more available, to make walking more desirable, biking and so forth. So they're they're doing an excellent job and they're implementing our Complete Streets Ordinance.
Jack Pavia:So to move on to the topic of education funding, just to give some context to our listeners. In 1977, the Connecticut Supreme Court case Horton v Meskill ruled that Connecticut's status quo of wealthier, more property rich towns, often suburbs, often sleepier towns, having greater access to educational resources than cities in Connecticut was a violation of children's constitutional right to an equal education. So as a result, as I'm sure you're familiar, Connecticut established the ECS formula, cities such as but we have a status quo where cities such as Norwalk, Danbury, Stanford have made attempts to rectify what they feel is less funding than is necessary for our schools. So I'd like you to talk to me a little bit about your role in sort of rectifying this issue, what that work has looked like, particularly with our state legislators to secure the amount of funding necessary to improve our schools. Because I think there might be some Norwalk residents looking out there.
Jack Pavia:They may look into this. They say, okay, we have this Supreme Court case. They look to rectify this issue, but it never really solved that disparity, even if it sort of corrected somewhat for it.
Harry Rilling:Yes, and that's a really important question and a good topic. We do work very closely with our state delegation. They work very hard to try to increase Norwalk's ECS funding. They also work hard to get more money for Norwalk schools in virtually any way we can. Unfortunately, we have to fund our schools through property taxes for the most part.
Harry Rilling:And property tax, it's a very regressive tax because, you know, I call it income and profit blind. If you're not making an income, your property taxes are due. If your company's not making a profit, your property taxes are due regardless. And I see struggles, people struggling. Maybe a senior citizen who is living on a fixed income whose children graduated the school system twenty five, thirty, forty years ago, and they're struggling and they have to pay property taxes.
Harry Rilling:And one of the things that we've seen happen, especially after COVID, people started moving into Norwalk and property prices just went through the roof and people were outbidding others to buy a house in Norwalk. So we have been focusing on the importance of funding the educational system properly since I've been in office. And I will say that I've given more money percentage wise and dollar wise than any previous administration because we realize how important it is. And we work very closely with the superintendent of schools. I work very closely with Senator Bob Duff who's the majority leader and who's always fighting to try to get more money for Norwalk.
Harry Rilling:We have increased since I've been in office the educational budget by more than $80,000,000 And that represents over a 50% increase. So we're aware of it and we do what we can, but we also have to understand the other side where people can't afford to continue living in Norwalk if we keep raising taxes. So the state of Connecticut has to find other ways to fund the educational system or to tax. So for instance, if you know, we're struggling, somebody will say, well just raise taxes. That's not the answer.
Harry Rilling:And it's certainly something that any mayor or first elect man doesn't wanna do. I don't like taxing people, but there's at this point in time, there's no other choice. That's how we get our city services. Approximately 90% of our budget, which is now around $450,000,000 about 90% of that goes to fund, comes from property taxes.
Jack Pavia:Think it's really important that you touched on the fact that property taxes can be really regressive in the sense of who the burden is placed on. So as we're facing potentially a property tax increase, what sort of local revenue alternatives have you explored?
Harry Rilling:Well, again, the city's ability to collect money is limited by state statute. We can only do so much. People talk about public private partnerships. They don't really happen all that often. And when they do, that's just maybe a little drop in the bucket.
Harry Rilling:So one of the things that I've thought would be interesting, and I hate like heck to say it because the people will be listening, an increase in income tax because a person who's working can more afford to pay a little bit more. And therefore everybody is gonna be treated equally. The other thing would be perhaps a penny increase in sales tax that comes directly back to the city. That means I can buy something or I don't have to buy something. Right now the sales tax in the city, in the state is 6.35.
Harry Rilling:If we made it 7.35, a penny more, that could bring significant income back into the city coffers. So those are the kinds of things that people have to explore. Other cities or other communities, states have county governments that makes the funding of education and so forth more equal because county government taxing Norwalk, Westport, Wilton, Darien and New Canaan, that money will be divided accordingly and sent back to the county. And the county would take over, more or less fund the educational system more effectively.
Jack Pavia:So when you have something and the income tax has certainly been floated as an alternative, but of course you'd need the state legislature's approval. What argument do you give to a state legislature that is overwhelmingly representing suburban communities that perhaps benefit to a greater extent that Norwalk does from the status quo?
Harry Rilling:Yeah, that's an interesting question and something we've struggled with for quite some time because our legislative delegation is only five people. And there's a lot of smaller communities up north and combining together they have a lot more power to some degree. And that's why it's so critically important that we have Senator Duff as a Senate Majority Leader because he's been able to bring millions and millions of dollars back into Norwalk. So we're very fortunate in that regard. And so as I said, we've struggled with that for quite some time as to how we get around that.
Harry Rilling:How do we make Norwalk equal? For instance, right now, we have the West the the councils of government. WestCOG. Norwalk belongs to WestCOG. Norwalk pays according to size, but when it comes to a vote, we get one vote and so does Easton.
Harry Rilling:We don't get the rec we don't get the
Jack Pavia:Not according to population.
Harry Rilling:According to population, but we pay according to population.
Jack Pavia:To move on to the topic of the related topic of development in Norwalk. Connecticut as a state is facing a housing crisis years in the making. We have a vacancy rate that is among the lowest in the country. We have an estimated of over a 100,000 units of housing short of what we need to fill the tens of thousands of jobs that are out there in the state of Connecticut. In your eyes, what are the best housing solutions for Norwalk to not stagnate our growth while keeping prices in check and preventing displacement?
Jack Pavia:I've heard land trusts, an increase in private supply. Some people advocate for what the federal government used to do to a larger extent, which is build public housing. Where do you see solutions?
Harry Rilling:Again, it's a great question because as you know Norwalk is counting the islands, about 26 square miles of land, and there's not much developable land that can be built upon. Very few people are building single family homes. If they do, they're probably buying a lot and knocking the home down and building another on it. And like any other city, Norwalk does have a housing shortage. So we're trying to do the best we can and work with some of the private developers to build in the urban core and encourage that.
Harry Rilling:We have what we call an enterprise zone where somebody building in the enterprise zone can get a tax deferment over a period of seven years. That's helpful and encourages people to develop in that area. And what's happening now is as you see the urban core is the critical component. A lot of people are worried that it's going to put a strain on our school system. A lot of people worry that it's going to put a strain on our infrastructure.
Harry Rilling:Neither one of those situations exist. First of all, For some of the apartments that are being built, think right now in the past couple of years Norwalk's seen an increase in about 2,700 apartments. And that gives people an opportunity to, we're seeing a lot of young people that are able to come back to Norwalk because we have what you call an affordable housing requirement. So if you build anything in Norwalk 20 units or more, you have to build 10% of them as affordable. And that's based on area median income, which again, people say, well, housing in Norwalk is not affordable to a lot of people.
Harry Rilling:And that's very true. So if you look down on the Wall Street area, Wall Street Place, that's gonna be 100 affordable and it's over 150 apartments. And some of them are as low as I believe 40% of area median income. So it's 80%, 60%, 40%. Something tells me 20% but don't take that to the bank, I'm not sure.
Harry Rilling:So that's gonna be an area right in the downtown urban core that's gonna be a lot more affordable, what they call deeply affordable to some people. And it's also going to help businesses because it's going to put boots on the ground in an area that was devastated by a flood in 1955 and has never recovered. So we're proud of that because we're investing over $27,000,000 in the Wall Street area to bring that back to life and to have people wanna move there, have businesses wanna open there. As far as the infrastructure goes with those 2,700 apartments, think we've had like a total of 90 students increase to our Board of Education. And if you look at the numbers of population of our schools, they fluctuate.
Harry Rilling:Some years there's fewer students, some years there's more, but there's never a major difference. And as far as infrastructure, our water pollution control authority is nowhere near at maximum. We've got a capacity of like 19,000,000 gallons a day and we're only around 11 or 12. And as far as water consumption, if you look at, you talk to the water companies, they're saying they are using less water now than they did twenty years ago because people are more aware, the utilities are much more efficient and they're using a lot less water. So we have to keep looking at what the opportunities are in Norwalk to build but build properly and try to encourage people to, you see a lot of people downsizing and selling their homes and moving into the apartments and that gives other people an opportunity to move up a little bit.
Harry Rilling:So it's kind of a trickle down effect.
Jack Pavia:So you mentioned the enterprise zone. Just to provide the opposite case, what do you tell people who are worried about local tax dollars going towards commercial projects such as the Sono Collection when they're concerned about things like school funding?
Harry Rilling:Well, let me put it this way. The Sono Collection was built on a, what would probably be considered a brownfield or close to it. And in my estimation, that property was the most valuable piece of property in all of New England that was available because it's right next to I-ninety 5. Get on 95, get off 95. Now, I don't know what the tax base was when that building wasn't there.
Harry Rilling:It was probably somewhere maybe 15 to $20,000 a year in taxes. Now the Sono Collection pays hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in taxes. So that money goes directly to the city of Norwalk. So if you say to people, okay, you rather have an empty lot or would you rather have a piece of, or a structure there that's paying a lot more in taxes and it's structured over the seven years. What we did so that it would work for them, Norwalk in the beginning and work for them at the end, of having zero taxes the first two years and then 50% or 75% and then a 100, we spread the seven years 50% tax base for the entire seven years.
Harry Rilling:So now that seven years when it comes to an end because I'm trying to think of when they got their CO, after that they're gonna be paying 100% of their tax base. So it's an investment that the state of Connecticut allows us to create an enterprise zone to encourage that development.
Jack Pavia:Can you talk to me a little bit about the idea of a vacancy tax? Because some people may think that this could be a way to make it so we're still encouraging that sort of development without handing money, taxpayer money to developers to sort of incentivizing it on the other end of saying, if you have a vacant lot, that's a disincentive to have a vacant lot instead of an incentive to put something there, if that makes sense.
Harry Rilling:Yeah, it does. And we used to look at that also as what they call a TIF, which is tax incentive, tax incremental funding. Think that's what the, but it would takes, if you build in an area, some of that tax money would be put towards improvements in that area. So it would encourage people to come and move there, build there and then it would help the city of Norwalk improve the area. So I'm not sure if a vacancy tax is something, well I've not explored the possibility and it really hasn't come to the table in Norwalk and I'd have to check and see.
Harry Rilling:It's interesting concept and would it be legal? I I don't even know.
Jack Pavia:So to connect this back to what we were talking about with the schools because of course, because schools are funded by property taxes, the two issues are just incredibly intertwined. Norwalk is actually building housing, meeting the eight thirty gs standards set out by the state, which for listeners who are not aware is essentially a state statute that mandates with potential reprieves that each town have at least 10% affordable housing within their housing mix. Norwalk is actually building this housing, meeting these standards. Many other municipalities are not. How do you deal with municipalities that don't help Norwalk with the housing crisis as a mayor with jurisdiction over only one, municipality yourself?
Harry Rilling:Well, there is an incentive for them to have that 10% because if they don't, a lot of the zoning regulations will not apply to anybody wanting to develop property in those particular towns. And when I first got elected mayor, I won't name the towns, but many of the towns around the area had a meeting with me and asking me to support the repeal of eight thirty gs. And when I first got elected, I'm kind of like, okay, eight thirty gs, let me look into that. And when I looked into it, I said, no wonder they're asking me to support it. But it's something that Norwalk is at 13% affordable housing and we still need to do a lot more.
Harry Rilling:And as I said, with the eight thirty gs, some of the other areas, communities, it should be that the developers are building and they have the right to build, as I said, without certain zoning restrictions. I think that's about the only thing we can do. And they could be, I don't know what the state can do as far as penalties for anybody that doesn't meet the 10%, But it's something that I'd have to look at. You're right. I only have control here.
Jack Pavia:Yeah. And you don't have to name the municipalities. You can just look up which ones are getting sued under this law.
Harry Rilling:Exactly.
Jack Pavia:So the Trump administration has made it a point to claw back federal dollars from municipalities. So as we face potentially, as we talked about higher property taxes and a post pandemic lower contribution from commercial properties, office space particularly. How can the state and city make up that difference and make sure that our schools, our bus system, our local nonprofits can stay afloat?
Harry Rilling:You know, that's the $64,000 question because it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt the communities like Norwalk, the blue collar communities. They're taking away funding for SNAP, for education. They're taking away funding for food programs. Those kinds of things that people rely on.
Harry Rilling:And the city of Norwalk certainly relies on a lot of it because a lot of the federal money coming into the state is a pass through money. So if it doesn't come to the state, the state can't pass it through to the municipality. And it's gonna be very, very difficult. I'm really surprised that some of the programs that are being discussed that are going to be eliminated. To me, it's scary.
Harry Rilling:It's scary and I think it should be scary to virtually everybody. Property taxes, if we don't get the money, we have to have services. And if you have to raise property taxes to a greater degree, we're gonna force people out of the city of Norwalk and people aren't going to be able to afford to live. And a lot of that money that won't be coming will have to be gotten someplace. I know that already the school system is very upset about some of the money that they're not going to be getting.
Harry Rilling:I think the federal government said that they're reducing educational assistance to Connecticut by $53,000,000 There's only seven municipalities in Connecticut that will not be affected by that. Norwalk is not one of them. We will be affected by that probably to the tune of at 1.2 to $2,000,000. And that's a significant amount of money.
Jack Pavia:Do you believe that the fiscal guardrails that are set out by the state should be kept the way they are or modified in the face of these cuts?
Harry Rilling:Well, you know, they have to get the money from someplace as well. And where that would come from again, result would in an increase in income tax, state income tax? You know, I'm not sure. But you know, it's something that it's gonna be something that everybody's gonna have to take a look at and try to come up with some creative ways, that we can continue to provide the services and still not make Connecticut and Norwalk unaffordable. Do you
Jack Pavia:believe that potentially an increase in income tax at the state level could be necessary? Or do you think that should be off the table?
Harry Rilling:You know, I don't in a time like this, when we're experiencing a crisis, everything has to be on the table. We have to have courage to have the discussions, to be creative. And, you know, and it's gonna hurt. But those are the things that leaders do. They sit down and they come up with ways to provide the services that their citizens desire or need.
Harry Rilling:So yeah, you have to have courage right now and we have to stand together and we have to have the courage to have those difficult discussions.
Jack Pavia:To look forward to the future, let's first start at the Democratic Party and the moment that we are in. So Kamala Harris, vice president Harris lost in 2024. The party is in sort of a moment of soul searching. Some argue for a more populist economic message. Others say that the social message went too far and that the party should moderate in certain aspects.
Jack Pavia:You're a you're a six time election winner. What what, in your view, can be done to straighten this ship for for your party?
Harry Rilling:Well, you know, we have some if you look at the the people who may, be running in '26 during the midterm elections or in '28 during the presidential election, The Democratic party has some very, very significant and intelligent people who would be great leaders. And we just have to band together. I don't think the social discussion really hurt. I think what hurt was the focus on Biden's cognitive ability and the fact that, you know, were kind of coming out and telling him to stop running. That hurts a party.
Harry Rilling:You know, he did very poorly in the debate. I think most of us were maybe not so surprised, but I think we were embarrassed, embarrassed for how it went. Then when he did decide to not run, it kind of threw Kamala right there. And it didn't give her much time to do a lot of campaigning, get around the country like a normal situation, normal campaign would and get people to know her a little bit better. And there was a lot of misinformation on the other side, a lot of promises made, and it's unfortunate.
Harry Rilling:But I think if you look at some of the people that are coming up in the Democratic Party, we have to band together, we have to support each other, we have to pick the right people. But we do have some really, really good potential candidates at the national level.
Jack Pavia:Are there any names that have stood out to you?
Harry Rilling:Well, you know, Hakim Jeffries, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, I don't know if she would run again, but people, like that. Shapiro from Pennsylvania. There's a lot of people that, know, Chris Christie would find a place even though he's a republican, maybe he'll come back to our side. I know he's been, speaking more like a democrat now lately than ever before. But, yeah, if you look deep into the democratic party, we've got people, leaders all over the country who would really I think would do a great job.
Harry Rilling:And I think quite frankly, think this current administration is hurting itself. And hopefully, and I guess I'm getting political even though I said I wouldn't, hopefully, the midterm elections will turn things around. When you have control of the supreme court, which is broken, when you have control of the house, and when you have control of the senate. Last night, JD Vance just broke another tie. And three republicans voted against a bill that was supported by Donald Trump, but that made it 50 to 50 or 50 to 50 and it became 51 to 50.
Harry Rilling:And all the the, all the democrats voted one way and three Republicans came over and J. D. Vance got a late night call to break the tie again. So you govern like that. You can't govern when you're not being held accountable.
Jack Pavia:What do you make of the evolution of campaigning to be more online, more social media based? What sort of effect do you think this has on our politics? And how do you think those technologies can be effectively utilized?
Harry Rilling:Well, social media is good and it's not so good. It all depends on who's using it. You know, people can hide behind the microphone and not, you know, the anonymity that goes along with that. They are not held accountable. But social media can be a very valuable tool of reaching the public, getting out and getting your message out.
Harry Rilling:But it's gotta be done in the right way and it's got to be responsible and it's got to be, know, what's going on now in the country with the name calling and those kinds of things and the division in the country is not healthy. And social media could do a lot to turn that around if people were responsible and people used it in the proper way.
Jack Pavia:So for our final section, I just wanna zoom back into Norwalk. When your term is up, you'll have served as mayor for twelve years. Where do you see Norwalk another twelve years from now?
Harry Rilling:Well, I would like to hope that people who are coming behind me, whether they're Republican or Democrat, it'd be whoever's gonna be elected, would see that Norwalk is growing. If a city doesn't grow, a city dies. And nobody wants to live in a city that's stagnant. And I would hope that the people coming behind me would see some of the things we've done. And I'm not gonna take credit for all the things that are happening in New York.
Harry Rilling:I put together a really, really good team of professionals. People who are dedicated, who are competent, who work hard and who are passionate about what they do. I always say that a good leader hires the right people, puts them in the right position and lets them do their job and gives them the guidance and help them share his vision or her vision. So I would hope that people coming behind would say, look, Norwalk is a growing community, Norwalk is a developing community, and they would continue that trend.
Jack Pavia:Are there any local issues on the horizon that you worry about? Perhaps something that our political dialogue right now is is not focused on?
Harry Rilling:Yeah. To a degree, our schools are, before I got into office, the last school built in Norwalk was fifty years ago. A building's expected lifetime is usually fifty years but schools get a lot of use. So we have to put together a twenty five year plan for developing and building schools. I think what happened over the years, people didn't put the money in the capital budget to work on the schools.
Harry Rilling:So if you put $10,000,000 a year in the capital budget and use that to replace roofs, put in air conditioning, you know, new windows, energy efficiencies, that would have helped, but they didn't. So now since I've been in office, I built a new school on Ponus Ridge, which is now Columbus, well it's not Columbus, it's Concord Magnet School. That's built onto the old Ponus Ridge but it's a complete school. We built a brand new Cranberry School, renovated Jefferson as brand new and it's a beautiful inside. We are now building a new South Norwalk School, the first South Norwalk School in over fifty years in decades where people, young people who live in the South Norwalk area are currently bused across town to go to school.
Harry Rilling:We call them the District ninety nine students because they don't have a district. So we're building a brand new Cranberry School that we're going to tour this afternoon at 02:30. I brought a lot of people in to tour what we're doing. It's gonna be open for the coming school year. We're building a brand new Norwalk High School.
Harry Rilling:We've been able to do that because we've worked together closely with the state of Connecticut, our delegation, and we're getting, we usually get 32% reimbursement. Then we started building schools at that level. I'm sorry, we used to get a lot more. Then all of a sudden, you know, government gives you money. Sometimes just take it away very slowly.
Harry Rilling:And the next thing you know, you're only getting 23 to 30% reimbursement rate. Now for the next twenty five years for all our schools, we're gonna get a 60% reimbursement rate from the government, from the state. From Norwalk High School, we're getting an 80% reimbursement. So that allows us to do a lot more without increasing our capital budget that much and putting a burden on our debt service. That's what I'm really concerned about.
Harry Rilling:Most of our schools are just now getting air conditioned. We worked with the state of Connecticut. There's a $36,000,000 project right now to put air conditioning in the schools that don't have it. It's getting hotter and young kids going to school in May and the June, it's eighty, eighty five degrees inside the schools. And sometimes they've had to close the schools early because it's so hot.
Harry Rilling:So now the $36,000,000 project is gonna cost Norwalk 14,000,000 and the state of Connecticut 22,000,000. But we're getting air conditioning to the schools. So that's, I think that's one of my biggest concerns and as well as taxation.
Jack Pavia:So for our final question, I wanna end on a positive note. Is there something sort of unrelated to the biggest sort of political issues that we talked about? Is there something that you're most excited for in Norwalk's future?
Harry Rilling:Yes. I think the development of our urban core. As I mentioned earlier, in 1955 we had a devastating flood on the Wall Street area. Buildings were torn down or devastated, they crumbled. And since that time, not much has been done.
Harry Rilling:And in fact in the nineteen fifty seven mayoral election and in the nineteen fifty nine mayoral election, that was the big issue. Mayor Freeze at the time hadn't done much in the two years and Mayor Brunges used that as a, or candidate Brunges used that as a campaign issue. Well, he won. And two years after that Mayor Freeze said, Well, you haven't done anything. And Mayor Freeze got to be mayor again.
Harry Rilling:So for the first time in over, well, fifty, forty five, over sixty years, sixty five years, we're investing in the Wall Street area. Dollars 27,000,000 for complete streets, widening sidewalks, planting trees, facade improvements of some of the buildings. Now if you look at some of the buildings in the Wall Street area, they're beautiful, but they've just been let go. And now we wanna get more people living in the urban core down there, we wanna get more businesses that come in. So if you ask me what I'm most excited about, I'm most excited about that.
Jack Pavia:Mary Rolling, thank you so much for coming on today.
Harry Rilling:It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. It's been interesting, and you've done your homework.
Jack Pavia:I appreciate it. This episode of Community Ties couldn't have happened without the work of the board of Nancy on Norwalk, particularly that of Justin Matley, Sean Fox, and Ashley RK Smith. Nancy on Norwalk is powered by its donors who keep the organization's lights on. Of course, I wanna particularly thank Mayor Rilling for coming on the show and engaging in this dialogue. Access to recording equipment was provided by the Westport Library's Verso Studios.
Jack Pavia:Special thanks Travis Bell for showing me how it all works. I highly encourage listeners to look into the resources that the Westport Library offers if you're at all interested in audio, music, or podcasting. Of course, always support public libraries. To everyone out there listening, thank you for tuning in.