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Title: Community Watchdog Rallies Against Mayor John DeStefano View count: 175 Rating: 5.0 (3 ratings) Description: New Haven (WTNH) -- The New Haven ID card is once again the focus of controversy in the city. People on one side of the issue say it all boils down to dollars and cents that the city could be using for other services. This latest clash comes just in time for a Saturday show-down. New Haven will be hosting Family Day for all ID card holders inside city hall on Saturday morning. Outside, there will be a big rally against the card holder program. Both sides are expecting about 200 people to come out, but now, one side is blaming the other for the big budget shortfall. Members of the Community Watchdog Project are gearing up for their big rally outside New Haven city hall by screaming into a bullhorn passing out flyers. They're also making some controversial claims.. about the city's failing finances. "At a time when the city is suffering, and they have a budget shortfall, and he's cutting city jobs and services, we believe it's time for the people here to stand up and to say 'enough is enough,'" said Dustin Gold of the Community Watchdog Project. The Community Watchdog Project claims, that the estimated 15,000 illegal immigrants in New Haven cost taxpayers $71 million dollars a year. "Where does that number come from?" "That number comes from -- I used the city budget, we have a statistics analyst who took the city budget, they took the estimated number of illegals and then census bureau data," Gold said. "This is the cost for city services such as policing, education and other city government services." The mayor's spokesperson calls that a ludicrous formula and those who know members of the immigrant community agree. "No, that's a lie," said Angelo Reyes. He has owned the People's Laundromat on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven for 10 years and deals with people from all walks of life, including those here without papers. He says many of them pay taxes too. "Most of them have TIN numbers now, Junta for Progressive Action has helped them too. You know, if you're gonna work, you're gonna work with a TIN number," Reyes said. TIN stands for Temporary Identification Number. Undocumented workers use it to pay social security and income taxes. Reyes says times are tough and this is just a blame game. "This money issue is not our fault, I mean, this trickles all the way up to Congress," he said. The Community Watchdog Project could not say how New Haven compares to other Connecticut cities they say they're still working on those statistics. Both the Family Day and the rally start at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Tags: mayor, john, destefano, community, watchdog, project, illegal, immigration, new, haven, elm, city, id, dustin, w., gold, Author: WatchdogProject |
