The bulldozers are just one part of Marinan’s scorched-earth effort to return Meriden to what he considers its rightful owners – the middle class. For too long, he says, Meriden (population: 60,000) has been a haven for freeloaders on the taxpayers’ dole. To right that wrong, Marinan, 47, has shuttered the free dental clinic and staunched funding for battered women’s and homeless shelters, the kinds of places he says attract the poor to town. By law, city hall must subsidize legal fees for poor citizens, many of whom are tenants fighting eviction. But Marinan now funnels an equal sum to the city’s landlords. By shaving 20 percent off the city’s social-services bill, he’s saved enough cash to buy new computers for the schools and pave the streets for the first time in three years. “The poor in this community were not born or brought up or educated here,” says Marinan, a lifelong Democrat who hangs a portrait of John F. Kennedy above his desk. “You can come here to work, play and learn, but there’s no free ride in the city of Meriden anymore.”
To critics, Marinan is Robin Hood in reverse – the custodian of a depressed lo-cal economy who scapegoats the poor to placate the better-off. Ted Ogle, president of the St. Vincent DePaul Society, which operates Meriden’s homeless shelter, insists that most of his clients are locals hurt by factory closings over the last 20 years. “Marinan thinks that by eliminating services, poor people will go away, and I think that’s heartless,” Ogle says. When Marinan turned down federal money to hire an AIDS worker earlier this summer, Ogle volunteered to apply for the grant instead. Marinan, who had already halted city contributions to the shelter, pledged “retribution” against Ogle, saying two thirds of Meriden’s AIDS patients are out-of-towners. “We’ve done more than our fair share,” says the mayor.
That seems to be the majority opinion in Meriden, where property taxes have doubled in two years and house for sale signs picket the blue-collar neighborhoods. Many longtime residents like Carol Paradise, 51, say recent arrivals don’t share the spirit to succeed that once made Meriden “Silver City,” home of the U.S. silver industry. They blame newcomers for the fivefold increase in public-assistance costs the city has absorbed since 1985. “Welfare has drained the living hell out of this city,” says Paradise, who credits the mayor with cleaning up the streets and increasing police foot patrols. “I don’t care what they say about Marinan, he’s kicking butt.” Prosperity may return to Meriden, but only when its idle factories once again hum with industry. In the meantime, Marinan promises to maintain a “meaningful” level of social services – and to keep kicking.
