Hire women to top city positions. Help women-owned businesses land contracts. “End harassment of women on our streets.”
Henry Fernandez unveiled those ideas Thursday, along with a high-powered lineup of female supporters who vowed to keep him to his word.
Fernandez (at left in above photo), one of seven candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor in a Sept. 10 primary, made the remarks at a woman-focused campaign event Thursday at the 50 Elm St. office building.
The event was billed as the launch of “Women For Fernandez,” a group of women supporting his candidacy.
It was the third event Fernandez has fielded in the past two weeks, seeking to move ahead of the crowded field early by establishing public visibility, evidence of support, and identification with an emerging set of positions on issues.
In remarks before about three dozen supporters, Fernandez vowed to: Encourage the hiring of women to full-time jobs, and encourage their promotion, in the public, private and not-for-profit sector; promote quality childcare; “ensure women-owned businesses get city contracts; ensure that women have top senior positions in my administration” and are “more than equally represented” at “all levels of management in city government”; work with his police chief to address higher rates of sex assault among low-income women; create a public-private partnership focusing on health disparity between black and Latina women and their white peers; and “end the harassment of women in city streets.”
He said his commitment to equality derives from his childhood growing up raised by a single mom. His mom was discriminated on the job and harassed in the street, he said. “We grew up poor because of discrimination against women.” He said his mom always advocated for equal rights worked hard to earn a college degree while he was in high school.
Fernandez said his platform came from a team of women who are serving as advisers to his campaign. If elected, he vowed, he will put together a commission on women and girls — including some of those women — “to hold me accountable and make sure these things actually get done.”
As evidence that he would follow through, Fernandez cited his record running the youth agency LEAP, where he said he trained and promoted female staff and made sure kids had books to read with strong female role models; and at City Hall, where he served as economic development director, and where he said he promoted women into previously male-dominated leadership positions.
Nichole Jefferson stepped forward as Exhibit A of that record. When Fernandez joined City Hall in 1998, hired to clean up the Livable City Initiative (LCI), the city’s anti-blight agency, Jefferson was working there. Fernandez promoted her, then later named her as the head of the Commission on Equal Opportunities, which oversees female, minority and local hiring requirements on city construction projects. The agency has been around since 1964, Jefferson said; in 2002 she became the first ever female to serve as director.
As economic development chief, Fernandez also hired Regina Winters as the first-ever female director of LCI; and he promoted Wendy Clarke to the position of deputy economic development chief, sending her on her way to move up the ladder within City Hall after Fernandez left.
Jefferson brought Francine Casanova (pictured) on board to Fernandez’s campaign. Casanova went to Jefferson’s construction training school; she is now a unionized journeyman who earns top wages building projects such as 360 State and Gateway Community College.
Jefferson and Casanova kicked off a lineup of women who pledged support for Fernandez Thursday.
The lineup included Elizabeth Alexander (pictured), a Yale professor and poet who recited a poem at President Obama’s 2009 inauguration. She praised Fernandez for standing up for women, and for choosing Kica Matos, a “strong, brave, brilliant, and truly courageous” woman, as his life partner.
Megan Fountain (pictured), a volunteer organizer with the immigrant rights group Unidad Latina en Acción, praised Fernandez’s work as a board member at JUNTA for Progressive Action, a Fair Haven-based Latino advocacy agency.
Louise Endel (pictured), who is in her 10th decade of a long life fighting for women’s rights, also pledged her support.
First-year Yale medical students Jessica Ye, Priscilla Wang and Jack Qian.
The event featured live classical tunes from Yale Music In Medicine, a volunteer group that plays for hospital patients. Jefferson saw the group playing in the atrium of the Smilow Cancer Hospital one day and secured the musicians for Thursday’s event.
Pete’s Eats, a local caterer, cooked up meatballs, cornbread and tiny quiches for the crowd. Everything was coordinated, from the color of the balloons — in the campaign’s orange and blue — to the drink list.
Betty Jarman (pictured) mixed cocktails, including a “Fernandez Summer Splash,” featuring Bacardi, daiquiri, ruby cherry juice and orange juice.
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