Nick Defiesta Photo
Stratton records ideas from the crowd at Saturday’s convening.
New Haven has a long history of divisive ethnic and machine politics, a leading political scientist told supporters of the “People’s Caucus.” He told the group he believes it could be one of the few to overcome that history.
Rae (pictured), a Yale professor and New Haven historian and a top official in former Mayor John Daniels’ administration, made these remarks to 100 people who gathered Saturday in the basement of the Springs-Life-Giving Water Church on Sperry Street. The occasion: the first community gathering of the new caucus, a breakaway group on the Board of Alders who have vowed to offer an alternative to the Democratic Party leadership.
Rae’s 10-minute talk highlighted organizations that have successfully bypassed political divisions in the past and might serve as models: the city’s school system, with the implementation of New Haven Promise, the tree-planting prowess of the Urban Resources Initiative; the organizational success of New Haven Youth Soccer in the 1980s, which grew from scratch to enroll 1,000 city kids.
“You’ve got to have a positive [vision] and run with it,” Rae said of his experiences helping to organize youth soccer. He also stressed the need for organizations to “overcome factionalism.”
Rae’s was one of several addresses at the gathering, which also featured break-out idea-gathering sessions.
Caucus co-founder Michael Stratton, a new alder representing Propect Hill/Newhallville’s Ward 19, outlined the caucus’s founding principles (which can be found in this story). The six-alder caucus is “not an opposition party,” said Stratton, but a group committed to developing a legislative agenda “from the people.”
“We welcome union people. We welcome non-union people,” Stratton said. Caucus members have been critical of leaders of Yale’s UNITE/HERE Locals 34 and 35, which supported the supermajority that now exists on the Board of Aldermen and holds leading party positions.
Among the people attending the event was was 2013 mayoral candidate Justin Elicker, who was supported by some of the forum’s primary organizers (including Stratton, one of Elicker’s biggest fundraisers) and by the event’s main invited speakers. (Elicker lost the election to Toni Harp.) Toward the end of his talk, Rae pointed Elicker out to the crowd, which acknowledged the former alder with applause.
Also speaking at Saturday’s event was Mark Abraham, executive director of a local number-crunching and analysis outfit called DataHaven. He gave an abridged version of a presentation he offered at the Institute Library last month on the virtues of evidence-based policy.
Abraham (at left in photo) highlighted — and the crowd latched onto — one statistic in particular: the fact that New Haveners hold only 19 percent of living wage jobs within the city. The other 81 percent are occupied by people who do not pay property taxes to the Elm City.
“Does the city know this?” local housing authority contractor Yul Watley asked the room.
Yes, responded several of the alders present. They said this is the sort of issues the People’s Caucus wants to focus on. (A mission statement drawn up two years ago by the then-new Board of Aldermen had a similar focus, leading in part to the creation of an organization called New Haven Works. Click here for a story on the group’s promises two years later; and here for a story about a similar idea-sharing convening in 2012 by organizers affiliated with the then-new Board of Alders majority.)
At the start of the forum, the organizers handed all attendees two pieces of paper. The first asked attendees for five words or phrases that describe New Haven right now, while the second asked for five items that describe New Haven the way they wish New Haven could be.
For the first list, responses included “divided,” “high taxes,” “corruption” and “unrealized potential.” The first item on activist Danny Newell’s (pictured) list was “violent”; the final item was “home.”
When asked about the second list, city landlord Ray Whitaker (pictured) gave a longer answer.
“I’d like to see a sort of balancing of the tale of two cities here in New Haven,” he explained. “You have the Yale reality, then you have the Hill reality.”
When Elicker gave his answer — that he’d like to see more trust in city government — the room broke out in enthusiastic applause.
After generating word clouds of responses, forum organizers pledged that the People’s Caucus would find ways to bridge the two visions of the city. The crowd broke out into working groups, each moderated by an alder, to generate ideas of such policies.
“Their next step, according to East Rock Alder Anna Festa: evaluating the input they received from Saturday’s forum, formulating policy ideas and holding more community forums. The group was pleased with the turnout, Festa said, and gave alders an idea of the directions residents would like to take New Haven.
“This should’ve been done years ago,” Festa said. “This is how city government should run.”
Stratton said later that the ideas the caucus will immediately research include better rules ensuring genuine minority hiring on city projects, a cataloging of youth programs to identify gaps (click here to read about the current status of that project on the Board of Alders), dramatically increased mentoring opportunities for city kids, fully funded state Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program reimbursements to cities, taxing wealthier not-for-profits.
In his first few weeks as an alder, Stratton has submitted a range of proposed laws tackling United Illuminating’s tree-trimming plan, seeking to abolish the paid city/town clerk position, opposing city government gag orders on employees, and pushing for more PILOT money.
How come no talk about Proportional Representation.A true alternative to the Democratic Party leadership.