Harp Tells Yalies ​“Experience” Sets Her Apart

Asked what distinguishes her from the other three Democratic mayoral candidates, Toni Harp offered a single noun.

She offered that noun — ​“experience” — during a brunchtime meeting with over 30 Yale students crowded Monday afternoon into the South Common Room of the Timothy Dwight College dining hall.

Yale undergraduate Matthew Jackson told Harp at the brunch that he remains undecided in the mayoral race. He asked what sets her apart from opponents Henry Fernandez and Justin Elicker since they all seem to share views on issues like community policing. (Kermit Carolina is also running in the primary.)

“The difference is experience,” responded Harp, who is in her 11th term as a state senator and co-chairs the legislature’s powerful Appropriations Committee. For the last 20 years, New Haven’s mayor has ​“has no relationships with the governor,” she said. ​“Over 50 percent of our budget comes from the state of Connecticut. We’ve actually had to have the mayor ask” Yale Vice-President Bruce Alexander and Yale President Rick Levin ​“to intervene on behalf of the city. Not one of the other candidates have even testified before the General Assembly. They don’t understand how it works. It’s a lifeline for New Haven. I understand how it works. I have a relationship with the governor.”

Jackson said afterwards that he remains undecided. Click on the video above to watch Harp’s full response.

Harp — who’s running in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary — met with the students along with aldermanic candidates Sara Eidelson, Jeanette Morrison and Ella Wood.

The gathering reflected the increasing role Yale students have played in city elections in recent years. They volunteer in droves for mayoral and aldermanic campaings. They comprise a significant bloc of voters and volunteers in not just Eidelson’s campus-carved-out Ward 1, but also Ward 7, where Wood is running, and Ward 22, which Morrison represents. Morrison (pictured), who grew up in New Haven, lives in the Dixwell neighborhood, which Ward 22 mostly covers. But four Yale residential colleges now sit in it, as well. Morrison told the group she ​“never bought into this unwritten rule” that town and gown are supposed to remain separate.

The mayoral candidates are courting the Yale vote in earnest now that students have returned. Click here to read about Elicker’s greeting to incoming freshmen. Fernandez has a Monday evening campus event planned with actor Danny Glover.

About 20 Yalies have been working with Elicker’s campaign, according to campaign manager Kyle Buda. Fernandez said about 15 Yale students have worked on his campaign on a daily basis. ​“At least 30” have been working for Harp, according to campaign manager Jason Bartlett.

They include undergraduate Michael Harris. Harris spoke at Monday’s Timothy Dwight lunch about how he met Harp while lobbying at the state Capitol with other students on behalf of mental-health programs in schools. The governor’s budget had called for an across-the-board 10 percent cut to education; that threatened school-based mental-health programs. Harris saw Harp and her fellow Appropriations Committee co-chair, New Haven state Rep. Toni Walker, rescue the programs. Harries also mentioned Harp’s support for the HUSKY health-care program for low-income families Now Harries has been working as the Harp mayoral campaign’s citywide field director.

Harp herself, who tends not to speak at length about her personal accomplishments, did mention a few when addressing the students: working to raise the age from 16 to 18 at which arrestees are considered adults; obtaining state money to create a plan to revive the shuttered Dixwel Community ​“Q” House; saving money for after-school programs.

In her eight-minute remarks, Harp also promised as mayor to pay more attention to neighborhoods like Dixwell, Newhallville and Fair Haven.

“We’ve done a great job in New Haven with downtown and Yale,” she said. ​“We have a downtown administration that has absolutely ignored … our neighborhoods.”

Harp chatted briefly with WTNH after the lunch, then prepared to knock on students’ doors.

Monday’s Timothy Dwight College dining hall brunch menu included, in addition to politics, steel-cut oatmeal, pan perdu (aka French toast), chicken burritos, vegetable burritos, and Farro salad with roasted mushrooms.