Walker, Douglass, Hamilton Announce Reelection Campaigns

Their wards overlap. They can practically signal to each other from their houses, which are not more than five blocks apart. Their issues overlap too: public safety, jobs, and youth opportunities.

So the three first-term Democrat aldermen — West River’s Tyisha Walker, Dwight’s Frank Douglass, and Beaver Hills’ Evette Hamilton — decided to join hands Friday afternoon to announce the kick-off of their reelection campaigns. As a team.

As 45 supporters gathered on a sun-splashed grass field behind the Augusta Lewis Troup School on Edgewood Avenue, the adults grilled hot dogs, the kids whacked wiffle balls, and the candidates made their case for reelection and asked for volunteers.

The three alders, all Yale employees and active members of Yale’s UNITE HERE Local 34 or Local 35, first won their seats in 2011 in a game-changing campaign that saw a super-majority of labor-backed candidates take control of the Board of Aldermen.

“You took a chance on us, and now you can hold us responsible. We hope you take this journey with us,” said Walker.

Walker serves as vice chair of the Board of Aldermen’s Youth Services Committee as well as deputy majority leader.

“We secured money to get the [Goffe Street] Armory looked at, a Q House feasibility study, and [upcoming] a citywide youth facilities assessment,” said Walker.

She also cited advances in community policing as fulfilling, partially, one of the proclaimed aims of the 2011 campaign. ​“We’re not all the way there,” she said, but far enough to be judged and to ask for reelection.

At this point none of these three candidates appears to be facing opposition for the Democratic nomination or in the general election.

They added a new goal to their jobs/youth/crime agenda: better housing. ​“You can call me the housing police or housing guru,” said Hamilton.

“I was a renter. I saved ten years to have my house,” she said.

She said she knows the plight of renters and the failings of landlords and is a well-known presence following up complaints filed with city government’s Livable City Initiative. (Click here for an example.) ​“Even if you’re on a rental subsidy, you deserve a decent place to live. That’s my pet peeve,” she said.

Douglass, who serves on the board’s food policy and legislative committees of the board, said he was proudest of his efforts to get the plagued Dwight Gardens townhouses on Edgewood back on track to a solution, after a city-picked developer bailed out.

“It thrills me to be able to be in a position to help people,” he said.

Among the supporters on hand for Friday’s event was Edgewood Avenue homeowner Yaakov Komisar (pictured). He supported Walker’s first campaign and intends to help again.

“You see a white guy at a Ward 23 event, and you think it’s union,” said Komisar, who is a rabbi and teaches at Ezra Academy. ​“I’m not tied into the union. She [Walker] convinced me on her merits.”

He praised in particular Walker’s and the other alders’ efforts that have shut down anti-social activity in a house on Orchard between Edgewood and Elm. He praised a renewed sense of safety and Walker’s accessibility.

“I feel they’re part of a new vitality coming to New Haven,” Komisar said. He said he and his 3‑year old-son play in the afternoon on the field behind Troup School with a new sense of safety and comfort.

Komisar, who grew up in an integrated neighborhood in Providence, said he takes delight in raising his family similarly in an integrated and increasingly safe neighborhood. ​“That’s why we love New Haven,” he said.

Even though they made their announcements together Friday afternoon, Hamilton said the candidates will campaign separately. Walker said that despite an absence of opponents, none of them takes anything for granted.

“We’re going to be on the doors,” she said, meaning a shoe-leather campaign just like the one that catapulted them into office last time.

“You can’t get elected and walk away,” she said.