Lucy Gellman Photo
Roth: Now is the time for a strong board.
Pothole covers drove Abby Roth out of politics, but she’s ready to return.
Roth announced at a gathering at Koffee? on Audubon Street Saturday that she’s seeking to regain her former position as alder from Downtown’s Ward 7. Around 50 attended.
Roth has filed papers to run for the position in a Democratic primary against incumbent Alberta Witherspoon, who said this week she plans to run for reelection.
Roth served a term and then decided in 2015 not to run again. She said in an interview at the time that the constituent service demands of the job — attending endless meeting, helping constituents with concerns about potholes and early-morning garbage-pick-up noise — proved too time-consuming. She said she supported Witherspoon at the time for the position.
Roth, a 48-year-old special assistant to the dean of Yale’s School of Management, said she missed the position — especially the interaction with constituents and the ability to propose and enact policy. And Donald Trump got elected.
“It [the presidential election] sort of drove home to me that people are so frustrated with government,” Roth said in an interview. “Now is the time that we need a strong board.”
“I felt like I was helping people” as alder, she added. “This is a way I feel that I can be doing something for my community.”
Ward 7.
Roth cited taxes, transportation, education, job training, and public safety as her top priorities. Since hanging her aldermanic hat in 2015, she has worked on New Haven Bike Month efforts and continued to attend community management team meetings in Downtown/Wooster Square, where she is management team vice chair, and East Rock. She became board treasurer at the New Haven Free Public Library and ramped up her efforts with the Yale Traffic Safety Committee, of which she was a founding member in 2011. She said that she sees Ward 7 as having “a very strange shape,” which translates to constituents with some very different needs. Some people in the ward might need job training, she suggested, while others may be hoping to make the East Rock to downtown commute more pedestrian- and bike-friendly.
She’s also been monitoring Spinnaker Real Estate Partners’ plans to develop a $160 million development called Audubon Square where Frontier currently has a parking lot. She said that she wants to know that Spinnaker is implementing its design “responsibly and safely.”
“I think there’s great opportunity,” she said of the new developments, “But we also don’t want to drive people out that live there now … we have to think about safety and traffic infrastructure.” She pointed to pedestrian and bike safety, lower speed limits in residential neighborhoods, and improvements to the crosswalks at Orange and Audubon Streets as a few more issues she would attack as alder.
City of New Haven
Witherspoon.
Reached for comment, Alder Witherspoon said that while she has not filed her official paperwork yet, it is “ready to go” and she is “feeling inspired.”
Witherspoon, a 66-year-old retiree who worked in human services, said she is proudest of getting a crosswalk placed at the intersection of Orange and Audubon streets, outside of her apartment at Charles T. McQueeney Towers. She said she is looking forward to the installation of flashing lights at the intersection as well, “because we’ve had so many accidents at that corner.”
She added that she is in the process of organizing a three-part ward-wide spring clean up, based on a fall 2016 clean up session.
Like Roth, she is also keeping an eye on Frontier’s parking lot, Spinnaker ground zero. On March 4, she brought a representative from Spinnaker into McQueeney Towers to speak with residents about the plan. She said that she is planning another session for McQueeney residents, as well as doctors, lawyers, home and business owners who live or work in the vicinity of the lot.
“I’m just feeling inspired because this first term was a learning experience for me,” she said Thursday. “Just looking at the things that we did collectively, it’s inspiring for next year.”
That includes fielding inquiries from “a couple of elderly people” who called her earlier this year about parking tickets they’d received after street sweeping that they said hadn’t been adequately advertised. “I was able to steer them in the right direction,” she said.
“I’m excited to learn more, because democracy is an interesting field,” she added. “I like being able to help constituents.”
Roth, a 48-year-old special assistant to the dean of Yale's School of Management, said she missed the position—especially the interaction with constituents and the ability to propose and enact policy. And Donald Trump got elected.
"It [the presidential election] sort of drove home to me that people are so frustrated with government," Roth said in an interview. "Now is the time that we need a strong board."
Career Dinosaur politicians who are fearful of losing power for their party.These Dinosaur Career politicians have built powerful political machines able to overpower most opposition. After all, blocks of votes are regularly purchased for the price of political favors,And backroom deals.You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but career politicians have a plethora of tricks, and they sure aren't scared to use them.They'll use whatever they can pull from their filthy little
bags just to stay in office like pulling out so-called Judas Goat leaders who have sold their political souls and prostituted themselves for power and the accompanying wealth that great power affords.Career politicians are disconnected from reality and from their constituents.These politicians are only concerned with securing their seats.So people of ward 7.Do not drink the kool-Aid.We must keep out all Career Dinosaur Politicians Now!!!!