Omicron Squeezes ​“Live” Inauguration

Absence, loss, pain, and possibility loomed as 33 elected officials were inaugurated to new terms Saturday in a video-streamed inauguration ceremony upended by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The public couldn’t take part — as a technical snafu canceled even the musical guests’ planned prerecorded performances.

The 54-minute ceremony took place Saturday midday at Hillhouse High School on Sherman Parkway.

Masked and socially distanced, many of the 33 local elected officials who were sworn in for new terms — including Mayor Justin Elicker, City/Town Clerk Michael Smart, Board of Education District 1 representative Edward Joyner, and a few dozen members of the 30-person Board of Alders — joined a handful of guests, security guards, and camera operators in person in the otherwise empty high school gymnasium. 

Because of the surge in Omicron-induced Covid-19 cases, the city barred all other members of the public and the press from attending the event.

That left the 128 other people who watched the ceremony live to tune in via the city’s Vimeo-posted video steam.

“This is a tough time,” Elicker said. He compared his first inauguration ceremony as mayor on Jan. 1, 2020 — when ​“more than 500 community members were packed in at Hillhouse” — to Saturday’s, which saw him deliver his address to a quiet and largely empty room.

Even the various guests who had planned to make virtual appearances at the inauguration — including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Westville-based singer Thabisa Rich, Beaver Hills-based poet Salwa Abdussabur, and local gospel musician Jordan Watson — were absent thanks to a very Covid-era snafu. 

“Due to technical difficulties, all of our pre-recorded content will not be aired live, but will be available later today,” said New Haven Promise student and 2018 Wilbur Cross High School graduate Gaston Neville, who emceed the ceremony solo after his planned co-host had a last-minute emergency that kept her from attending.

"A Very Challenging Year"

That aching sense of emptiness extended well beyond the paired-down ceremony and minimal bodies in the room. 

Many of those who spoke at Saturday’s event reflected on an uncertain, tumultuous, and violent year. (Click on the above video to watch the full event.)

“This has been a very challenging year for me and my family,” said Smart, who was sworn in for a fifth two-year term as city clerk. 

His voice caught as he thanked colleagues and friends for supporting him through the loss of his brother, his cousin, and his granddaughter in 2021. He acknowledged Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, Fair Haven Alder Ernie Santiago, and Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen, Jr. as having also had a ​“tough year” due to the deaths of family members. And he called for ​“a moment of silence for everyone who’s lost someone this year, and that’s grieving.”

“Today’s near empty gymnasium is a stark reminder that the fight is not over,” said Elicker as he reflected on the past 22 months of a pandemic that has ​“touched every part of our lives.” 

Even as he praised his administration’s ​“swift action” in the early days of the pandemic to ​“keep kids and seniors safe, to house the homeless and feed the hungry,” Elicker lamented the rising gun violence across the city and country, the ​“far too many” small businesses that have shuttered or struggled to remain open during Covid, the ​“year of virtual learning” that took ​“a toll on our children that we are only beginning to grapple with,” and the ​“countless families still grieving the loss of loved ones.”

“We are in the middle of a pandemic,” said Joyner, ​“and only about 50 percent of the country realizes that.” He asked everyone watching to ​“pray collectively for the well-being of Darnell Goldson,” a fellow elected local Board of Education member who has announced his pending resignation as he battles cancer. 

Attorney Michael Jefferson offered perhaps the most galvanizing eulogy for a difficult year and call to collective action in his speech before swearing in Smart as city clerk. 

He framed his address as ​“a plea of sorts, an appeal to Black men. Those who are woke. Those who, let’s say, have strayed from duty. A simple plea, born of desperation and daunting frustration, in hope of arresting this slow and incessant march to our own destruction.”

“Yes, we have been condemned to the shadows of American society,” Jefferson continued, ​“but an authentic audit of our sojourn reveals an inspiring truth, an undeniable truth, and to many a frightening truth. … It is a revelation of our indomitable spirit to resist and overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.”

Click here to read a recent New Haven Independent opinion article penned by Jefferson about ​“what Black people (who care) must do to combat gun violence in the Black community.”

Elicker: More $ For Homeownership, VoTech, Climate Resiliency

During his closing address at Saturday’s ceremony, Elicker listed what he saw as some of his administration’s top accomplishments over the past two years — striking new agreements for the expansion of Union Station and Tweed New Haven Airport, opening the reborn Q House community center, promoting a ​“housing for all” legislative agenda, opening a new one-stop reentry center.

He also sought to focus the live and remote audience’s attention on the myriad possibilities that lie ahead for New Haven thanks to an unprecedented level of money flowing into the city from seemingly every angle.

That includes

• A $50 million annual bump to the state’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) reimbursement to the city for property tax money lost to tax-exempt nonprofits.

• A $10 million annual increase in voluntary payments by Yale University to the city over the next six years thanks to a recently struck (and still awaiting aldermanic review and approval) university-city accord.

• Over $100 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds that remain largely unspent, even as the city has won aldermanic approval to dedicate parts of those funds to summer youth programs, police surveillance cameras, a new Department of Community Resilience, and ​“revenue replacement” for pandemic-hurt sections of the city budget.

• And an as-yet unspecified amount of additional federal aid to come from the ​“massive infrastructure bill” designed to bolster the nation’s aging roads, bridges, rails, and climate change-vulnerable coastlines.

Thanks in part to all that money, Elicker said, ​“we’ve stabilized our finances” and ​“our city will see the kind of investments we haven’t seen in decades.”

How might some of that money be spent over the mayor’s next two-year term.

Elicker made several promises on Saturday, reiterating many of the priorities he outlined during his Election Night victory speech.

He said his administrations plans to: 

• ​“Promote more homeownership opportunities” by expanding the city’s downpayment assistance program; provide more financial support for renters; and ​“securing properties” before they’re bought up by ​“some large [real estate] companies” that ​“won’t steward them well.”

• Invest more in career and vocational training for local high school students who want to work rather than go to college after graduating. 

• Make ​“a focused investment in wealth creation in Black and brown communities” by, in part, increasing funding to Black and brown-owned businesses.

• Launch a ​“Carbon Free Future Program” to promote more energy efficient homes and train local small contractors in that work, to further electrify the city’s fleet of vehicles and promote ​“multi-modal transportation options.”

“Look at what we have done. Look at what we have accomplished over these past two years,” Elicker concluded. ​“Imagine what we can do over these coming years. … New Haven can be a place where everyone can thrive.”