Mayoral Candidates Tackle Hunger, Schools, Experience

What are the root causes of food insecurity, and who is responsible for combating them?

Are Hamden schools equitable? Should we sell Wintergreen?

Why should we vote for you? What makes you stand out?

Hamden’s three Democratic mayoral candidates faced that final flurry of publicly posed questions at two different forums on Thursday night, five days in advance of the Sept. 14 primary.

Incumbent Mayor Curt Leng, DTC-endorsed Lauren Garrett, and challenger Peter Cyr started their pre-primary weekend at 6 p.m. on the same Sept. 9 Zoom call: A youth Q&A hosted by Hamden High’s Global Youth Activists Club.

In the middle of that event, Leng excused himself to make it to another one: A roundtable discussion on Hamden hunger moderated by Leng’s chief of staff, Adam Sendroff, and featuring U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Superintendent of Schools Jody Goeler, and three community leaders in food security, including community services director Y’Isiah Lopes.

Leng announced that event Friday morning, one day after he shared a plan to formalize a partnership between Hamden and Community Soup Kitchen, an organization that’s been offering free meals out of the Keefe Center throughout the summer. Read more about their work here.

He elaborated that he intends to draft an agreement with CSK — whose director, Joshua Watkins, is running for the Board of Ed on Leng’s slate — within the next 60 days. Though the initiative served 4,213 meals throughout June and July, it was considered a pilot program and received no direct funding from the town.

Leng said the agreement will include a proposal for how much money the town can provide CSK to continue to expand what has been ​“successful beyond our wildest dreams.”

The event itself was centered around a 2019 (pre-pandemic) finding that 39 percent of Hamden residents struggled to put food on the table. Participants of the forum pointed out that that number was the outcome of research by the Hamden Food Security Task Force, which was created in partnership with the United Way of Greater New Haven during Leng’s time in office.

The forum did not explore steps the town must take to solve food security. Rather, it highlighted the various projects that both Hamden and Rep. DeLauro have catalyzed and/or carried out in order to respond to data collected by the United Way that publicized growing hunger in town.

Thanks to federal Covid-19 pandemic-relief dollars, Hamden public schools now offers all students, regardless of their family’s income bracket, free and reduced lunches; the Keefe Community Center has launched several new programs to provide more meals and groceries while also educating residents about their health and how to manage money. Community leader Allison Batson is on track to create a third location for her ​“Dinner for a Dollar” initiative. And DeLauro has led and won a fight for a child tax credit.

DeLauro praised the ​“ingenuity” happening at the local level, and called Hamden a model in food security efforts. ​“I commend the town of Hamden,” she said, calling Leng and others in the town ​“trusted partners” with whom she works ​“closely.”

The event, largely attended by Leng’s supporters and members of his reelection slate, like Councilwoman Kathleen Schomaker, highlighted his campaign’s growing focus on issues of food scarcity in Southern Hamden and beyond.

Meanwhile, Lauren Garrett and Peter Cyr argued their cases— and criticized some of Leng’s recent decisions— while speaking to the town’s high schoolers.

For example, after Leng left the forum, candidates were asked whether they believe selling Wintergreen school is a smart step forward. Mayor Leng announced a deal in the works to do just that on the first day of September. (Read more about that and the ​“3R” plan that Hamden has been navigating for the past three years in hopes of cutting school related costs and instituting more affordable and accessible early learning programs here.)

Garrett and Cyr both said yes. But they condemned the process and politics that led the town to make that deal. Leng was not present to defend his stance, but he has spoken about his views on the topic here and here.

Garrett said that the town should have negotiated to sell the building for more than the $16 million Leng agreed to this year. She also noted that the details of the deal state that the town will not receive upfront money for $13 million of that total sum from the sale for five years. The money from Wintergreen is supposed to fund significant renovation projects in town, including fixing up Shepherd Glen, whose condition is ​“terrible,” in Garrett’s words, as well as the Keefe Center and fire house number two.

Cyr also said that he is ​“frustrated by the process,” calling the deal the ​“tail end of a three year saga that has divided our town.”

He said that one of the reasons he was best positioned to serve as an effective mayor is that he ​“is not tied to past decision making” and ​“wasn’t involved in 3R.”

“Not being involved in the past administration is so important,” he said, because ​“I offer a chance, say if I win the primary, to unify the party.” He pointed out that he received more petition signatures than Leng while collecting support to get on the September ballot, asserting ​“my power is with the people right now.”

Garrett said that her strengths come from having experience serving on the Legislative Council and serving the town locally. She argued she serves as the sweet spot between Leng and Cyr, stating ​“we need to make sure that we’re changing but not changing for somebody who doesn’t have the experience.”

Cyr countered that ​“to say I don’t have experience is just wrong,” describing his political organizing work at state and federal levels (read more about Cyr’s background here).

He asserted that Hamden politics is ​“too geared towards Facebook and personalities,” and that the right mayor for the town would be one that could lead a ​“less toxic approach to local government” and focus directly on the ​“issues.”

He said those words as non-student audience members complained about all three candidates in the chat, and student leaders consistently asked adult viewers to ​“stay positive” and on topic.

The youth forum marked the last chance for Hamden’s Democratic candidates to come together to compare campaigns before the primary takes place on Sept. 14. This weekend, those three will focus on independently promoting their candidacies with only a few days left before voters weigh in.