At The Doors For Reelection, & A Renamed Corner

Maceo ​“Troy” Streater was on a mission. 

To win his first full term in aldermanic office. And to gather enough support to rename a Newhallville corner for a long-time former neighborhood English teacher.

Streater currently serves as the alder for Newhallville/Dixwell/Prospect Hill’s Ward 21. 

He hit the doors on Thursday to formally begin his reelection campaign. In addition to pitching neighbors on voting for him this November, he also talked with constituents about everything from sidewalk repairs, to free smoke alarms from the city, to getting signatures for a petition to get the corner of Thompson and Shelton renamed for Geneva Pollock, who used to teach at the former Jackie Robinson Middle School.

Streater has served as alder since January, when the Newhallville native prevailed in a four-way special election for that position after Steve Winter vacated the seat to serve as the city’s first director of climate and sustainability.

On Thursday morning, Streater, along with incumbent Ward 22 Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison and newcomer Brittiany Mabery-Niblack, who’s running for alder in Newhallville’s Ward 20, made their respective candidacies official by filing papers at the city clerk’s office at 200 Orange St.

Streater is currently running unopposed. Morrison faces a challenge from fellow Democrat Anthony Geritano, Jr. And Mabery-Niblack and Addie Kimbrough have both filed to run in a ward currently represented by fellow Democrat Devin Avshalom-Smith, who has not filed for reelection by the publication time of this article.

Later on Thursday, at the doors in Newhallville, matters more pressing, it seemed, than reelection came to the fore. Those included Streater’s effort to rename the corner of Thompson and Shelton for Geneva Pollock, who in addition to teaching at Jackie Robinson (now called King-Robinson) also served as a ward co-chair. She died in 2020 at age 76.

“We’re trying to get signatures and we only need 250,” Streater, 55, told Cherie Graham, who invited him inside her Sherman Parkway home. ​“Mrs. Pollock was my teacher and I met her daughter door-knocking in January and I told her I’d help.”

Graham, a pastor who leads Bridging the Gap Ministries, was all in. ​“I met him when he was campaigning the first time and I said, ​‘What can I do?’” she recalled. ​“I’ve been knowing him since we were little kids and I hadn’t seen him in years.”

Streater, she said, ​“already has made a big difference” in his five-month tenure.

“He takes the time to talk to the neighbors, he hears them, he listens to them, to their needs, and then he does follow up with them, he keeps in touch with them, he makes sure the city is doing what they are supposed to do,” she said. ​“He just cares.”

In March, Streater intervened on behalf of a 73-year-old woman who was getting evicted from her home in the Florence Virtue apartment complex because she owed 50 cents on her rent. He bought her a 50-cent money order (for a dollar) and the eviction was rescinded.

“I was born and raised in this area, grew up on Thompson Street, went to Jackie Robinson Middle School,” Streater said, as he crossed Dixwell in the temperate early-summer air. ​“I feel like I can help people with their needs, and that’s what I do.”

With that, he pushed open the door to the Believe in Me Empowerment Corporation, an organization that offers a food bank, as well as re-entry and adolescent mentoring programs, among other services. He said a quick hello to co-founder James Walker, who went back to a Zoom meeting in the back office.

“Mr. Walker provides a great service to this community and I want to make sure everyone knows they can come here,” he said. 

“If someone’s looking for a job, they can use the computer here.” He gestured at a circle of easy chairs. ​“If someone needs a meeting or a support group, I tell them to come here. If someone needs food, here’s where the food bank is.”

His role as alder, he said, as he waved good-bye to Walker, ​“is to go to the people to see what their needs are and then address them as best I can.”

A supporter named Cathy was waiting in her car to take him to his next stop.

“I went to high school here,” Streater said, as the car passed Hillhouse. ​“No student government. I did photography, so every time it was extra time I used to go to the photography room.”

“Second house,” he told Cathy, as she pulled onto Ford Street.

“As a kid, I used to wait for the bus in front of this house because my parents had to go to work early, this was back in the 1970s, and I was being bussed out to Hamden, to Alice Peck School,” he said, as he knocked on the door.

Laverne Cannon appeared.

He told her the city wanted him to compile a list of which sidewalks need to be replaced. ​“I’m letting you know you’re on the list,” he said. ​“And also I’m taking signatures for a street sign for Mrs. Pollock.”

Cannon obliged, then asked what was happening at the intersection of Dixwell and Orchard and Munson Streets.

Streater told her it was Beulah Land Development. ​“They’re doing 69 apartments, 55 of them will be affordable housing,” he said.

“Mrs. Cannon would look out for me, and I love to give back, so I make sure I bring in her cans for her,” he said, as he made his way down Ford Street. ​“You can’t forget who was there for you, and she was there.”

A woman waved at him from her tidy front porch adorned with bright-colored pansies. It was Madgalene Campbell. Her three grandchildren were playing nearby.

“Mrs. Campbell’s been here for 49 years,” Streater said. ​“I’m friends with her children. We all grew up together. She told me about the cracks in her sidewalk, so she’s going to be on the list.”

He asked her if she was in need of smoke detectors and if she remembered Geneva Pollock.

“I think I do,” she said, before signing the petition.

“Wait a minute,” she said, as a car turned onto Ford Street. ​“Watch this. They go around the speed bump and take off real fast.” The car went over the speed bump. ​“Well, usually,” she said.

Streater told her he would speak with City Engineer Giovanni Zinn about it. ​“Maybe they can extend it a little more because there’s a school right there,” he said, referring to Achievement First Amistad High School.

“I don’t like to complain,” Campbell said.

“That’s not a complaint,” Streater told her. ​“That’s an issue that can be resolved.”

Then there was the last stop, on Thompson Street, where Streater grew up. He knocked on the door of Muntega Belton, daughter of Geneva Pollock.

“Troy stopped by one day during the campaign, that’s how we first met,” she said. ​“Our former alder Steve Winter and I discussed a way to honor my mother’s legacy, and we had started collecting names, and then he got another position.”

“When Troy was voted in, he came back after he was elected to check in, and that was when I told him what Steve and I had begun, and he said, ​‘I can help you. I loved Mrs. Pollock.’ And he did.”

“I did,” Streater repeated, as a horn sounded. ​“She didn’t feel like a teacher. She was a mother figure to her kids. You knew she cared about you. She would keep soap, deodorant, that kind of thing, in her drawer, in case someone needed it.”

He looked down Thompson Street, down toward his old house in the gathering evening. ​“What I love most about this job is when they say ​‘thank you, Alder Streater. You did what you said you were going to do,’ ” he said.

“That’s what this is all about, letting people know they’re not forgotten, being there for them when they need you.”