Paul Bass Photo
Ward 26 candidates Joshua Van Hoesen and Amy Marx outside the polls Tuesday.
Legal aid lawyer and Democratic ward co-chair Amy Marx will be the next alder for Upper Westville’s Ward 26, after winning a special election to fill the seat left empty by Darryl Brackeen.
That was the outcome of Tuesday’s special election at Davis Street School.
According to election moderator Kevin Arnold, Marx, a Democrat, prevailed with 274 total votes over Republican candidate Joshua Van Hoesen, who brought in a total of 64 votes.
Since Ward 26 has 2,405 registered voters, that means that Tuesday’s election saw a roughly 14 percent turnout.
Marx will now fill out the remaining seven months of the two-year term of Brackeen, a five-term incumbent who stepped down in April.
Click here and here for previous articles about the race, here for more on Marx, and see below for a previous version of this story.
At Polls, Root Issues Dominate Special Election
Ward 26's pre-redistricting, special-election bounds.
Trees replaced the culture wars at the polls during a special election Tuesday morning.
The special election pits two candidates seeking to replace Darryl Brackeen, who resigned mid-term, as alder in Upper Westville/Beverly Hills’ Ward 26: Democrat Amy Marx and Republican Joshua Van Hoesen.
The pair serve together as community management team co-chairs. They’ve conducted a friendly issues-focused campaign, which was reflected in the congenial mood in the parking lot outside the polls at Davis Street Magnet School as occasional voters trickled in Tuesday. As of 9:30 a.m. about 50 people had voted.
Van Hoesen, a Never Trumper who designs software for nonprofits for a living, decorated his booth with a “Boring, but prudent policy” banner and another advocating tax incentives to build accessory-dwelling units (aka “in-law apartments”) and “Bringing New Haven ordinances to the 21st century.” (Read more about his campaign here.)
Marx, a legal aid attorney who has served as Democratic ward co-chair for the past decade, has emphasized her community ties and neighborhood work along with her commitment to Democratic Party values. (Click here to read more about her.)
Voters emphasized quality-of-life issues and concerns about taxes and crime.
Kathy Flanagan, a retired government worker, told the candidates about the (above pictured) city tree hovering over the home she grew up in and inherited from her parents across the street from Davis School.
Flanagan (pictured) told them she worries the tree, an Italian maple, might topple. She said she told the previous alder about that, too.
“He came here. He said he was going to look into it. That was the last I heard from him. I don’t think he even talked to the parks department,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to get rid of it for a long time. It is on city property. I don’t want anything to happen to the people across the street and especially myself.”
Van Hoesen responded that he’d like to see the city broaden a program that allows homeowners to “go halfsies” on the cost of fixing sidewalks expanded to include removal of dangerous trees. Marx’s response: “I’d like to open communication. I’d like to be clear with you. I’d like to be responsive.”
“I know you will,” said Flanagan, a Democratic ward committee member. (Watch their conversation in the above video.)
Marx’s ward co-chair, Sharon Jones, had time amid greeting voters for Marx’s campaign to walk her grandchildren Nora and Farrah into class at Davis. She tells them about how “Glamie” (“I am too young and cute to be ‘Granny,’ so I am ‘Glam-ma’ or “Glamie’”) works on campaigns to help make a better world.
Ward 26 polls remain open until 8 p.m.
Van Hoesen with reading he brought to the polls.
Click on the above video to watch a conversation outside the polls with Sharon Jones and with the candidates on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk.”
I'm sure many people, including my wife, share Ms. Flanagan's anxiety about trees falling on their homes. But this tree appears to be healthy and is providing a wide range of environmental services for her and her neighbors. And, as Ms. Flanagan notes, it is on city property. If the tree is, contrary to appearances, diseased or damaged she has every right to ask the city to prune or eliminate it. But the city needs more, not fewer street trees.