Thomas Breen photo
Rev. Kimber and Mayor Harp join hands in campaign prayer.
The Rev. Boise Kimber led two dozen black and Hispanic pastors Tuesday in endorsing Mayor Toni Harp’s reelection — and committed to knocking on doors, handing out flyers, raising money, and running social media promotions on her behalf.
Kimber, the pastor of Newhallville’s First Calvary Baptist Church and the president of the Greater New Haven Clergy Association, led that endorsement ceremony and prayer vigil on behalf of the incumbent mayor during a half-hour press conference at Goffe Street Park.
Pastors and Harp pray together at the end of Tuesday’s press conference.
The longtime politically active preacher has not always been allies with Harp, but came out strongly on behalf of the mayor as she seeks to fight back a Democratic Party primary challenge from a number of challengers, including former East Rock/Cedar Hill Alder and 2013 mayoral candidate Justin Elicker. (See below for more details on the Kimber and Harp’s evolving political relationship over the past three decades.)
Kimber.
“We’ve all collaborated and come together because we feel as though Mayor Harp deserves another chance,” Kimber said.
“We’re going to put all of our efforts into reelecting Toni Harp. We believe that she has done an excellent job under the circumstances of budget cutting, and has spread herself real thin throughout this state and throughout this city, fighting for this city.”
Kimber clarified that Tuesday endorsement of the mayor was coming from the pastors as individuals, and not as representatives of their respective churches. As legal nonprofits, churches are prohibited by federal tax law from explicitly endorsing specific political campaigns.
“We’re out here in the public park as individuals here,” Kimber said. “We appreciate our 501(c)3 nonprofits.”
Lenny Hernandez and Jose Champagne.
Several of the other pastors in attendance Tuesday praised the current mayor for overseeing a steady decline in violent crime during her six years in office, despite the recent bump in shootings in the city.
Jose Champagne, the pastor of the Hispanic Church of God of Prophecy, thanked Harp for keeping New Haven a sanctuary city and a safe place for immigrants. “This is not just about the Latino community,” he said. “This is not just about the African American community. This is not just about the Anglo community. This is about the city of New Haven.”
Donald Morris.
Christian Community Commission Pastor Donald Morris described Harp as a model woman of faith in her political career and in her personal life.
“She has been a strong and supportive wife along with her husband who passed away not to long ago,” he said. “She’s the mother of three children who she nurtured who are gifted with various professional careers. She has worked many years for Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, and helped many different people in many different capacities.”
“It’s in her DNA that she’s a fighter,” he continued. “She’s not one to give up.”
Kimber, Mary Walton, and Harp.
Harp thanked the clergy for the endorsement and for the support. She gestured across the street towards Hillhouse High School as a model for both education and job training for many in the Dixwell, Beaver Hills, and Newhallville communities that the pastors serve.
Hillhouse will soon have an automechanics department, she said, “so that young people can work on these computerized cars and graduate from high school and get good paying jobs.”
The public safety academy at Hillhouse trains young people who want to become police officers, firefighters, and security guards, she said. And the school’s collaboration with the laborer’s union provides a pre-apprenticeshp training program for students who want to get a trade job rather than go to college after graduating from high school.
“We’re working to ensure that people who need good paying jobs get good paying jobs throughout New Haven,” she said.
Kimber was last seen on a campaign trail supporting Republican Bob Stefanowski for governor, and before that Greenwich Democrat Guy Smith for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
No Permanent Friends …
Kimber’s emergence as a prominent close political ally of Harp comes as a relatively new twist in their careers.
For most of her political career, Harp was on different sides from Kimber on contested political campaigns like mayoral races. When Harp first ran for her State Senate seat in 1992, Kimber’s church served as the black community campaign headquarters for a white candidate who ran against her, Steve Mednick.
But Kimber’s influence with Harp and her administration soared this past term after a peacemaking effort. Kimber had been publicly attacking a superintendent of schools, Garth Harries, whom Harp was trying to keep in office. Kimber would blast Harries during public sessions of the Board of Education and refuse to yield the microphone when his allotted time ran out.
Then Kimber met with the mayor and emerged with support for a highly unusual city payday lending contract for one of his business associates. (Read about that here and about the collapse of that deal here.) The Board of Ed gave work to other contractors supported by Kimber as well. Harp (and Harries) supported a bid by Kimber to create an all-male city charter school. (In a subpoena, The FBI is seeking information about payments the Harp administration made to a consultant in the planning for that school, which is on hold). Harp credited Kimber for helping to inspire creation of a Saturday academy to boost students’ reading and math. Kimber, in turn, became a vocal supporter of Harries. Then Harp and her allies on the board hired a new superintendent promoted by Kimber, Carol Birks; Kimber has continued to back the embattled Birks, casting her critics as racists.
Kimber was a longtime vocal supporter of former Mayor John DeStefano’s campaigns, including against John Daniels, New Haven’s first black mayor. Kimber’s church served as the DeStefano campaign’s black community headquarters in the race. Kimber recently penned New Haven Register op-ed articles attacking Justin Elicker, contrasting his campaign with the “excitement” of the 1989 Daniels campaign; and calling on “New Haven’s black and brown community” to “defend our gains and our leadership” against attacks by Elicker supporters. The title of the latter article was “Community must stand with black leaders.”
Paul Bass contributed to this report.
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full press conference.
How pathetic. This is living proof that politics makes for strange bedfellows. Kimber will support anyone as long as he gets paid.