Paul Bass Photo
Mayoral candidate Justin Elicker Tuesday at Prescott Bush.
Mary Demand-McDaniel watched Justin Elicker juggle a lemon, apple and orange for a room full of her fellow seniors.
“Can you do that,” she asked him, “with the school budget?”
Elicker’s juggling act served as the finale to an hour-long campaign stop he made Tuesday afternoon at the Prescott Bush Apartments senior public-housing complex in Dixwell in his quest for the Democratic mayoral nomination.
In between pressing the flesh and at one point stepping between and defusing an argument between two feuding Bush residents who seemed about to come to blows, Elicker fielded questions from the room full of 16 seniors on issues ranging from fixing potholes (he’s for fixing more of them) to taxes (“We’ve got to be more efficient and ethical about how we spend money.”)
The appearance, his second at a senior center in a week, came a day after a rally outside Board of Education headquarters to protest a plan to eliminate 53 teaching positions and transfer the teachers to new positions elsewhere in the district.
Ann Knight asked Elicker for his take on that decision. “How are they going to give a better education with 53 less teachers?” she asked.
Elicker responded that because the Board of Education needs to close a $30 million deficit, it might need to eliminate some teaching positions. But he argued that cuts should be spread more evenly across the education workforce to include comparable numbers of administrators rather than focus on teaching slots. He did not identify administrator positions that can be cut.
He also noted a decision last year (later reversed) to eliminate paraprofessional positions.
“Whenever we cut, we cut at the front lines,” he said. “It’s not fair.”
The candidate separates two seniors as one starts swearing and charging toward another; he calmed the man down with a handshake and a pivot in the conversation.
Elicker also criticized the way teachers received the news about their positions being eliminated, from principals and then at a a meeting at board HQ. “That’s not the right way to do things,” he argued. “Process is important. People need to trust our system.”
Often on the campaign trail, Elicker said, people tell him they want to see more activities for young people. The schools are part of that solution, too, he argued: “We’ve got these world-class schools. They’re empty half the time.” He’d like to see them open after the academic day and throughout the summer with activities for kids, he said. He acknowledged that that costs money that the Board of Ed might lack; he called on the board ot develop a better working relationship with nonprofits to invite them in to conduct programs.
He spoke of his own experience as head of the New Haven Land Trust, when it took over the Schooner camp for kids. He dealt in that capacity with school board staffers in a quest to use school space. Some of the staffers were nice to work with, he said; “sometimes it was a struggle” to work with others.
Elicker shows Binkey Reynolds and her grandson Carter a campaign photo of his own family: “That’s my 4-year-old daughter. She always looks a little grumpy.”
As with other issues raised Tuesday, Elicker said he couldn’t promise to fix all the problems with the schools. He promised to do his best to try. And he said the mayor has a lot of leverage, because the mayor appoints four of the Board of Education’s seven members, and serves as a fifth. (Two are elected.) He called for appointing board members with expertise in finances, labor relations, early-child education, and vo-tech.
Another senior asked Elicker about efforts to open up more magnet school slots for New Haven students.
“The problem is a financial issue. The state gave us a lot of money to build magnet schools,” 80 to 90 percent of the construction cost, Elicker noted. That money came with strings: a quota of suburban kids to include in the student population.
Citing this Independent article, Elicker noted that some school board members want to see more slots opened for city kids. He said he agrees.
“I think New Haven residents should get preference,” he said. “Our kids way more than suburban kids are struggling. Why are our kids put on a waiting list and suburban kids are not? We need to lobby the state to give us more flexibility” to give preference to New Haven kids
“The key to that is making sure that we don’t accidentally create more of a financial problem, because the state is requiring us to make the slots available. We need to ask the state permission to change the quotas. It’s something I want to work on,” he added.
“That’s the best answer I can give now. I plan to work on the issue.”
He also shared seniors’ complaints about the magnet school lottery, in which his family just participated. He said the answer lies in making all of New Haven’s neighborhood schools excellent.
After giving everyone a chance to ask a question, or two questions, ior in some cases four questions, Elicker opened a brown paper bag. He pulled out an orange, a lemon, and an apple. Then he started juggling.
The fruit circled through the air. He lifted his leg, kept the flow going.
Deman-McDaniel (pictured), the retired Yale phlebotomist and EKG tech who had asked whether he could also juggle the school budget, pronounced herself impressed.
“I’d like to work on his campaign,” she said as the formal presentation broke up and Elicker worked the room. “I believe he would be more honest” and “do better” with “our poor education system.”
2013 mayoral campaign sticker still on traffic pole two blocks from Prescott Bush at Dixwell & Henry.
Justin, Ditch the instruments and juggling! City Hall is already full of clowns. Show people your smarts and ideas.