Thursday, as guest; Friday, as host: Tom Ficklin at WNHH FM.
Tom Ficklin has spent six months sitting in public hearings about public services and nominations to city boards and commissions. He has voted on laws. He has heard daily from neighbors about trash that needs to be picked up, trees that need trimming, streets that need to be made safer.
At 73, he has found the experience has “resurrected me. Revived me. Rechallenged me.”
So he’s asking voters to elect him to do the job for another two years after he finishes out a first term.
The job in question: Serving as alder of Ward 28 in Beaver Hills.
Ficklin became the ward’s Democratic alder last summer after the incumbent, Shafiq Abdussabur, resigned.
He has filed papers to seek the position again in this year’s election.
Ficklin Thursday spoke about his experience on the lawmaking end of politics and government — rather than the observing and advocacy end, where he has spent much of his adult life — during an interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. (He was sitting in the guest chair for a change; he has sat in the host chair of WNHH FM’s “Tom Ficklin Show” since 2015.)
Ficklin said he is more convinced than ever of the importance of people participating in the political process. He urged people to register to vote, to cast their ballots, to take part in upcoming once-in-a-decade public hearings on charter revision, to listen carefully to debates among mayoral candidates in order to make informed choices. People often have reason to conclude that “government isn’t working for me,” Ficklin said. He invited people to help elected officials like him prove otherwise.
Click on the above video to watch the full conversation with Alder Tom Ficklin on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
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