Ficklin Only Candidate For Beaver Hills Alder

Outstanding choice for ward 28, Good Luck Tom
Frank Alvarado

So will there be a pro forma election? With a possibly <1% voter turnout?

Tom will be a great alder! Hopefully he can provide some great questions as to why the city is in such poor shape. I just talked to two other neighbors who had no idea that Shafiq had been pushed out of office by a still currently unknown person or persons. They were also unaware of the filing deadline or the election. There should be some sort of notice given to the wards when this happens.

Once again in New Haven we have an uncontested aldermanic race.
What notice was provided to the residents of the ward by the Democratic party about the process for candidates to run for this office? It almost appears that party leaders wanted to keep it very quiet so party leaders or esrd committee leaders could pick their choice with absolutely no public input. None.
Perhaps if other residents of the ward who are not in the ward committee clique were made aware of the process, other people may have been interested in running to provide the residents with choices.
The PARTY has made their choice in an undemocratic process which excluded the voters.
Why waste time or money with an election. Just skip it and save our money for something else like keeping the public informed so we can save democracy in this city.
America goes around the world promoting and fighting to defend democracy, and we can't even save it in New Haven.
This has nothing to do with the person THEY selected to be the next alderman. This is not a personal attack against him, his commitment or qualifications. This grievance is about the process and the lack of serious effort of the PARTY and the ward committee to inform every ward resident about that process.
We should not have to read about it in the paper after the deed has been done.
Transparency, communication, access, information is what we want. Not decisions made by small groups behind doors closed to the general public.

Post Scriptum
Undemocratic Democratic party acts like this discourage people from voting, and running for office as well! One party chairman or one ward committee of a few people who are UNKNOWN by most ward residents should never be permitted to make these kinds of decisions, but the fact is this stuff has been happening in this city for decades!
We have ONE political party with no independent or real Republican party competition. We have an oligarchy not a democracy.
Monopoly is never good for democracy. In fact it is the antithesis of true democracy!
It is really pathetic that time after time the general public has tolerated ballots on election days WITH ONE CANDIDATE on the sheet!

@Thomas Alfred Paine, You speak the complete truth. The Democrat party has no use for democracy. It is undoubtedly about letting us keep things quiet until we can fill the seat the way we want; control. They did the same thing with Ward 21, Delphine's seat. She moved out of the district way before she made an announcement. (and she never changed her address for the election and voted in the wrong district) Replacing elected officials is strategically done to get in who "they" wanted. Although, that at least wound up with a primary for the general. Her seat should have been up for election way before that. If the residents don't look to get involved and make a change, New Haven will continue with poor schools, high crime, and high taxes. Nothing good is coming out of the one-party rule. Wake up, New Haven!

While I am sure that Mr. Ficklin will do a fine job as Alder, it is extremely frustrating that this seat was vacated in the first place in what seems to be an apparent targeting of the ward's original choice for alder. This alone is extremely undemocratic and now the rushed and secretive process of replacing Mr. Abdussabur only further compounds the frustration of my neighbors with the powers that be. Do we live in a democracy or not?

TAP, the state, not the city, is responsible for election law. It does provide for tight schedules to nominate and elect candidates. The alternative is to have residents unrepresented for extended periods of time.

@DGUTS
Abdussabur was the ward's ONLY choice. He ran unopposed.
No one targeted him to leave office. He chose to step down from his aldermanic seat rather than forfeit his company's contract with the public schools.
@Kevin McCarthy
My concern is not about state election law. There should be a mandated responsibility to notify ALL residents about filling and campaigning for vacated seats. No schedule should be so tight that adequate communication and notification of the process should not be made available to the ward residents by mail, email, and flyers or public announcements on social media, newspapers, radio or television.
When democracy is secretive, when there is a lack of transparency, when only a handfull of people are in the "know," it causes suspicions to arise!
No party should keep secrets from the public if they intend to do the public good!
We do not need politics and government in secret here.