Laura Glesby Photo
Harp (right) signs Abdussabur's mayoral primary petition.
Former Mayor Toni Harp was the first to sign mayoral hopeful Shafiq Abdussabur’s petition to get on the Democratic primary ballot, the day after the city’s Democratic Party officially endorsed the now-incumbent who ended her tenure in the city’s top elected office nearly four years ago.
She was soon followed by a former police officer and a police accountability activist, a nursing home aide and a senior housing resident, a friend of Abdussabur’s from mosque and a devoted churchgoer, a cop with whom Abdussabur had shared a walking beat and a man he’d once booked into jail.
Abdussabur — a retired police sergeant, former Beaver Hills alder, and construction and maintenance business owner — has from Wednesday until Aug. 9 to gather 1,623 signatures from registered New Haven Democrats in order to make it onto the ballot for Sept. 12’s Democratic primary election.
Incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker received the party’s official endorsement on Tuesday night, meaning that he’s guaranteed a place at the top of the September ballot. Abdussabur and the challenger candidates aiming to make it onto that same Democratic primary ballot — former legal aid lawyer Liam Brennan and ex-McKinsey consultant and Republican Party nominee Tom Goldenberg — are now rushing to knock on doors and stop passersby for enough signatures ahead of the deadline.
Shafiq Abdussabur touts campaign guided by "unity."
Abdussabur embraced the challenge, calling himself a “people person.” He likened signature-gathering to playing a video game without the “cheat code” to skip to the next level. “Democracy is step by step and talking to people,” he said.
Outside of Abdussabur’s campaign headquarters at 347 Whalley Ave. on Wednesday, Harp — who served three terms as mayor before losing to Elicker in 2019 — endorsed Abdussabur. She cited his track record as a police officer and business owner, as well as a longstanding connection to his family, as reasons for her support. (Harp had previously donated to both Abdussabur and Goldenberg’s campaigns.)
“When he was [police] district manager for Dixwell, Dixwell became one of the safest New Haven neighborhoods,” Harp said. She added that he “took a fledgling company up to a multi-million dollar company” as the owner of Eco-Urban Pioneers, a local construction and cleaning business that employs over 200 people, praising his record of leading with a “sense of excellence.”
Harp was joined by friends, family, and leaders who had gathered from across the city to support Abdussabur’s petition drive — including police accountability and anti-solitary confinement activist Barbara Fair, Hill neighborhood steward and City Plan Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe, and West Hills advocate and Civilian Review Board representative Iva Johnson.
Neighborhood advocates Iva Johnson and Leslie Radcliffe.
Raven Taylor with her seven-month-old Allure Williams, whom Abdussabur crowned his "biggest supporter" (though she's too young to sign his petition.)
Hill South resident Mohamed Turay said he supports Abdussabur because of the candidate’s ability to “unify New Haven.”
Radcliffe praised his “boots on the ground” experience as a lifelong New Havener who’s worked as a police officer and employer.
Local photographer Chris Randall recalled being arrested for embezzlement over a decade ago: “Shafiq was there booking me. He said, ‘It’s not as bad as you think. You’ve taken the best photos of my life.’ ”
After that encounter, Abdussabur hired Randall for photography gigs with New Haven’s police union. The pair’s friendship, and Abdusssabur’s ability to “bring so many different types of people together,” are what prompted Randall to support and visually document Abdussabur’s campaign.
Pizza Patrons Propel Petition
Abdussabur pitches Triple AAA Pizza customers.
Soon, Abdussabur headed inside Triple AAA Pizza next door with a pen and clipboard, where he ran into old friends alongside new faces.
“You live in New Haven?” he asked a man paying for a pizza at the counter.
When the man responded that he did, Abdussabur asked if he was a registered Democrat.
“No, because I just got out of prison,” the man replied.
Abdussabur retrieved a campaign flyer and jotted down his phone number. “Come by and see me. I got you,” he said.
Vanessa Thigpen: "We need programs for the working poor."
Abdussabur was quickly approached by Vanessa Thigpen, a campaign supporter eating with her sister who first met Abdussabur when he was a Dixwell-based cop and she was a Charles Street resident.
“To see him running for mayor, it’s great,” Thigpen said. “The city falls short for people like me.”
Thigpen told Abdussabur that she makes $18 an hour as a nurse’s aide at Mary Wade, a Fair Haven-based nursing home where she’s worked for 8 years. Her paycheck is high enough to disqualify her from many social services but low enough to make comfortably surviving in New Haven a challenge.
Citing a “$37 million surplus” (referring to the city’s “rainy day fund”), Abdussabur responded, the city could create an “upward mobility grant” to support Mary Wade employees.
Thigpen agreed, citing a dire need for more support for “single mothers” and “the working poor”: “the girls I work with discuss it all the time,” she said.
Malicia, Ayanna, and Briana Hopes.
Soon, Abdussabur approached Malicia Hopes and her daughter and relative Ayanna and Briana, who had just finished lunch in a booth by the back of the restaurant.
“Are you a registered Democrat?” asked Abdussabur.
“I sure am,” Hopes said. “I’m familiar with who you are.”
When Abdussabur asked if she’d sign his petition, Hopes hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said. “I do have a question for you:” why did Abdussabur resign from his position as the alder of Ward 28 last year?
Abdussabur explained that he resigned due to a conflict of interest that arose when his company, Eco-Urban Pioneers, sought to renew a custodial contract with New Haven Public Schools. He said he’d been told when he first ran for alder that the City Hall position would not prevent his company from bidding on the contract (which it ultimately lost), but Abdussabur found out during the bidding process that he would have to either give up the contract or step down as alder.
He chose to step down. “I had 200 employees,” he told the Hopes family, including formerly incarcerated people who might have a hard time finding other employment and residents of rooming houses who faced getting kicked out of their homes were they to lose their jobs. He said he found out about the conflict when there wasn’t enough time to transfer ownership of the company.
In his year as an alder, Abdussabur said, he took pride in facilitating and advocating for traffic calming measures, street pavings, sidewalk repairs, trash cans in Goffe Street Park, and other quality-of-life concerns in Beaver Hills.
“OK, I’ll sign it for you,” Hopes said, reaching for the clipboard.
As much as I like and admire former Mayor Harp (I first saw her at work when she was state senator), her influence today is decidedly limited. As she understands, in politics four years ago is an eternity,
Mr. Abdussabur, an intelligent man, likely knows that the rainy day fund is not a piggy bank. Using it now will increase the city’s debt service costs, among other things.
Tom Goldenberg is a good guy. With Mr, Abdussabur’s announcement, he is also toast.