State Rep. Roland Lemar’s son wants him to support Mayor Toni Harp’s reelection campaign. Lemar supported her in the past. But he has decided not to take sides this time.
Harp faces a challenge from Justin Elicker in a Sept. 10 Democratic mayoral primary. Lemar and Pat Dillon both stated during a joint appearance Wednesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program that they have decided not to back either primary candidate.
Dillon and Lemar backed Harp’s previous mayoral candidacies. They both served at the Capitol when Harp was a state senator. In past mayoral elections, especially her 2013 campaign against Elicker, Harp has drawn on the support of her former state legislative colleagues, including State Senate President Martin Looney. This time around, the entire delegation has remained publicly neutral thus far, with the exception of State Rep. Juan Candelaria. (Click here to read why State Sen. Gary Winfield has decided to stay neutral.)
Lemar revealed that his 9‑year-old son concluded Harp is the best candidate after he joined in interviewing all of this year’s mayoral candidates as a reporter for his school paper, the East Rock Record. Dad didn’t share his enthusiasm.
“I’m not publicly supporting either of the candidates, frankly. I am very disappointed with some of the policy decisions and personnel decisions that Mayor Harp has made,” Lemar said on “Dateline.”
“I think of the world of her. I had a great experience working alongside her in the legislature. She is smart, competent, capable, a brilliant policy expert who has not evidenced those strengths” as mayor.
He said that the city is “at this incredible moment” of growth and change, when people “want to be here. Our city has got to capitalize on that energy, that activity. I don’t think this current administration has done that.”
Asked why he isn’t supporting Elicker, Lemar responded: “For six years and two campaigns, he has yet to [present] a positive vision of this city and how we’re going to get there.”
“I’m not involved with either campaign,” echoed Dillon.
Why?
“I used to know Toni Harp very well. She hasn’t met with the delegation to come up with a common strategy for our problems in Hartford, although she does hire lobbyists to go to the leaders and the governor. … I don’t know her as well as I used to.”
Elicker? “I know him a lot better,” Dillon said. “But we really haven’t had a good talk face to face.”
Also on “Dateline,” Lemar and Dillon hesitated to embrace a current police proposal to have the police department use drones to track and investigate dirt-bike riders on city streets. They said they worry about privacy invasions — for instance, cops peering into people’s living rooms from public sidewalks or hackers breaking into the system to spy on people.
The two legislators split on the perennial proposal to use red-light cameras to identify and ticket speeders. Dillon said she worries about abuses there, too — incentives to collect money while incorrectly charging people who didn’t speed. And she expressed concerns about public privacy. She said she’d rather see the government calm traffic first by, for instance, avoiding widening roads (as was done with upper Whalley Avenue) and thereby creating fatal speedways; or creating pedestrian refuges. Lemar said he has supported other traffic-calming measures as well, but supports red-light cameras, noting that the technology already exists with the cameras posted at intersections all over town.
The two agreed on the need to institute electronic tolls on state highways to address transit upgrades, with money coming to a large extent (40 percent) from out-of-state drivers; the proposal failed this past session and is expected to resurface next year. Lemar said that if tolls don’t pass, the public will still end up paying the $800 million-$1.2 billion price tag for needed upgrades, including fixing bridges. Without tolls, that may mean relying on regressive revenue streams, like the gas tax or municipal aid cuts.
Click on the video at the top of the story to watch the full episode of “Dateline,” on which Dillon and Lemar also discussed whether Connecticut should follow New York State in passing a “look back” law allowing past victims of child sexual assault to file civil suits against their attackers beyond a previous statute of limitations.
Dillon alarmingly seemed to have no idea what she was talking about when it came to statutes of limitations and child sexual abuse. No big deal she only sits on the Judiciary Committee...