Marcus Paca, who served as Mayor Toni Harp’s labor relations chief, is now running against her.
Paca set up this campaign website and announced his intention to seek this year’s Democratic nomination in this New Haven Register op-ed article.
Harp has begun holding fundraisers for a reelection campaign and said she is running but has not yet formally announced her candidacy.
Paca last ran for office in 2011, when he lost the 24th Ward alder seat that he had held for a term as a member of a slate allied with then-Mayor John DeStefano.
Mayor Harp hired Paca, the grandson of a personal friend, as labor relations chief in 2014. She fired him last year; she said she did so because he signed costly memoranda of understanding with the fire union and improperly released confidential internal emails. He denied doing anything wrong and has sued the city over the firing.
Paca has signaled his intention to run in recent months and publicly criticized the mayor at, for instance, a support rally for Assistant Police Chief Luiz Casanova after he was suspended from his job for a day.
On his campaign website, Paca criticizes Harp’s administration for running a deficit at the Board of Education and for New Haven having had at one point in 2016 no permanent fire chief, schools superintendent, or police chief. He promises to lower permit and vendor fees while “streamlining” government. He did not respond to phone and email requests for comment for this story.
A former candidate for alder in the Hill, Ira Johnson, has also announced a mayoral bid. He is the only candidate to have filed paperwork so far with the city clerk’s office.
Marcus would be an amazing Mayor and understands how things really work at 165. Things are not good fiscally in New Haven and are about to get much worse.
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/sanctuary_city/
That will result in a loss of 54M
http://ctmirror.org/2017/02/03/malloy-would-bill-towns-for-teachers-pensions-hints-at-cut-to-middle-class-income-tax-credit/
http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/malloy_proposes_shifting_one_third_of_teacher_retirement_costs_to_towns/
This will result in New Haven having to pay in excess of 10M easily
Lastly, it appears the Mayor doesn't want 33M from Yale
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/harp_hospital/
That's close to 100M, plus don't forget Nichole Jefferson.
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/feds_clear_jefferson/
That will be worth 5M easily.
It doesn't appear New Haven will have a good summer without all this money and the choice, yes, the purposeful choice to negate 54M by being a "sanctuary city" will leave New Haven decimated and without programs like Youth at Work.
Before anyone argues the validity of being defunded, consider this:
If you rent an apartment and in the lease you sign, it says no pets and you don't notice. Then let's pretend the landlord notices your pet and asks you to remove it. You apologize, proclaim you didn't know the terms of the lease you signed concerning pets and you remove your pet from the premises immediately. The landlord most assuredly does not evict you. You react to an honest mistake and correct it. No harm, no foul.
It is vastly different if you loudly proclaim to the world in person and online that in no uncertain terms you are specifically bringing your pet, you read - and don't care about the lease, you defy to be stopped, the landlord is powerless against you and if anyone gets bit too bad.
When the landlord then evicts you in that example, see if any judge takes your side.