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Mayoral challenger Karen-DuBois Walton at Sunday night’s online candidate forum.
Thomas Breen file photo
Police, protester confrontation on May 31, 2020.
It all started, Karen DuBois-Walton told a skeptical Democratic ward co-chair, outside police headquarters on “a very painful night” when city police pepper sprayed protesters — and Justin Elicker remained inside, out of sight, for hours.
DuBois-Walton discussed that memory Sunday night during a municipal candidate forum hosted by Westville’s Ward 25 Democratic Ward Committee.
She offered the response when asked why she decided to challenge one-term incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker this year for the Democratic Party nomination.
The virtual event saw Mayor Elicker and challengers DuBois-Walton and Mayce Torres answer a host of questions about their visions for the city.
The Ward 25 Democratic committee members will vote next month to endorse one of the mayoral candidates in the run-up to July’s town party convention.
DuBois-Walton: “What We Need In This Moment Is Not What We Have”
DuBois-Walton, who led the city’s public housing authority for 14 years, reached back to a May 31, 2020 anti-police brutality protest in response to a question Sunday night from Ward 25 Committee Co-Chair Barbara Segaloff.
Segaloff — who is also the treasurer for Mayor Elicker’s reelection campaign — asked DuBois-Walton why she is running for mayor now.
“You had an opportunity to challenge a mayor two years ago,” Segaloff said, referring to when then-Mayor Toni Harp unsuccessfully ran for a fourth two-year term. Elicker ultimately bested Harp in 2019 in both the Democratic primary and the general election.
Why are you choosing to run now, Segaloff asked, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and against a first-term incumbent?
“The urgency of this moment is what is driving me,” DuBois-Walton replied. “The need for experienced and trusted leadership.”
The “city has been shut down” during the pandemic, she noted, and she feels she is best equipped to lead the city to reopen “in ways that are going to make us stronger, smarter, and more equitable.”
She criticized the mayor for not creating enough of a consensus on the Board of Education to reopen public schools for in-person learning last fall. (Elicker advocated and voted for reopening schools for hybrid learning, but failed to change the minds of other members on the board who voted to keep the local schools all-remote and prevailed by one vote.)
DuBois-Walton also spoke about May 31, 2020. On that day, in the wake of the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd and galvanized by a host of local police reform demands, 1,000 anti-police brutality protesters marched through downtown, across the highway, and to police headquarters at 1 Union Ave. They demanded to speak with the mayor.
They were met there by a line of police in riot gear. Local officers later pepper sprayed protesters for trying to advance past a line of police who were blocking entrance to the closed building. Some protesters responded by throwing filled water bottles. The mayor, who had tried and failed to talk with protesters who rallied late into the night on his home’s front lawn two nights before, stayed inside police headquarters for hours while the tensions outside escalated. He ultimately came outside to talk with the protesters at around 9:30 that night.
DuBois-Walton said that marching in the streets during that day’s protest and then watching the real-time responses from the mayor and the police played an important role in her wanting to run for mayor this year.
That was “a very painful night in front of 1 Union Ave.,” DuBois-Walton said, “where residents were pepper sprayed and were forced to wait seven hours to talk to the mayor.”
She said that day made her conclude the following about the current mayoral administration: “What we need in this moment is not what we have.”
So has the Elicker administration’s “failure to move forward” in response to a statewide push for police accountability spearheaded by New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield, she said. DuBois-Walton has been critical of local police brass under Elicker for embracing a controversial law enforcement symbol (that the department appears to have subsequently refrained from publicly displaying on the job).
Elicker: Progress On Decades-Long Problems
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Elicker (pictured) Sunday night made his case, too, for why he’s running for another two years at the helm of City Hall.
He also rebutted much of DuBois-Walton’s criticism, particularly in regards to reopening public schools.
“I was one of the strongest advocates for opening up schools,” he said. He called DuBois-Walton’s criticism of a decision made nine months ago in a split vote at the height of an unprecedented pandemic as “Monday morning quarterbacking.” He also pointed to his administration’s efforts to make schools safe to return to through Covid-19 testing for staff and teachers, HVAC upgrades, and school inspections by Building Department and Health Department officials.
The mayor focused his reelection pitch on how his administration has managed to make significant progress around controversial issues that have remained intractable for decades — all while responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.
His administration’s advocacy along with the hard work of the state’s delegation will likely yield a $49 million annual bump in municipal aid from the state, he said.
After years of fighting, the city and the state have struck a new tentative accord around the management, development, and mid-term future of Union Station.
Elicker said his administration has been similarly successful in pushing for a privately-funded path forward for the expansion of Tweed New Haven Airport.
They’ve opened a one-stop reentry center for people returning from prison to New Haven to connect with counselors, mentors, and a host of social services.
And they’re working on setting up a community crisis response team that sends social workers rather than cops to certain 911 calls, on expanding a new construction jobs training program, and on zoning reforms geared towards increasing the city’s supply of affordable housing.
All while hosting dozens of Covid-19 vaccine popup clinics and helping usher the city through the pandemic.
“You can sit on the sidelines and criticize this and that, but ultimately, we’re confronting decades of issues, and making good progress after a year and a half. It’s not time to change course. It’s time to double down.”
He didn’t directly address DuBois-Walton’s criticisms about policing, but did highlight both the community response team plan and an expected increase in walking and bicycle beats this summer with federal pandemic relief dollars.
Torres: “I See People In Pain”
Torres (pictured), a Hill resident and former alder candidate, centered her mayoral campaign pitch Sunday night on having the most firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to live in a neighborhood rife with crime, poverty, and limited opportunity.
“I watch kids playing across from prostitutes, across from people selling drugs,” she said. “Five minutes away from me there’s opulence. We’re becoming the haves and the have nots.”
Torres took particular umbrage with Elicker’s response to a question about what the city is doing to keep residents safe from violent crime, especially during the recent uptick in shootings and homicides.
Elicker spoke of the city’s new reentry center, increasing police walking and bicycle beats, hiring more street outreach workers, reinstituting the police department’s shooting task force, and dedicating American Rescue Plan funds towards summer programs designed geared towards engaging youth.
“I would love to take a tour of all the wonderful things you say you do, because I don’t see it,” Torres said. “When you talk about them, they sound so good to me.”
She compared them to “rainbows” and “unicorns.” They sound great when talked about, she said. But she’ll believe them when she sees them.
What does she see in the New Haven she knows?
“I see people in pain. I see people that are poor. I see people that are hungry. And I see people that are not wanted downtown.”
Click on the video below to watch the full candidate forum.
NHI "Elicker advocated and voted for reopening schools for hybrid learning, but failed to change the minds of any other members on the board voted to keep the local schools all-remote and prevailed by one vote"
Each member of the BOARD voted and Elicker do not act alone as he is often accused of from KDW. I do not criticism towards the board members that are her supporters for voting ti not open the schools early..The main question should be what has she done while she was in leadership with the City of New Haven...not much..she is not new to leadership and the question of her qualifications should reflect the state of the housing authority and the way she left it..it is not a pretty sight to write home to momma ie Franklin Street, Union Ave, South Genesse Street, some of the unkept apartments within the city that is under the Housing Authority and to the workers who changed their status from full time to part time in the middle of a pandemic. Also criticizing the mayor and NHPD for black on black genocide can only go so far..most black folks can see right through that nonsense...Again, her campaign manager should be advising her to move on from opening the schools earlier just the fact she is placing blame on one person and not the board.
That darn caboose from the Harp Administration with 3 wheels and a kick stand is getting ready to start back up again ...CHHHOOOOOO Choo