Monday night’s Aldermanic Affairs Committee meeting.
After offering Covid 19-era virtual testimony, a legal aid attorney who helped spearhead several recent child lead poisoning lawsuits against the city received a unanimous aldermanic vote of support to join a committee charged with developing new policies around how the city should best combat child lead poisoning.
That was one of the outcomes of the dozen favorable votes taken by the Aldermanic Affairs Committee Monday night during its regularly scheduled monthly meeting — held not in its usual gathering place on the second floor of City Hall, but instead via the Zoom video-conferencing app.
The meeting was the second time that the the Board of Alders has taken to the Internet to conduct legislative business since the mayor declared a state of emergency around the covid-19 pandemic early last week and closed City Hall to the public indefinitely.
Instead of gathering in person and broadcasting their proceedings for the public to view online, as was the case during last week’s full board meeting, the committee alders called and tele-conferenced in from their own respective homes Monday and took public testimony in real time from appointees, who also called in from home to explain why they hoped to serve on the committee.
The committee alders unanimously recommended that the full Board of Alders approve New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) Staff Attorney Amy Marx to serve on the city’s soon-to-be-empaneled Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee.
Alders also threw their unanimous support behind seven other Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee nominations recently made by Mayor Justin Elicker, including state Department of Public Health Epidemiologist Kimberly Ploszaj, Fair Haven Community Health Care pediatric nurse practitioner Amanda DeCew, local attorney and landlord’s representative Ben Trachten, Yale pediatrician and lead toxicity clinic co-director Erin Nozetz, Yale pediatrician Marjorie Rosenthal, and Cornell Scott Hill Health Center Director of Pediatrics Meredith Williams.
The alders recommended that the full board “leave to withdraw” two other appointees, Chyrise Holmes and Evelise Ribiero, because Holmes did not call in to the meeting and because Ribiero, who did call in, already serves on the Police Commission and cannot serve on two public commissions at the same time.
“I think it’s great,” Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez said about the various Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee members who received recommended approvals Monday. “There’s a lot of professionals in the field, a lot of individuals that are directly working with children and families. It’s going to be very interesting to see how they work together and what they produce.”
Santana: “Moving Forward”
Committee Chair Rosa Ferraro Santana.
“In an era of adversity, we have to take up new challenges in order to move forward,” said Fair Haven Heights Alder and Aldermanic Affairs Committee Chair Rosa Ferraro Santana (pictured) about hosting the remotely attended public meeting.
“This is our way of showing the city and our constituents that we’re going to be moving forward.”
Besides a few prolonged pauses, alders accidentally speaking over one another, and the occasional inadvertent muting of someone intending to speak, the meeting largely went off without a technical hitch.
Marx: “Increase Openness And Transparency”
Marx’s recommended approval to the Lead Poisoning Adivisory Committee represented the latest marker of the monumental shift between between how Elicker and former Mayor Toni Harp approached child lead poisoning as a public health, legal, and political issue.
Marx and legal aid Director of Litigation Shelley White (pictured) filed numerous lawsuits against former Mayor Toni Harp’s administration and the city’s Health Department regarding their inadequate enforcement of local child lead poisoning prevention laws. Even as state judge after state judge sided with legal aid, the previous mayoral administration persistently fought the lawsuits in court.
Elicker, meanwhile, campaigned in part on a similar criticism of the Harp Administration’s handling of lead paint hazard inspections and abatement enforcement.
Upon taking office in January, Elicker hired a new health director and ordered city attorneys to try to settle a class action child lead poisoning lawsuit that legal aid, led by Marx and White, filed against the city last May.
Legal aid had lobbied the Harp administration for years to formally empanel the Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee, which is charged with vetting and developing policies and best practices around child lead poisoning prevention in the city.
Now, not only is the committee on the cusp of being created, but Marx is slated to be a formal member of the group.
Marx told the commitee that she is a staff attorney in legal aid’s housing unit, and that she has spent much of her time over the past few years representing low-income tenants who have struggled with lead-poisoned children.
“What I seek to bring is a heartfelt desire to see the city do its best to help some of our most vulnerable children not be lead poisoned,” she said, which is a condition that can cause lifelong neurological and behavioral disabilities.
Ferraro Santana asked her what other specific goals she has for her term on the committee, if she is approved by the full Board of Alders.
“My primary desire for participating in the committee is to increase openness and transparency in the process,” she said. “To allow a full and clear understanding of what the situation is in New Haven, what our options are, and the costs and benefits” of different approaches designed to reduce child lead poisoning.
Trachten: “The System Is Completely Broken”
Marx wasn’t the only attorney who received a recommended approval to serve on the Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee Monday night.
The alders also unanimously cast their support for Ben Trachten (pictured), a local attorney who has represented both tenants and landlords and was appointed by the mayor to serve as a landlord representative on the committee.
“I’d like to work with the other panel members to recommend and bring forward good policies and have fair and balanced policies that will work for all community participants, including the landlords,” he said.
He said he’s been an attorney in New Haven for 15 years. And from what he’s seen, nearly every aspect of the city’s child lead poisoning prevention efforts is riddled with problems.
“From my personal experience, the system is completely broken and in need of an overhaul,” he said.
What exactly is broken about this system? asked Downtown/Yale Alder Eli Sabin (pictured).
“Landlords don’t know where to begin,” Trachten said. “The timelines for addressing the problems aren’t adhered to. We need a comprehensive overhaul of the procedures, because the landlords want to do the work. Generally.”
Healthcare Experts Advance
In addition to the two attorneys, a variety of healthcare providers and public health experts also received enthusiastic votes of support from the aldermanic committee members in their bids to serve on the Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee.
Amanda DeCew (pictured), a primary care provider in the pediatrics division of Fair Haven Community Health Care, said she would bring “the primary care perspective” to the committee with her direct knowledge about what New Haven families are saying, feeling, and experiencing around child lead poisoning in this city today.
“My goal at the end of the day is to bring those lead levels down as low as possible as soon as possible,” she said.
State Epidemiologist Kimberly Ploszaj said she has worked in lead poisoning prevention at the local and state levels for about 15 years. She said she can bring perspectives on what has worked and hasn’t worked in other Connecticut cities, including Waterbury and Bridgeport.
Erin Nozetz (pictured), a general pediatrician at Yale’s primary care center and a co-director of the lead toxicity clinic at Yale’s children’s hospital, said she too could bring medical expertise and frontline experience of dealing with directly affected patients.
She said she is interested in developing a “streamlined approach for children who are lead poisoned” as well as in boosting city educational efforts designed to prevent lead poisoning in the first place.
Marjorie Rosenthal said she has been a general pediatrician for 25 years, including 16 in New Haven, and that she has spent almost her entire career working with families in poverty or near poverty.
“The job of the pediatrician is to always be thinking about prevention,” she said. She said child lead poisoning prevention would be a key focus of hers if approved to the committee.
And Meredith Williams told the committee that she has spent the past 25 years working as a pediatrician in New Haven, including in her current role as the Director of Pediatrics at Cornell Scott Hill Health Center.
She said she too would be able to bring an on-the-ground perspective about fighting child lead poisoning in this city based on the significant amount of time she has spent with “families in New Haven and my commitment to the care of patients and families in relation to this very significant problem.”
Previous lead coverage:
• Social Services Chief’s Appointment Advances
• City’s Outside Legal Tab Nears $200K For Lead Paint Fight
• City “Explores” Lead Lawsuit Settlement
• Lead Class Action To Drag Into New Year
• New Lead Law Passes, With Teeth
• Legal Aid Lobbies Alders On Lead Paint, Alleges Civil Rights Harm
• Weakened Lead Law Advances
• City Still Fighting As Lead Case Drags On
• City Lands $5.6M In Federal Lead Grants
• 5 New Lead Inspector Positions Approved
• Outrage Stalls Weakened Lead Law
• Lead Paint Legal Tab Tops $118K
• City Plan Passes On Lead Law
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Judge Denies City’s Motion To Dismiss Lead Suit
• City, Legal Aid Clash In Court On Lead
• New Lead Proposal “Eviscerates” Mandate
• Lead Cleanup Pricetag: $91M?
• Lead Panel’s Advice Rejected
• Lead Paint Chief Retires
• Lead Paint Fight Rejoined
• Harp Switches Gears On Lead
• Motion Accuses City Of Contempt
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Briefs Debate “Lead Poisoning”
• New Haven: Another Flint?
• Harp Administration Admits Relaxing Lead Standard To Save $$
• Class-Action Suit Slams City On Lead
• City, Legal Aid Clash On Lead Paint
• Legal Aid To City: Get Moving On Lead Paint Law
• 100+ Tenants Caught In Lead Limbo
• 2 Agencies, 2 Tacks On Lead Paint
• Chapel Apartments Get 3rd Lead Order
• Lead Sends Family Packing
• Health Officials Grilled On Lead Plans
• Judge Threatens To Find City In Contempt
• Same Mandy House Cited Twice For Lead Paint
• Lead $ Search Advances
• 3 Landlords Hit With New Lead Orders
• Another Judge Rips City On Lead
• Judge To City: Get Moving On Lead
• Health Department Seeks Another $4.1M For Lead Abatement
• City-OK’d Lead Fixes Fail Independent Inspection
• Judge: City Dragged Feet On Lead
• 2nd Kid Poisoned After City Ordered Repairs
• Judge: City Must Pay
• City Sued Over Handling Of Lead Poisonings
• City’s Lead Inspection Goes On Trial
• Eviction Withdrawn On Technicality
• 2nd Child Poisoned; Where’s The City?
• Carpenter With Poisoned Kid Tries A Fix
• High Lead Levels Stall Eviction
• 460 Kids Poisoned By Lead In 2 Years
• Bid-Rigging Claimed In Lead Cleanup
• Judge Orders Total Lead Paint Clean-Up
• Legal Aid Takes City To Task On Lead
The system of punishing the landlord for a massive issue of lead in older housing and parent failure to monitor children who are eating paint chips will not be helped by appointing a legal aid atty who is extremely biased toward getting tenants out of paying rent and squatting in apts for as long as possible. The addition of a landlord atty like Ben Trachten provides some balance but not enough to deal with this problem in an equitable manner.