Cops Endorse Harp

Congratulations to Senator Harp. I'm glad to see that she has racked up yet another endorsement and is continuing on her mission to bring the city together. With that said, the race is far from over and I know that there are other credible and formidable candidates in the race. I hope she and all of the candidates keep up the good work. I'm excited to see that we've got good candidates to choose from.

"Toni has vowed to aid New Haven police officers in acquiring the necessary tools they need to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. She has also been outspoken in making modifications to the benefit packages officers receive in the efforts of maintaining their own families."

In other words, Harp promised us the moon and will further steepen New Haven's decline by handing out lavish OT and pension benefits.

My dog could get the endorsement of these unions if he could talk and tell them what they wanted to hear.

Shocking. No shoe for dinner tonight!

Harp = Safest endorsement in political history. When she loses you still have a buddy in Hartford throwing around your tax $!

"After several face-to-face meetings and feedback from the membership, Toni Harp was the only candidate that has expressed compassion towards the New Haven police officers," a union press release quoted Cavaliere as saying.

Oh, I forgot all the other candidates don't feel any compassion towards the police.

Yet another ringing endorsement of Harp for mayor of New Haven by people who don't live in New Haven.

You love her so much, let her be your mayor.

And doesn't Cavaliere have compassion for New Haven from his home in Nirth Haven?

Again I have spoken with alot of New Haven PD that own and live here and not one is supporting or voting for Harp. Remembering that she promised the impossible. Elicker spoke the truth. And once you start with the truth things can be fixed. But if you start with a lie they will continue to go down hill. This endorsement does not represent who our fine officers will be casting a ballot for. It just shows that the officers are keeping the peace with there union for now.

80-100% of Elicker and Carolina donations come from New Haven residents.

By comparison, Harp's figure is about 25%.

As she picks up more endorsements from Unions whose members almost entirely live out of town -- and who expect that Harp will keep escalating taxes on and cutting city services for low-income working families and renters in New Haven (just like DeStefano has done over the past 20 years) -- this figure will probably decrease.

Endorsements are a good way to change the subject, though, from the fact that Harp is living for free in one of the city's largest mansions because of her family's extreme slumlording and back taxes, while her family hosts lavish suburban fundraisers for her in Hamden.

Special congrats to Sen Harp for hiring an outside political hit man to divert attention from her family's tax evasion. NHI commenters can expect a slew of new commenters drowning us with irrelevant diversionary hogwash.

NEWSFLASH: Out of town Union BigWigs support Harp because she is promising to funnel our tax money to their special interests rather than to apply it to the needs of the city.

Is anyone keeping track of how many of these we have?

It seems like groups that work for the city or do business with the city are endorsing Harp while unaffiliated voters tend to favor Elicker or Fernandez. I'm assuming that's because behind closed doors she's telling these groups she will give them whatever they want in exchange for votes. If that's true that's pretty scary. If she's voted into office she will either need to back down on her promises or she will bankrupt the city trying to come through on them. Most of the members of these groups endorsing her live in the suburbs where taxes are lower and where their own taxes won't have to cover Toni Harp's spending – of course they are endorsing her. I'd like to hear what her plan is to keep taxes/rents from going through the roof. This is killing New Haven because it makes it unaffordable for a middle class and prevents young people from staying/moving to New Haven. It will be impossible for struggling families to enter the middle class. The only people that will be able to live here will be wealthy or poor.

Elicker will make the city a better place to live in so many ways which will attract new residents and businesses to the city which in turn will benefit all of us, including the groups that are endorsing Harp. This is the way to make the city better, not by promising sweetheart deals to well organized groups in exchange for votes. That is what a career politician does.

For years I've felt that her home on Conrad was such a out of place eye-sore, I can not vote for anyone associated with that house! No Harp for me!

Arrest Me Notes:

This business of trying to create the impression of a Harp campaign juggernaut is making me ill.

What a depressing prospect -- more of the same old, same old, as New Haven moves into the future.

Translation: This means the Union President gets to keep his office and his salary at the Police Station. He also never works as a cop but gets paid by taxpayers. Ridiculous. Voters are smarter than unions.

The big news of this story is how fast Harp managed to get signatures. She started later than all of the other candidates. But, after the rally to kick-off the petition drive, I knew the signatures would come fast. People were waiting in the rain to participate in the rally. While canvassing, I randomly canvassed a house of Harp volunteers. On my way, home from work I saw Harp canvassers collecting petitions. While walking my dog, I saw two groups of canvassers within a two blocks of each other!! This is in a time period of 4 days!

Other candidates may currently have more donors in New Haven, but Harp clearly has the most local volunteers. This is a testament to the progressive movement that has recently developed in New Haven and Harp's ability to bring people together. There are many people like me who cannot afford give a lot of money, but can give some time. Because of this, I will always be convinced that the power of average citizens is more firmly rooted in their grassroots activities than their ability to donate money.

The forces that have treated this town as a giant board game for making money and the policy makers who have used this strech of the shoreline as an area to consolidate the impovershed rather than as a HOME must be terrified of Elicker. When he gets this gig, it's going to be like the years a young Bernie Sanders was running Burlington, VT.

A person in power soley because of personality, competence, integrity, energy, and transparency? A person who does not want to use your money to fight if it has strings attached? Someone who is not in bed with anybody but the voters in town? God forbid. Society might colapse.

Eddie, the idea that time is as valuable as money is a great point. But getting 1,000+ donations is an actual measure of support. Also, on average, the donation size is very small for Carolina and Elicker, and very large for Harp, which kind of contradicts your point about Harp having support from the little guys.

Also, I question the idea you saw flocks of Harp supporters on every corner, because I've been petitioned by about a dozen Elicker and Fernandez volunteers, and zero Harp volunteers, over the past week, in five different neighborhoods. There are plenty of Harp signs posted in front of Harp Slum Housing, or illegally on city property, though. (Read the comment that a Harp tenant just posted on the Westville market thread)

@ EDDIE,

You're making an unsupported assumption that Harp canvassers are local volunteers. The ones that came to my door could not show proof of living in New Haven.

It's no surprise that Harp has a lot of people pounding the streets, because the DTC/Union machine that pushed her to run and is propping up her candidacy have the money and manpower to get those people out. Thanks to my union dues, those folks are out there pounding the payment.

The silver lining is that after two years of a terrible Harp administration, we'll hopefully be able to get someone involved and competent in the job.

@ Eddie,

Also, my experience has been opposite of yours. Myself and many people that I know, people busy with jobs and kids and life, have no time to spare but can spare $20 or $50 or $100 to toss in the campaign coffers.

Therefore, in my opinion, grassroots is at least just as much about small donations as it is about time, if not more so.

Eddie there are a number of reasons why Harp may have gotten petitions quickly.

She has tons of union support, and I'm sure plenty of those petitioners were non-resident union volunteers.

She is a state senator. Regardless of whether she wins or not the people who volunteer can put on their resume that they worked on the Harp campaign.

If she does win the primary there will be many a heads rolling after the DTC botched their endorsement.

None of which has to do with the people of New Haven thinking she is the right person for the job of mayor. The people I've met who support her haven't heard of anyone else and the people I've talked to who know anything about her don't have anything nice to say.

You wrote, "Also, I question the idea you saw flocks of Harp supporters on every corner,..." I was just providing my account, which is true. I was surprised by how many volunteers I saw. I mean what are the chances of randomly canvassing a house of volunteers that were at the same rally on the same time?

You may have seen more Elicker and Fernandez, volunteers. But neither Elicker or Fernandez hosted a rally that had such an outpouring of volunteers. Moreover, the speed in which Harp collected the signatures indicate that the number of individuals volunteering for her is very large. She started collecting signatures after the other candidates.

Many of Harp's volunteers may not actually donate money to the campaign, while still donating time. These individuals aren't going to affect the donation averages or totals but their contributions are meaningful and empowering. I disagree with the idea that one has to donate some monetary contribution to be considered a volunteer or to have a positive contribution to a campaign. I certainly haven't found this to be the case in the Harp campaign.

Curious: The people circulating petitions have to be local in order to turn the into our town clerk.

First, I wish to register my extreme distaste for the Noteworthy post that refers to "...sis_y press release..". I find that word offensive even when it comes from Noteworthy! Somehow I feel a double standard exists among the editors when reviewing the posts by "the usual suspects" and those by others offering non-partisan comments.

I also take issue with any post (particularly that of anonymous (above) that makes reference to any allegations of illegal conduct by the Harp family or campaign. Nowhere in any of the press or comments are there any statements or facts that indicate any illegal activity has taken place. And I believe the NHI policies state that no unsubstantiated accusations of illegal activity will be allowed. Simply because posters state and restate ad nauseum unsubstantiated allegations against a candidate, that does not make such base accusations true. Though "the usual suspects" commenters may dislike or disagree with a candidate, they should not be excused from providing support for whatever allegations they are so cavalierly tossing about.

being paid to collect signatures is not volunteering just had to add that.

RAZZIE,

The Harp business is at the top of CT's summer 2013 list of delinquent business taxpayers.

http://www.ct.gov/drs/cwp/view.asp?a=1453&q=328620

This is required by Connecticut General Statutes Section 12-7a for delinquent state taxes unpaid for a period greater than 90 days after all appeal rights have expired.

This tax evasion is, plain and simple, illegal. Sen Harps evasion of this is issue seems only to be immoral..

PS what I want to know is if the other candidate write crap like this will you publish it to? You should have a disclaimer at the top of a story like this. The general public should know what written by "staff" means

I find it interesting how deliberately Harp union supporters keep calling their political movement "progressive," starting with their takeover of the board of aldermen two years ago.

Particularly in the context of a place like New Haven, there is nothing progressive about substituting one political machine with another one. Nothing. It is simply perpetuating the way things have been done for decades.

Progressive in New Haven would mean rejecting machine-backed government, period.

Let's get an ordinance in place to register campaign volunteers for all city government positions and get this information out into the light of day then.

"We live in a mutually interdependent geographical space and need each other."

Then would you support changes to municipal boundaries that reflect this interdependence, including annexation (with ward representation) of surrounding towns/neighborhoods to the City of New Haven?

How long will local 530 support Toni Harp if she does succeed in winning and is in charge as the City tumbles into brankruptcy. Short sightless may cause their members and retirees to lose the pretty generous benefits that the senior Cavaliere was able to earn from the City. Mabe Jim Kottage was on to something.

Sure JH. I would accept annexation.

A lot of people have well informed comments up here. I suppose opinion and debate is warranted in a public forum. I can appreciate that aspect of this continuing conversation. In the end, we all need to vote for who we believe is going to take this beautiful city in a positive direction. Unfortunately, we can only "believe"....we don't know what any politician will accomplish until they are in office. As a life long resident and now employee for the City of New Haven as a law enforcement officer it has been very interesting to see both "sides" of the city. Someone made a comment on this feed about needing less Officer's and Firemen. Not sure what facts they have to back that thought process??? The pension in our city is ridiculous. I said that becoming a police officer. There seems to be no way this city can support these hefty pensions. With the formation of these new hybrid pension/ 401K retirements...those old pensions will be a thing of the past. Let's just hope we can get the best person in office that will do their best to make this city better. That's my hope. No need to debate or argue...time to act support the candidate you believe in.

"Toni Harp was the only candidate that has expressed compassion towards the New Haven police officers.. Toni has vowed to aid New Haven police officers in acquiring the necessary tools they need to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. She has also been outspoken in making modifications to the benefit packages officers receive in the efforts of maintaining their own families."

I wish more specific details could be given. I'm pretty sure Elicker and the other candidates realize the importance of a strong, well-run police dept, and would also want to make sure they had the tools needed to do the job. What are the specific tools that Harp said she would provide that the other candidates said they wouldn't provide? Also, can specifics be given about the "modifications to the benefits packages"? what are we talking about here?

I believe a strong police dept is very important and I'd like them to have the personnel and tools they need as well. But I'd love to know what specific things Harp has promised them that the others, presumably, haven't.

I think the NHI does great reporting, but I'm curious if they didn't think to ask this question or they asked it and were not given a clear answer? Answers to these questions would make the article way more useful to voters.

I'll have to agree with Scot. As a police officer in New Haven I haven't been presented with anything from the police Union mentioning how Toni Harp or any other candidate will specifically bring modifications to our benefits packages or provide tools for better police service.