Thomas MacMillan Photo.
Greer on the Green, with mayoral challengers.
As one Edgewood activist blasted Mayor John DeStefano for turning the city into “Homicide Haven,” local building trade union leaders defended the mayor against what they called a “backlash” of anti-incumbent sentiment.
The activist was Eliezer Greer, who three years ago formed an armed citizens patrol of Edgewood Park. In a stemwinder speech at 2 p.m. Wednesday outside City Hall, Greer charged DeStefano with allowing crime and violence to run rampant.
Greer rounded up Democratic mayoral primary challengers Tony Dawson, Clifton Graves, and Jeffrey Kerekes to stand beside him for what amounted to a joint non-endorsement of the mayor’s leadership. Greer declined formally to back any specific challenger, but instead said the city needs anyone but DeStefano. The event took place as those three candidates enter a final sprint to Tuesday’s Democratic primary, where they’re trying to stop DeStefano’s quest for a 10th term.
An hour earlier, at the construction site of a new school in the Hill, union leaders came to DeStefano’s aid. The New Haven branch of the AFL-CIO’s Connecticut Building and Construction Trades Council handed DeStefano its official endorsement in front of the future Hill Central Music Academy on Dewitt Street.
The two events offered two views on how to judge an incumbent — on when he should get credit for success or take blame for problems.
Meanwhile, the campaign’s harshest attack mailer arrived in mailboxes across town Wednesday, also seeking to tie the mayor to the year’s murder spree. Sent by Dawson’s campaign, it personally took on DeStefano (as well as Graves). A photo of a miffed DeStefano appears in the flyer’s top left-had corner below this headline: “While DeStefano Does Nothing — Our Children Are Being Murdered!”
Job Success Amid National Decline?
At the DeStefano endorsement event, Andy Esposito, head of the trades council’s New Haven branch, said the mayor is being “taken for granted” and scapegoated for economic problems outside of his control.
The event marked the mayor’s second union endorsement in this campaign season. On Monday he appeared with leaders of the firefighters union, who announced their support.
Esposito (right).
“The mayor is doing a great job under trying times,” Esposito said. He said the mayor has kept taxes down and done an “excellent job with the school system.”
Esposito said his organization represents 18 trades with 18,000 members in the greater New Haven area. That includes iron workers, sheet metal workers, carpenters, electricians, and laborers. Two weeks ago the New Haven organization caucused, with two representatives from each trade, to decide whom to endorse. The vote was unanimous for DeStefano, Esposito said.
“I don’t want to see a good guy get beat,” Esposito said as he approached a copper sheet-metal podium to address some two dozen workers and union officials.
The mayor faces a “backlash” of anti-incumbent sentiment that has little to do with him and more to do with political and economic decisions in Washington, Esposito said.
He hailed the mayor’s $1.5 billion school construction program.
DeStefano (center).
The city has “been building these schools for 15 years,” DeStefano said. It makes a difference to the kids who walk into them, he said. “It’s a powerful thing.”
School construction has meant jobs for New Haveners and for women and minorities, DeStefano said. That means payroll dollars stay in New Haven, he said.
Esposito is the business manager for Iron Workers Local 424, which has 300 members in New Haven. He said the trade unions will have drivers and poll workers out for DeStefano on Election Day.
Butch Davidson, business manager for roofers and waterproofers Local 12, said it’s a shame to see DeStefano “get a black eye” for economic conditions that aren’t his fault. “We’re going to be having our members go door to door to remind them it’s not his fault.”
Reached later, Democratic primary opponent Kerekes disagreed. The city’s financial problems precede the current economic crisis, Kerekes said. Years of underfunding pensions have created a “huge liability,” and school construction has led to more debt, he said.
“I think they’re off-base here,” opponent Graves said of the union endorsement. The city is facing a dire economic condition, but the administration hasn’t done enough to promote job creation and economic development, he said.
“The mayor can’t be Harry Truman and Pontius Pilate,” Graves said. DeStefano wants to take credit for city successes but “doesn’t want to be blamed for violence in the street,” he said.
Kerekes, Greer, Graves, and Dawson (left to right).
“Homicide Haven”
At the 2 p.m. Wednesday event on the Green, Graves and others heaped blame on the mayor for crime and violence.
“Welcome to what was once called New Haven and is now Homicide Haven,” said Greer, who delivered a passionate speech with his back to City Hall, sounding almost like a candidate for mayor himself.
Crime is rampant in the city and more guns are in the streets “than ever before,” Greer said. The Labor Day weekend saw a “catastrophic milestone” as the city saw its 25th homicide of the year, surpassing the total for all of 2010, he said. Greer placed the blame squarely on the mayor.
“The mayor’s current police chief lives in Chicago and vacations in New Haven,” Greer said. The mayor’s number one priority should be to keep people safe, he said. “In this regard, our city gets a grade of ‘F.’”
It’s time for new leadership and new ideas and for people to “civilly swarm” the polls on Tuesday, Greer said. He didn’t specify whom voters should support at the polls, except that it be anyone but DeStefano.
The mayoral challengers spoke in alphabetical order.
“I totally agree with Rabbi Greer,” Dawson began. He said he’s already asked for the police chief to resign and if he were elected, he’d fire him on “Day One.” He’d then begin “block-by-block organizing” between police and neighbors to combat crime.
Dawson, Kerekes, Greer, and Graves (left to right).
Graves said as mayor he’d create a “task force on public safety” and institute “more aggressive community policing.”
Kerekes said the city’s crime has its roots in poverty and a failure of education. The city’s schools have become “dropout factories” and the returning felons whom the mayor points to as a source of violent crime are part of the “master class” of those “factories.” He also called for a new chief and a return to community policing.
Greer said after the event that he has not chosen to endorse a candidate in the primary, but that it may yet happen.
In response to Greer’s press event, DeStefano campaign manager Danny Kedem released this statement: “To fight violence in the city we need simultaneous short, mid, and long term interventions. We are clearing street level dealers off corners and taking down gangs like R2 with the help of state and federal officers. In the mid term, utilizing the city’s innovative program to build a support system for felons who want to make positive choices with their lives. And most importantly giving our kids a chance to go to college through New Haven promise and school reform.”
If putting up candidate signs on the green lines and city property is against the law how is putting up your sign "Re-Elect DeStefano" on a city construction site possibly legal!