Youth Concerns Echo On Campaign Trail

Laytisha Collins-Smith informed Karen DuBois-Walton that she won’t be voting for her for mayor — not because she has different values, but because she’s leaving New Haven before the election, out of frustration.

DuBois-Walton, who’s challenging Mayor Justin Elicker for the Democratic mayoral election this year, learned that Saturday when she knocked on Collins-Smith’s door on Bassett Street.

The candidate was campaigning door to door in Newhallville’s Ward 20 with its alder, Delphine Clyburn.

“We have the money to invest in this community, but it’s just not worth it,” Collins-Smith told the mayoral hopeful. ​“I want you to win, but I won’t be here to vote for you anymore.”

She’s leaving in July, she said.

Collins-Smith’s main reasons for leaving: the safety and well-being of her children.

Her family witnesses too much violence in her neighborhood, she said, recalling the killing of 14-year-old Tyrick Keyes not far from her home. Additionally, the New Haven Public School system isn’t meeting her daughter’s needs, she said, and so her family will be relocating to an area with a better school district.

A regular attendee of school board meetings, Collins-Smith said she had been particularly disappointed with the decision to start reopening schools after parents voiced concerns about their children’s health.

“We’ve talked to them, we’ve been to the meetings, and we see no change,” Collins-Smith said. ​“If I wanted to be in a school district like this, I would have stayed in New York.”

DuBois-Walton called the interaction ​“heartbreaking.” She said she is committed to building ​“child-centered” policies that would keep families like Collins-Smith’s in New Haven.

“This is one of the big issues that energized my jumping in [the race] now,” DuBois-Walton said. ​“The current mayor is not demonstrating leadership, and it’s hard to know what his vision is. He hasn’t been able to bring people along and build a consensus around school reopening.”

Top points in her own vision for New Haven’s youth: expanding early education pre‑K services, hiring high-quality teachers to fill the district’s vacancies, and introducing curriculum that would put middle school students on pathways of career development.

If elected, DuBois-Walton said, she pledges to be an active listener and play a stronger role in the Board of Education.

Contacted later for a response, Elicker defended his administration’s record in ​“delivering results” during the pandemic, both in the schools and beyond: ​“I was the first mayor to act during the pandemic, which saved lives. We ensured that every child had access to a computer and the internet for remote learning. We delivered over a million meals. We permanently housed over 600 people experiencing homelessness and stopped the unjust expansion of a trash facility. We ended Tweed airport subsidies. We created a reentry welcome center, dedicated $3.26 million to summer youth and safety programs, and vaccinated more people than Waterbury, Bridgeport, New Britain, and Hartford, by collaborating with our partners.”

On Saturday’s neighborhood canvass, Alder Clyburn also named youth engagement and safety as a top priority for her ward. At least three of her constituents added Saturday that they want to see more job opportunities created to keep kids engaged.

“For her to be on my team is really huge,” DuBois-Walton said of Alder Clyburn. ​“She is an actively engaged alder and very connected to her community and its values.”

Clyburn’s pull in Newhallville was evident Saturday when, for instance, Sarah Ford of Shelton Avenue told DuBois-Walton, ​“If she brings you to me, then you’ve got my vote!”

In the end, the mayoral candidate managed to recruit Collins-Smith’s son Justin to her canvassing team, which on Saturday also included Rev. Steven Cousin. In coming months, her campaign’s supporters will continue to knock on doors around New Haven, she said.

“We’ll be out here every day, talking to as many voters as we possibly can,” DuBois-Walton said.

Online Forum On Pandemic Aid

DuBois-Walton also spent time listening to voters on Friday night at an online forum seeking suggestions for how to spend nearly $100 million in federals dollars coming to town under the federal pandemic-relief American Rescue Plan.

Mayor Elicker’s decisions so far about how to spend the money have been too ​“top-down,” DuBois-Walton said, citing a lack of community input she saw in the first $6.3 million ​“summer reset” plan announced in April.

“This process cannot be a secret process. This must be a process in which our community has a voice,” the mayoral hopeful told the event’s 57 attendees. ​“My concern is that the mayor has not yet provided an opportunity for public comment. And so I directed my campaign to phrase this space for us tonight.”

Elicker argues that his administration has sought and received much input and plans to solicit more about how to spend incoming federal money; click here for a previous story in which both sides made their case. (The Board of Alders Finance Committee will be hosting a public hearing on Thursday, May 20 at 6 p.m. to discuss the mayor’s ​“summer reset” plans.)

Moderating the forum alongside DuBois-Walton were political scientist and WNPR ​“Disrupted” host Khalilah Brown-Dean and entrepreneur Kia Levey-Burden, who are not affiliated with the campaign.

Brown-Dean joked that the trio of ​“K” names was unintentional. The women responded to each community member who spoke, posing a series of guiding questions along the way.

“What’s possible for New Haven when these funds arrive?” Levey-Burden asked.

Brown-Dean added, ““What is it that keeps you up at night? What is it that motivates you to get up in the morning?”

Of the 11 attendees who spoke, eight specifically mentioned ​“infrastructure” as a top priority, ranging from investments in road safety and renewable energy to projects that would encourage entrepreneurship and break down language barriers for New Haven’s Spanish- and Arabic-speaking populations.

Youth engagement also emerged as a major theme. Several attendees expressed excitement about turning the Goffe Street Armory into a multi-use community space geared towards kids and youth programs, while others invoked a need to fund better access to technology in schools.

Reverend Alex Garbera, an advocate for residents living with HIV/AIDS, noted that focusing on children’s needs can be an effective way to prevent other problems down the line.

“If we have a dream list item, it’s going to be early screening and intervention for childhood trauma… which predisposes people for so many things such as homelessness, HIV, crime and poverty.”

DuBois-Walton invoked her background as a psychologist and expressed a desire to train more community mental health ambassadors to create a ​“healthier and more child-centered city.” She emphasized the possibilities for long-term investment, echoing President Biden’s sentiment of ​“build back better.”

“The kinds of suggestions that are being promoted are already getting to the sense of how we can plan not just to return to where we were pre-pandemic, but how we can use this to really jumpstart our investments into things that will allow us to recover to a place greater than where we started.

“Rather than thinking narrowly about Covid recovery as simply a healthcare response, we’re really thinking about it very broadly and addressing the social determinants of health.”