Thomas Breen photo
Elicker on the campaign trail in Dixwell on Saturday.
Mayoral candidate Justin Elicker secured at least four votes on Saturday morning as he canvassed up and down Orchard Street talking jobs, schools, housing, and clean government with working class black voters.
Elicker, the former East Rock/Cedar Hill alder and former executive director of the New Haven Land Trust, is challenging incumbent Toni Harp for the Democratic nomination for mayor this year. The race is a rematch of the 2013 mayoral election, in which Elicker came in a close second to Harp.
On Saturday morning, he and a handful of campaign volunteers knocked doors throughout the Dixwell neighborhood in an effort not just to talk with prospective voters about the issues most important to them, but also to establish Elicker’s name, face, ideas and campaign in one of the city’s largest black and brown communities.
“It was definitely that the white community overwhelmingly voted for me and the black community overwhelmingly voted for Toni Harp” in 2013, Elicker said in between canvassing stops on Saturday. “That is not going to happen this time around.”
Elicker with campaign manager Gage Frank in Dixwell Plaza.
He said his current campaign is committed to knocking doors and talking with neighbors in every neighborhood of the city, particularly in communities of color like Dixwell, Newhallville (where he canvassed last weekend), the Hill, and Fair Haven.
“If I’m gonna lead this city,” he said, “I’m going to need a mandate from every neighborhood in this city.”
His strategy for winning over voters who live far from his relatively white, wealthy home neighborhood of East Rock was on full display on Saturday: listening to voters’ concerns, and then making his pitch for more and better vocational job training, an inclusionary zoning policy that mandates affordable housing in large new developments, bulked up early childhood education and after-school programs in city schools, and a clean government that rewards professional competence over personal connections.
On Saturday that strategy worked with at least four voters, who said they will likely vote for Elicker in the September Democratic primary.
The first door that opened for Elicker on Saturday morning was that of a great-grandmother and lifelong New Haven resident who lives at he Florence Virtue Homes apartment complex.
She said she that just the other day she had been talking about the mayoral election with Newhallville/Prospect Hill Alder Steve Winter. “I’m looking for change in this election,” she said.
Which is exactly what Elicker promised.
“We need to invest more in jobs,” he said. In particular in vocational and technical training programs that prepare New Haven residents to be carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and other trade workers who can earn upwards of $60,000 per year without having to go into debt to attend a traditional four-year college.
“Those are the kinds of jobs that people living in the Hill, in Dixwell, in Newhallville should be getting,” he said. But instead, they all too often go to people from the suburbs.
The voter said that she is the great-grandmother of two students at Barnard School and that she is very upset with how the recent superintendent search played out. She said she felt that the current superintendent earned the job because of personal connections, rather than because she was the best fit for the local school system.
“New Haven has always been that way to me,” she said. “You have to know somebody to get this, to get that.”
Pointing to his cellphone number printed on the back of his campaign doorknocker, Elicker said he would bring accessibility, transparency, and integrity to City Hall if elected mayor.
“The people that suffer in the end are the people who don’t have the personal connections” in a system of political favoritism, he said.
Elicker asked if he could count on her vote in September.
“Definitely,” she said, her dog Cali tucked under her right arm. “Come by any time.”
Elicker’s campaign lit, in the hands of a potential vote on Saturday morning.
Just around the corner, Elicker resumed his campaign pitch with Mignone Henderson at 681 Orchard St.
How do you think things are going in the city right now? Elicker asked her.
“It ain’t going that good,” Henderson replied.
The two spoke about how the city has seen many new market-rate apartments built downtown, but relatively few new developments in the neighborhoods.
Elicker said that, if elected, he would prioritize passing an inclusionary zoning ordinance that would ensure that a certain percentage of apartments at planned complexes like 201 Munson St. are reserved for affordable rents.
“We need more deeply affordable housing,” he said.
“Around jobs,” he continued, “we have really gone away from vocational and technical job training in this city.” He criticized the city for underfunding the Construction Workforce Initiative, which he said provided necessary skills training for those looking to enter the building trade.
Henderson agreed. Her son, she said, attended that very program, and graduated just before it saw its funding cut.
“Do you think I might get your support in September?” Elicker asked.
Henderson said he would.
Elicker with Orchard Street resident Ebony McClease.
Right next door, Elicker picked up that same thread with Wilbur Cross special education teacher and former correctional officer Ebony McClease.
After talking about the need to better help the formerly incarcerated find housing and jobs, and then about how the city should legally embrace its Sanctuary City status and codify its support for undocumented immigrants, Elicker’s conversation with McClease quickly turned to Yale.
In particular, about how city taxpayers and City Hall hurt when 55 percent of New Haven’s grand list is owned by tax-exempt nonprofits like Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital.
“That’s insanity,” McClease said.
Elicker, a graduate of the Yale School of Management (SOM) and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, said that the city needs to be much more creative in how to get Yale to pay more than just an $11 million voluntary contribution every year. The Yale Homebuyer program was a great step forward, he said, as was New Haven Promise. City Hall needs to rekindle its push on Yale to commit to bettering the community it lives in.
“I think we need to push the envelope in holding Yale accountable,” he said.
Before he left, Elicker asked if he could count on McClease’s vote. The answer? Another yes.
Elicker with Orchard Street resident Lauren Bishop Brown, viewed through Brown’s front screen door.
As noon approached, Elicker knocked on the Orchard Street door of Lauren Bishop Brown, a seventh and eighth-grade teacher at Brennan Rogers.
The two spoke about the need for more investment in early childhood education programs, as well as in developing partnerships between the school system and local nonprofits and colleges to create more and better after-school programs.
Elicker said the city should prioritize helping certify what are now unofficial daycare services that tend to be run by black and brown working class women so that they can receive state and federal funds.
He asked Brown if she would vote for him. “Yeah, I think so,” she said as she flipped through his campaign flyer.
Before leaving, Elicker pointed to the bottom of the doorknocker, saying if she had any further questions, “my cell number is on the back.”
This direct appeal to the people is what the Democracy Fund was designed to do. Instead of "dialing for dollars" and cultivating wealthy donors, the candidate spends time to speaking to the people about the issues that concern them!
The issues that are emerging all point to a new agenda for City government: one that is inclusive and responsive. <br /> It's time for all the parts of town to benefit from the developments, not just the developers.