Allan Appel Photo
The candidate with Wojtek “Voytec” Wacowski Sunday.
When people visit Fair Haven in the future, Justin Elicker wants the green ribbon of Quinnipiac RIver Park and neighborhood gardens — not block-watch signs or other indicators of crime — to make the first impression.
Elicker delivered that vision and a prescription to attain it at a meet-and-greet Sunday that drew some two dozen Fair Haveners to the Clinton Avenue home of neighborhood organizer Lee Cruz, who is endorsing Elicker’s candidacy for the Democratic mayoral nomination.
Elicker jumped out early in the what may become a crowded race to succeed Mayor John DeStefano, who is retiring after 20 years in office. Fair Haven promises to be a major battleground.
The gathering at Cruz’s house was the eighth meet-and-greet of the campaign so far. The next is scheduled for Wednesday in Beaver Hills at the home of former Alderman Moti Sandman.
Elicker told Cruz’s gathering Sunday that his strategy is based at heart on a positive vision for the city — including having signs for neighborhood associations, like the one Lee Cruz organizes in the Chatham Square section of Fair Haven, replace block-watch signs.
In a wide-ranging discussion over cheese, fruit, chocolate chip cookies, and the occasional flight of Cruz’s speckled green parrot across the room, Elicker laid out facts he said position New Haven to become what he termed “the greatest small city in America.”
They included: the high percentage of restaurants to population, the arts and architecture scene, the key location on a rail line between Boston and New York, and the lowest rental vacancy rate in the country.
“We can’t tax or cut our way out of a budget problem. The long term fix is to grow,” he said.
Elicker added that the time has come to “give some [of downtown’s] prosperity to the neighborhoods.” That prompted Cold Spring School teacher and young dad Joshua Sloat to ask Elicker’s vision for Fair Haven.
“Grand Avenue’s potential [as an economic corridor] is huge,” he said. He mentioned having a street car potentially running down the avenue, and in the nearer term more traffic-calming measures.
With a nod out Cruz’s window to the adjacent Strong School, emptied by the Board of Ed and now vacant for two years, “you can market its [Fair Haven’s] creativity like an art center.” Event host editor Lee Cruz is at the center of an ongoing effort to do that with the Strong School.
Or, Elicker said, the city could market Fair Haven as “a Latin Quarter. Or like the Schiavone property. This node has huge potential.”
Old-timers like George Morrison asked about the speeders and illegal dirt bike and ATV riders who have plagued Fair Haven for years. Elicker said enforcement is key but offered that the sense of lawlessness could also better be countered by a hard look at how the community organizes itself. (Click here to read about, and click on the play arrow to watch, Elicker confronting a teenaged dirt-biker named Justin at a City Hall hearing on the subject.]
“Our structure should not be block watches and police. It should be on neighborhood associations, to focus on the positive. When someone drives into Fair Haven, they should not see a block watch ‘eye’ but ‘Chatham Square Neighborhood Association,’ and empower more of that.”
Asked after the meeting to clarify whether he was proposing the demise of block watches, Elicker said no: “Block watches serve an important role, an opportunity for neighbors to talk about crime. I would not discourage people. I think we can build on the community management teams so it’ s not [primarily] about policing but it’s what ideas we want to implement in our neighborhood. And the city can play a role in implementing those ideas.”
In addition to Chatham Square Neighborhood Association, Elicker called what Stacy Spell has done in the West River Neighborhood Services Corporation (WRNSC) “a fantastic example of what can happen when you focus on the positive, what neighborhood associations can accomplish.”
He said Spell and his group should not have had to wait two years for permission to plant their community garden on the grounds of the Barnard School.
Fair Havener Wojtek “Voytec” Wacowski (pictured at the top of the story) suggested Elicker emphasize the maritime, water uses, and riverfront possibilities of Fair Haven — and not only the arts as potentially embodied in a reconceived Strong School. “I totally agree,” Elicker said.
He concurred that Fair Haven has forgotten its waterfront but was less enthusiastic about Wacowski’s proposal of a reconfigured ward that would cover both sides of the river.
Longtime resident and Downing Street block watcher Fran Goekler-Morneau rued the demise of The Grand Avenue News newspaper as well as the library as a meeting place for all as it was in the old days.
“There’s no place now to pick up the news,” she said, particularly for older people and poorer people who might not be technologically connected. “That makes me sad,” she said.
Eliicker, who is an East Rock alderman, said his electronic neighborhood newsletter could be tailored for Fair Haven and every other neighborhood.
Goekler-Morneau, like many of the attendees, said she was still undecided by meeting’s end. “I felt he [Elicker] understood” and had listened, she said.
As to the proposed arts center in the Strong School, she added, “These ideas are wonderful, but all the people around here are living day to day. This won’t solve their problems.”
Elicker has it right with the positive focus. In order for a block watch to be successful, it must do things to build community. Its through community building that you get to know your neighbors. The term neighborhood association encapsulates that. And amen to not taxing our way out of budget problems.