Markeshia Ricks Photo
Mayoral candidate Poole: Car rental industry has it right.
Mayor Seth Poole would work to give teens the right to vote on the Board of Education — and only people over 25 the chance to be cops.
The 43-year-old youth worker and civic volunteer offered those goals among many in an interview about his candidacy for the city’s top elected position.
Poole, a staff youth development specialist at Planned Parenthood and a Sherman Avenue homeowner and parent, has filed papers to run on an unaffiliated line in the Nov. 5 general election. He spoke about his candidacy during an episode of WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” (Click here for a previous story about his candidacy.)
After having grown up in New Haven and spent decades helping to lead civic boards ranging from the WEB (Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills) Community Management Team to the Citywide Youth Coalition and Mayor’s Task Force on AIDS, Poole said, he believes he’s uniquely qualified to “connect to people both at the street level and the corporate level to make sure that New Haven is provided for.”
He specifically did not criticize his opponents, including incumbent Mayor Toni Harp, who’s seeking a fourth two-year term.
“I’m not going to talk about bad things that other people have done or what they could have done better, because we’re all geniuses in hindsight,” Poole remarked. “I think it’s important that we look forward to the future.”
For instance, while he has made greater efforts to tackle affordable housing a centerpiece of his campaign (“We’re watching families torn apart economically”), he did not criticize local government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI). He has watched the agency up close as a member of its oversight board (on which he asks tough questions). He praised the agency’s work in renovating and selling homes in neighborhoods like the Hill and the Heights to first-time homeowners.
He said LCI chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjuo “and the team at LCI are moving the organization into the right direction. Over the past four years, we’ve seen a lot of changes that have made New Haven more accessible and gotten a lot of properties out of the city’s possession and onto the rolls.”
As mayor, he would push banks to market blighted properties more openly with an eye toward selling them to local prospective homeowners, he said.
Unlike other Harp opponents, Poole did not criticize the mayor for taking an official trip to China to recruit business investment, promote education ties, and initiate a sister-city relationship. Poole majored in International Studies with a concentration on Asia. He said he believes elected officials should travel to build ties and learn about other cultures.
He also said he would continue Harp’s policy of requiring prospective hotel developers to agree to neutrality agreements to pave the way for unionized workforces earning livable wages.
“It’s necessary,” he said. “That’s hard work, working in a hotel.”
Pro-Labor, Independent
Allan Appel File Photo
New Haven Rising organizers Organizers Scott Marks, Lauren Miller, Seth Poole in 2012.
Over the years Poole has worked with activists from UNITE HERE, the union whose Yale locals back a majority of the Board of Alders and constitute the city’s most powerful electoral campaign force. He served as a founding leader of the UNITE HERE-affiliated activist group New Haven Rising.
But he also broke with the group for, in his view, not promoting the full agenda he helped craft, especially when it comes to affordable housing.
“I think the agenda has been a union agenda. I believe in unions. I think people should have the right to collectively bargain so people are receiving equitable pay and health care. The problem is, if you don’t have a place to live, you have to leave,” Poole said.
“I was instrumental in helping build this charter. This charter basically trickled down to the aldermanic agenda. It’s pretty much a duplicate. The alders and the New Haven Rising organization have not stood behind what they stated were their priorities.”
That said, he intends to pitch UNITE HERE for its endorsement in the mayoral race.
The Right Ages
Another emphasis on his campaign is youth development, he said. And listening to young people. He promised to push for a change in state law to allow the two elected high school student members on the Board of Education to cast votes, for example. “Under no other circumstances does it make sense to make policy without involving our customer,” he argued. “Basic economic principles say this is a horrible way to move forward. Our young people have a wealth of knowledge.” Poole was also the president of the Wilbur Cross High School class of 1994.
When it comes to policing, on the other hand, Poole said he would like to require rookie cops to be at least 25 years old.
“I don’t believe that people should be wielding guns and carrying badges in any community in the United States of America unless they are over the age of 25. The only industry that has this correct in the United States is the car rental industry,” Poole argued. “It’s a huge responsibility. It has put people like me in harm’s way.”
He was asked to elaborate.
He told of having many unpleasant encounters with the police when he was growing up, including one on his family’s front porch in 1989.
Poole was 13 at the time. It was the era of the police department “Beat-Down Posse,” under a chief who encouraged “aggressive cops” who got sued for roughing up citizens.
An officer walked up to Poole and demanded that he move away from the porch, he recalled.
“No,” Poole replied.
That angered the cop, who threatened to force him.
“This is granddad’s house. Our family lives here. Nothing is going on right here,” Poole recalled telling the officer.
The argument grew heated, and louder, drawing Poole’s older brother outside.
His brother prevailed on him to “come in the house.”
“Choose your battles wisely,” his brother told him.
Since then, “I believe I have,” Poole said, as he chooses his latest battle, for New Haven’s highest elected office.
Click on the video for the full interview with mayoral candidate Seth Poole on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven”:
Poole looks like the best candidate out there. He has the right experience, values, and smarts. Whether he's running against Harp or Elicker in the general, he will have a real chance. I encourage him to go at this campaign full-tilt, not as a protest candidate, but as someone who could win. (That means doing things like setting up a website, btw.)