Paul Bass Photo
Deputy Registrar of Voters Helen Powell checks Gabriel Santiago’s last-minute petitions.
Yusuf Shah may be back in the aldermanic campaign game, Marcus Paca has a last-minute challenger, and some Democrats had second thoughts about running for office twice in two months.
Those were some of the surprises revealed as Wednesday’s deadline passed for challengers to endorsed candidates to submit petitions to make either the Sept. 13 Democratic Party primary or Nov. 8 general election ballots in the busiest New Haven campaign season in years.
The city will have 16 Democratic primaries for Board of Aldermen seats. Two of those races will feature three candidates (assuming one last-minute petitioner’s signatures are certified).
The newest contested ward Wednesday was Edgewood’s 24, where Evette Hamilton filed petitions to run in both the primary and the general election. She’s taking on one-term incumbent Marcus Paca, a close City Hall ally. Hamilton is a Yale union worker.
Do-Overs Loom
Paul Bass File Photo
Meanwhile, candidates in 19 different wards submitted petitions to run on an independent line in the Nov. 8 aldermanic general elections.
The biggest surprise was incumbent West River Alderman Yusuf Shah (pictured). Just two weeks ago, after he lost the endorsement at the Democratic Party convention to first-time candidate Tyisha Walker, Shah announced he is retiring. (Read about that here.) And his name will indeed not appear on the Sept. 13 primary ballot. But he ended up submitting petitions Wednesday to snag the independent line in September. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday about his change of heart.
Those candidates include some Democrats running in the primaries, and some endorsed candidates.
Many of them, like Hamilton, are members of or are receiving support from Yale’s labor unions in a challenge to the party establishment.
In response to the decision by those candidates to run twice if necessary (in September and November), a number of pro-City Hall aldermen also took out petitions to win independent lines on the November ballot and ensure they’d have a second chance if they lose their primaries. However, not all those candidates ended up turning in petitions. Only a few — such as Doug Bethea in Dwight, Matt Smith in East Rock, and Carlton Staggers in West Rock — ended up doing so.
Michael Slattery, the party-endorsed aldermanic candidate in Westville’s Ward 25, took out petitions but then changed his mind.
“I’m running as a Democrat. I will respect the outcome” of the primary, Slattery said. When Slattery saw that his opponent, Adam Marchand, had taken out independent petitions, he said, he at first took out the forms to “keep my options open.” But he also doesn’t want to see the city spend money on a primary that would merely be rerun in November.
Marchand did earn spots on both ballots. He said he and others around town want to inject more democracy into the city by running in both elections.
“We have a party structure in New Haven that doesn’t offer enough debate and competition. And so it’s a good thing for the city to have more people running and to have a debate that lasts up until the general election,” Marchand said Tuesday.
Some wards, like Westville’s 26 and Fair Haven Heights’ 11, will have contested aldermanic races in November but not September.
Following are the candidates who have qualified for independent slots on the Nov. 8 aldermanic ballot:
Sarah Eidelson and Vinay R. Nayak in Ward 1 (Yale)
Doug Bethea and Frank Douglass in Ward 2 (Dwight).
Jackie James in Ward 3 (Hill)
Dolores Colon and Norma Rodriguez-Reyes* in Ward 6 (Hill).
Matt Smith and Jessica Holmes in Ward 9 (East Rock).
Maureen Sullivan-Best and Barbara Ann Constantinople in Ward 11 (Fair Haven Heights)
Brenda Jones Barnes in Ward 13 (Fair Haven Heights).
Carmen Reyes and Gabriel Santiago in Ward 14 (Fair Haven).
Sarah Saiano in Ward 18 (Morris Cove).
Delphine Clyburn in Ward 20 (Newhallville).
Brenda Foskey-Cyrus in Ward 21 (Newhallville).
Jeanette Morrison, Cordelia Thorpe and Lisa Hopkins in Ward 22 (Dixwell).
Adam Marchand in Ward 25 (Westville).
Angela Russell in Ward 27 (Westville).
Claudette Robinson-Thorpe and Wayne McCloud in Ward 28 (Beaver Hills).
Brian Wingate in Ward 29 (Beaver Hills).
Darnell Goldson and Carlton Staggers in Ward 30 (West Rock/West Hills).
(This list is based on results of a check of names by the City/Town Clerk’s Office. The Secretary of the State’s office must now re-certify the names.)
The Primary Ballot
Heaven Hopkins (left) accompanies mom Lisa to hand in Lisa’s petitions Wednesday.
Here’s who will run in the Sept. 13 primary (with endorsed candidates’ names listed first):
Doug Bethea and Frank Douglass in Ward 2 (Dwight).
Jackie James and Abdias Rodriguez in Ward 3 (Hill).
Dolores Colon and Norma Rodriguez-Reyes* in Ward 6 (Hill).
Matt Smith and Jessica Holmes in Ward 9 (East Rock).
David Baker, Brenda Jones Barnes, Josh Vega in Ward 13 (Fair Haven Heights).
Stephanie Bauer, Carmen Reyes and Gabriel Santiago in Ward 14 (Fair Haven). (Santiago’s signatures were still being verified Wednesday.)
Salvatore Decola and Sarah Saiano in Ward 18 (Morris Cove).
Charles Blango and Delphine Clyburn in Ward 20 (Newhallville).
Moses Nelson and Brenda Foskey-Cyrus in Ward 21 (Newhallville).
Greg Morehead, Jeanette Morrison, Cordelia Thorpe and Lisa Hopkins in Ward 22 (Dixwell).
Michael Slattery and Adam Marchand in Ward 25 (Westville).
Stan Kontogiannis and Angela Russell in Ward 27 (Westville).
Claudette Robinson-Thorpe and Wayne McCloud in Ward 28 (Beaver Hills).
Carl Goldfield and Brian Wingate in Ward 29 (Beaver Hills).
Darnell Goldson and Carlton Staggers in Ward 30 (West Rock/West Hills).
(*Rodriguez-Reyes publishes the Spanish-language newspaper La Voz Hispana. She also volunteers as chair of the board of the not-for-profit Online Journalism Project, which publishes the Independent.)
I am somewhat concerned by some of these candidacies, particularly Adam Marchand, the union employee running in Ward 25. It's one thing to have union members running in a campaign funded and organized by the union (Bob Proto is the treasurer for several of these campaigns), but to have an actual union employee put forward is troubling. What happens if Ward 25 residents say, hypothetically, that they don't want higher taxes, but the union is pushing for contracts and budgets that do the opposite? Can we expect that a union employee won't be pressured by his employer, who is also running his campaign? I do recall union organizers testifying this year that they would prefer to see higher taxes than contract changes or layoffs. Think back to the Yale cancer center fight, for example. Would Marchand have walked away from the union fight to support a hospital supported by his constituents? Given that ward 25 has historically been a more conservative ward, I can imagine there would be numerous issues before the board where the majority of ward 25 residents disagree with the wishes of Bob Proto. How does Marchand reconcile that? On another note, it bugs me that Bob Proto lives in the suburbs (is it Milford, or Stratford, or something like that), and is the treasurer for these very local campaigns. I'm surprised there isn't a rule requiring campaign treasurers to be local.