2 Slates, 1 Goal: Revive Dwight

No one votes. Shaw’s is closing. Neighbors are losing homes and jobs. Sounds like a job for … Democratic ward co-chairs?

Four candidates in Dwight say ​“yes.”

The candidates are Deborah Davis and Mark Griffin (pictured above) and Greg Smith and Frank ​“Junny” Douglass (pictured below). The two pairs are running against each other for the little-known offices of Democratic ward committee co-chairs in Ward 2, the Dwight neighborhood.

The race is one of eight primaries across town on March 2. Only Democrats can vote.

Traditionally the job has consisted of nominating candidates for elected office like alderman or mayor. That’s it. This year, candidates in wards like 2 and 8 envision doing more.

All four candidates in Dwight promise to revive democracy in a neighborhood where almost no one voted last fall. They pledge to help victims of layoffs and foreclosure suits find a way to survive. And they say the place to do it is the Democratic ward committee.

Ward committees are the scrawny tentacles of the New Haven’s Democratic Party that stretch out into the city’s 30 wards. With memberships of up to 52 people each, they’re supposed to get voters to the polls and nominate local candidates. So far, the Dwight group hasn’t been doing that. If you can call it a ​“group.”

In the past six years, the ward committee held only one meeting, according to Griffin, a current co-chair. Smith is the other co-chair. The list of members is way out of date. Teamed up with separate running mates, the two have made a renewed pledge this year to make the committee relevant. Both tickets pledged to beef up the committee to 52 people — and use it to tackle other problems facing Dwight.

Davis, a lifelong Dwight resident who was active in politics in the 1970s and ​‘80s, said she was appalled to learn the most recent voter turnout in her neighborhood. In November, when the city elected aldermen and the mayor, only 168 people voted in Dwight. That’s an embarrassing 6 percent turnout, Davis calculated. Only 131 people voted to reelect Alderwoman Gina Calder, who was uncontested.

“A lot of people in Ward 2 are feeling disenfranchised,” agreed Smith. ​“They’re losing faith in the voting process.”

Citywide, the picture wasn’t much better—only 16 percent of voters turned in a ballot for the mayor’s race, where John DeStefano faced no serious challengers.

Davis, who’s 56, said she agreed to get back into politics this year at the request of her daughter, Bianca Bowles, a secretary in the mayor’s office and an active member of the Dwight Central Management Team.

n her 50 years in the neighborhood, Davis said, she has seen Dwight go through many phases: ravaged by crack cocaine, uplifted by a new grocery store that brought jobs and fresh produce, and now struggling to support more than its share of services for people returning from prison, struggling with drug addition and mental health problems.

Davis said when she was secretary of the ward committee in the 80s, people would come out to vote — no matter if the candidate faced opposition. The ward committee had frequent meetings and got people into politics on a grassroots level — they grilled a then-stranger, young Richard Blumenthal, on his first run for attorney general 20 years ago, she said. Today’s ward committee pales in comparison, she said.

“People aren’t involved,” she said.

Davis said she didn’t know whom to run with — fellow grandmother and neighborhood activist Ruth Henderson declined an invite — until she got connected to Griffin.

Griffin, who’s 45, has been co-chair for six years. He said a family illness caused him to ​“disappear” to Waterbury for a while last year, but now he’s ready to get back in action. While the ward committee hasn’t been active, he said he has been.

Griffin, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, has focused his energy on advocating for other people with disabilities. He served on the board of Fellowship Place, a rehabilitation center on Elm Street, and worked at a homeless shelter. He said he has lobbied against cuts in funding for mental health services. He said he keeps up with his advocacy work between a couple jobs — one at Wal-Mart, one doing janitorial work at Yale’s Connecticut Mental Health Center.

Smith (at left in photo, with Douglass), who’s 49, has been co-chair for four years. A technician for a fire detection equipment company, he’s been an active neighborhood organizer, known in part for starting parent patrols during a summer of youth violence. He’s teaming up with Douglass in what he called a ​“double-threat”: two energetic men, both interested in galvanizing the corpse of democracy in their ward — and both interested in running for alderman.

Douglass, who’s 56, put his name on the political map when he ran against Alderwoman Calder three years ago. A chef at Yale’s Trumbull College dining hall, he stays active in his labor union as a member of UNITE HERE Local 35’s executive board. His race made Dwight a battleground for Democratic machine and labor union forces. Douglass lost by 28 votes.

Either Douglass or Smith will run for alderman next year, they said; they haven’t decided who.

Meanwhile, they pledged to revive the group that’s supposed to be the foundation of grassroots democracy.

“The ward committee has always been hush-hush,” said Douglass. ​“It’s like a private club.”

“I’d like to see all those seats filled,” he said, ​“with strong leaders that haven’t been approached in the past.”

Priority: Jobs

Both pairs of candidates talked about reconnecting the two parts of their ward, which is divided by Whalley Avenue.

And both said they’d like to use the ward committee to take on a top priority: Jobs.

For Douglass, the most immediate threat is Shaw’s. The grocery store, which employs 100 people, is set to close by the end of March. Douglass said he goes there every day. He knows a lot of folks that work and shop there.

“A lot of people depend on that market,” Douglass said. ​“It’s going to be devastating to the community” if Shaw’s shuts its doors.

Douglass said he’s lucky enough to have a long-time job at Yale — he started working there in 1989, washing pots — but he sees the jobs disappearing, both for casual Yale workers and other folks in Dwight.

As co-chairs, he and Smith would help connect unemployed folks with services they need, they said.

In a separate interview, Davis and Griffin pledged to do the same. They agreed Shaw’s closure would be a huge setback for the neighborhood.

For Davis, the issue hits home — she got laid off at the end of August after 17 years as a parent educator at the family resource center at the Wexler/Grant School. She’s currently unemployed, but plans to return to the school as a part-time worker in the near future.

Smith also said he’d like to focus on getting help for people facing foreclosure. He turned and offered help to his running mate, who has been struggling to hang on to his own home.

“We should talk,” he said.

Douglass said he’s working hard to pay his mortgage payments and so far, hasn’t seen a foreclosure sign on his lawn.

Elections

The contest in Ward 2 is one of eight primaries across town. A previously slated primary in Ward 18 has been canceled because one of the candidates, Nicholas J. Colavolpe, has dropped out, according to Deputy City Clerk Sally Brown.

The elections in March will set the stage for aldermanic nominations next year — and one election this year. After co-chairs are seated, they’ll form a new, 60-person Democratic Town Committee, and they’ll vote on a leader for the next two-year term. So far, no one has stepped forward to challenge Chairwoman Susie Voigt.

Griffin said Voigt ​“begged me” to run again this year. She has gone door-knocking with him in the neighborhood, and she helped him find his runningmate. Griffin said he gave Voigt his commitment as town chair.

Davis said she hasn’t pledged her commitment to anyone — it will depend who’s running, she said.

Smith and Douglass said they haven’t made any commitments, either.