Melissa Bailey Photo
One wants to see East Rock Global Magnet School become the next Hooker. The other, a Hooker parent leader, wants to cut fat from the Board of Ed budget.
Matt Smith and Jane Edelstein laid out those aspirations as they announced their candidacies in a political race heating up in East Rock’s Ward 9.
Smith and Edelstein are both seeking the Democratic nomination for Ward 9’s seat on the Board of Aldermen. The two hope to replace outgoing Alderman Roland Lemar, who won the Democratic primary for state representative in the 96th General Assembly District. Lemar has no opponents; he is expected to be elected Nov. 2 to replace retiring State Rep. Cam Staples.
Lemar, who still has 16 months left in his aldermanic term, is set to start work as a state lawmaker on Jan 1.
In an interview this week, Lemar said he plans to step down from the Board of Aldermen in “mid to late September,” in time for a special election for his seat to take place coinciding with the Nov. 2 general election for statewide offices.
As Lemar moves on to higher office, Edelstein and Smith, two East Rockers who worked on his state rep campaign, have emerged as two contenders looking to fill his shoes. They are both seeking the Democratic endorsement, which will be decided by 50 members of the Democratic Party Ward 9 committee, which plans to schedule a mini-nominating convention by the end of this month.
In interviews this week, the candidates shared views on a range of questions facing the board. Both said they aim to follow in Lemar’s legacy. Both cited education as their top priority for the neighborhood. Both bring a different set of experiences to the race.
Smith, a 36-year-old freelance graphic designer, is a lifelong East Rocker. He grew up with his five brothers and three sisters on Pearl Street in the so-called SoHu neighborhood. He attended St. Stanislaus’s Catholic school, East Rock Global Magnet School, Wilbur Cross and Yale.
Smith got his start in politics early this year, when he headed up a friend’s campaign for Ward 8 co-chair, when he failed to unseat the two incumbents there. He’s also been involved in his block watch and in organizing the first ever Orange Street Festival this year. If elected, he’d be the only openly gay alderman on the board.
Edelstein, who’s 48, lives on Lawrence Street with her husband and daughters. She has lived in East Rock for the past 21 years. As her three daughters moved up through the Worthington Hooker School, she has taken on leadership roles in the school’s PTA over the past five years. Her 25-year career in government includes working for former U.S. Rep. Bruce Morrison and for former Speaker of the state House Irv Stolberg, and serving three years as clerk of the public health committee at the state Capitol. From 1990 to 2000, she worked for the city Board of Aldermen’s legislative services wing, drafting new laws and helping aldermen with constituent services.
Their choice of interview spot revealed differing neighborhood allegiances. Smith sipped coffee at Café Romeo, which supported the Orange Street Festival; Edelstein drank a bottle of Poland Spring outside Nica’s Market, where she often picks up food for her family.
Here’s what they had to say:
“Top-Heavy” Schools?
Smith, who graduated from East Rock Global Magnet School, said he’s glad to see the gloomy concrete bunker being torn down and rebuilt in a way that fits in better with the neighborhood. As New Haven launches a citywide effort to improve its schools, Smith said it’s a good time to boost the quality the magnet school.
“There’s an opportunity to build up from the ground up a school that’s as good as Hooker,” Smith said. In East Rock, he noted, there’s an unfortunate concept that parents have to choose between Hooker or private school, Hooker or moving out of town. The East Rock school, which sits in Ward 9, is a neighborhood school, meaning it accepts students from a geographic district around the school.
“We need to give East Rockers a choice, so it’s not ‘Hooker or Bust,’” Smith said.
As a parent leader at Hooker, Edelstein has been heavily involved in her daughters’ school. She supported the city’s quest to move the school to the new Whitney Avenue site—an issue that divided the neighborhood — but she hasn’t always followed suit with administration directives.
This budget season, when the Board of Education enlisted parents to lobby against cuts to its budget, Edelstein said she received several emails and letters inviting her to attend a budget hearing on behalf of the Board of Ed. She declined.
“I didn’t necessarily think that continuing funding to the Board of Education is producing results,” she said.
While Smith stopped short of calling for cuts to administrators, Edelstein gave a stronger stance. More money could be spent on classrooms rather than administrators, she said: “I really feel that they may be a little top-heavy.”
The Board of Aldermen doesn’t have direct control over line-item funding in the schools budget: They just vote on the total budget amount. Edelstein said she would have voted as Lemar did, denying a $3 million increase in funding last budget season.
“They need to make do with what they have,” Edelstein said.
Smith said he would have voted the same way. Both called for more transparency in the schools budget.
Smith said he doesn’t like the fact that aldermen can vote only up or down on the schools budget, not on individual line items.
“Voters want transparency,” he said. He declined to say if he’d use the power of subpoena, or host education committee hearings as past aldermen have, to tease out more information and policy answers from school officials.
Custodians
Both said they, like Lemar, would oppose privatizing custodial services to save money in the school board. The mayor has said the move could save $7 million annually. Unions say the move would lead to lower wages — the winning private bidder proposed $12.50 per hour instead of $17 — for some of the lowest-paid workers in the city.
Smith said “the idea that we cut the lowest-wage workers leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
Edelstein said the janitors at Hooker “have been a real part of the community,” and she worries “there might not be that level of commitment from an outside contractor.”
“I think people with the biggest salaries are the people that need to be looked at,” Edelstein said, not the lowest-paid ones. She declined to specify an administrative position she would cut, but said the school board needs to show how each administrator directly impacts the classroom.
“There’s no transparency, there’s no accountability,” Edelstein charged. “These are our tax dollars that they’re spending!”
Property Taxes
With an impending deficit at the state, next year’s budget is expected to be even tougher than last year’s, when bands of outraged taxpayers fought the mayor’s spending plan. That will leave aldermen in a tricky spot: They need to respond to their constituents, who say they can’t afford a tax hike, but they also need to balance a budget with diminishing revenue.
Edelstein said she’s seen her property tax bill triple in the past 13 years. She has seen off-season For Sale signs that indicate taxes may be driving people out of the neighborhood.
“New Haven residents just can’t endure any more taxes,” she said.
Smith agreed. Neither would commit to holding taxes flat next year, and neither candidate offered specific cuts. Edelstein said she’d “look at more creative ways of doing things,” such as pension reorganization.
Both said reform needs to come at the state Capitol, with state property tax reform.
Smith said he’d “pressure Roland” to push for a progressive income tax at the state Capitol.
Edelstein said she’s a “big supporter of doing away with the property tax,” and relying more on state income tax.
Charter Reform
During her days at City Hall, Edelstein was let go in a round of layoffs in 1991. She stayed on as a part-time clerk, staffing the charter review committee, which is assembled every decade to think about major changes to the city’s charter. She said she’d like to work on the issue again.
This year, the mayor suggested two topics for consideration: shrinking the Board of Aldermen and expanding term limits from two to four years for the mayor, city clerk and aldermen. The mayor’s proposed commission was derailed by the full board, but may be revived at a later date.
Both Ward 9 candidates said they are undecided about term limits. Both supported keeping the board at 30 people, because it allows constituents more access to aldermen.
Bill O’Brien
Would the Ward 9ers join a chorus of aldermen calling for the resignation of Tax Assessor Bill O’Brien, in the wake of tax screwups and claims of poor customer service?
Both candidates said they don’t know enough to take a stance.
Monetization
Both frowned on the mayor’s move to revive a plan to sell off future parking meter revenue in return for up-front cash to fill a budget hole.
“I think we’re selling our future,” Edelstein said. “My gut reaction is, no — I don’t think it’s a good idea. We’re giving up potential future revenue that we might need. I don’t see the short-term gain.”
Smith called the proposal “a very short-sighted, quick solution that is just going to be horrendous 10 years from now.”
DeStefano
Both candidates sought to identify themselves as neither fully supportive of, nor totally against Mayor John DeStefano.
Asked if they thought DeStefano has done a good job in New Haven in his 17 years in office, both gave a similar response, taking a bigger-picture view.
“I think the mayor has done a great job with New Haven over the years,” Edelstein said. Much of the vision he laid out when elected in 1993 — including reviving a blighted downtown — “came to fruition,” she said. However, she said she believes strongly in checks and balances of executive power.
Smith agreed on both points: “In the ‘90s, [DeStefano] did an amazing job to push New Haven forward,” he said.
“I don’t agree with him on everything,” he added,” but “he’s done a good job.”
2006 Redux
Paul Wessel, one of two co-chairs of the Ward 9 Democratic Committee, said Edelstein and Smith are the only two candidates who have approached him expressing interest in the Ward 9 seat.
Wessel said he plans to hold a nominating convention by the end of the month.
The convention would be a replay of September 2006, when two East Rock Democrats vied for their party’s support to fill a vacancy left open by Elizabeth Addonizio, who had stepped down from the Ward 9 seat. At that meeting at the East Rock Global Magnet School, Lemar and developer Alex Marathas presented their case to fellow Democrats, who took a vote by ballot. The committee picked Lemar, who went on to be elected later that year with no opponents. Marathas threw his support behind his erstwhile opponent.
Lemar said he is stepping down this year because it’s not possible to do both jobs — alderman and state rep — at once. He said he chose to step down in September — rather than after he’s officially elected as state rep — so that the election for his successor can be timed to coincide with the general election that’s already planned for Nov. 2. That will save the city money and give his successor time to get ready for the city budget season, he said.
Lemar said he’s not taking sides in the Smith-Edelstein, he said. He called both of them strong candidates.
The convention to elect his successor will be co-chaired by Wessel and Diane Casella, who happens to be Smith’s sister.
Edelstein and Smith got to know each other while working on Lemar’s state representative campaign. They described themselves as “friends” and said they would support whoever wins the party’s endorsement at the convention.
The winner of that contest would likely be the next alderman, unless another candidate petitions to get on the ballot.
“I like Jane. We both have stuff to bring to the table,” Smith said. If either nominee faces an opponent, he said, “we will knock on doors for each other.”
DeStefano
Both candidates sought to identify themselves as neither fully supportive of, nor totally against Mayor John DeStefano.
Asked if they thought DeStefano has done a good job in New Haven in his 17 years in office, both gave a similar response, taking a bigger-picture view.
"I think the mayor has done a great job with New Haven over the years," Edelstein said. Much of the vision he laid out when elected in 1993—including reviving a blighted downtown—"came to fruition," she said. However, she said she believes strongly in checks and balances of executive power.
Smith agreed on both points: "In the '90s, [DeStefano] did an amazing job to push New Haven forward," he said.
"I don't agree with him on everything," he added," but "he's done a good job."
More puppets for King john.