Melissa Bailey Photo
Two block watch captains from East Rock and Wooster Square are throwing their hats in a local political race — and setting a challenge for the ward committee to expand its scope.
Lisa Siedlarz and Karri Brady (pictured, right to left) filed papers Thursday morning as candidates for co-chair of the Democratic ward committee in Ward 8. The ward committee is the smallest unit of the local Democratic Party. Its main purpose is to endorse candidates for alderman. (Click here to read more about the group’s role in democracy.)
Siedlarz and Brady will face off against the reigning co-chairs, Chris Randall and Carmen Rodriguez, in an election on March 2. Only Democrats can vote.
Candidates have to petition to get on the ballot before Jan. 27. The two pairs filed petitions with their signatures within 20 minutes of each other Thursday morning, according to Democratic Town Committee Chairwoman Susie Voigt.
Voigt praised the women’s quest to “reinvigorate” the ward committee.
Siedlarz and Brady said they’d like to take the ward committee beyond its traditional role, which is to endorse candidates for aldermen. They said they’d like to start organizing Democrats around events like tree plantings and outdoor movie nights, as they’ve done in their own immediate neighborhoods. Siedlarz’s candidacy also brings a voice to the sliver of East Rock that’s cut off from the rest of Ward 8. There hasn’t been a Ward 8 co-chair from East Rock since Will Clark stepped down six years ago.
Ward 8 Alderman Mike Smart said he’s supporting his two co-chairs in the race.
Siedlarz and Brady announced their candidacy Tuesday night to a room of 25 neighbors gathered for a meeting of the SoHu block watch in East Rock.
The candidates are running in one of the city’s most diverse wards. The last redistricting in 2002 gave the ward a peculiar shape. It includes a few streets in East Rock, a few streets in Fair Haven, a chunk of Wooster Square, and the Farnam Courts housing projects off of Grand Avenue. (Click here to see the boundaries.)
For Siedlarz (pictured), the odd ward’s makeup left the East Rock segment in an isolated spot. East Rockers in Ward 8 often reach out to Ward 9 or 10 aldermen, partly because the boundaries are so peculiar. Ward 8 includes parts of Clark, Humphrey, Bishop and Siedlarz’s home street, Pearl. She said she hadn’t met her alderman until she organized the SoHu block watch in October 2007.
SoHu stands for “South of Humphrey.” It covers Clark, Pearl and Pleasant Streets, quiet rows of homes bounded by Orange and State Streets. Since its inception, SoHu has planted trees, run evening walking patrols in the wake of muggings, hosted outdoor movies, and held fundraisers for police dogs. The group has grown to be one of the most active and largest block watches in the city.
SoHu reached out to Alderman Smart, who now comes to meetings regularly. He was instrumental in getting Clark Street repaved last year, they said.
Being organized amplified the neighborhood’s voice, Siedlarz said.
“We weren’t thought of as part of Ward 8 until SoHu,” she said.
As part of her political emergence, Siedlarz joined the ward committee. She said she’d like to expand her work with SoHu on a wider scale across the ward, so others can strengthen their neighborhoods by getting to know each other.
“I’d like to see more involvement of [all] the neighborhood,” she said.
Brady, who just moved here two years ago from New York City to take a job in the development office at Yale, recounted how the two met. Brady lives on Court Street in Wooster Square, where she got a block watch going after a spate of muggings. At the suggestion of the police department’s block watch coordinator, she got in touch with Siedlarz. They connected and shared ideas. Now Brady’s block watch is as big as and as active as SoHu, Siedlarz said.
Brady said she’d like to “keep the energy going” on the ward committee level.
Randall (pictured) said his ward committee does have energy — they meet eight times per year and have signed up “a few hundred” new voters over the past six years.
He said the current political leadership reflects the diversity of the ward. Randall, who lives on Lyon Street, is Caucasian. He’s known around town for his work in the community garden and as president of the board of directors of the New Haven Land Trust. Rodriguez, his co-chair, is Latina. She works at a non-profit that provides housing assistance, he said. Both live in the Wooster Square area. Alderman Smart, who’s African-American, has strong support in Farnam Courts.
“We’re diversified like the ward is diversified,” said Randall.
Randall supported Smart when he first got elected in 2003. He’s been co-chair for six years. Rodriguez has served for four. Both are Smart supporters.
Siedlarz and Brady declined to say whom they’d support for alderman when primaries roll around again next year. They said it’s too early to say.
Smart said he plans to campaign on behalf of his co-chairs. They’ve done a good job getting out the vote, and they’re “a diverse ticket,” he said. The ward committee comprises 50 people, with at least two people from each street in the ward, he said.
“We represent people from all backgrounds,” said Smart.
Chairwoman Voigt said she’s not involved in the race, but is encouraged by Siedlarz and Brady’s enthusiasm. A few ward committees organize extra-political events like Easter egg hunts and cookouts, but most stick to the task of endorsing candidates, she said. She said the women’s new outlook might be emblematic of a trend that began with President Obama’s election.
“It’s an interesting moment for the Democratic Party,” she said. New faces are emerging in politics, and people are seeing political organizing as community organizing, too, she said.
“After Obama’s election, there are people out there who see it differently now.”