A newcomer to the political scene is challenging one of the city’s longest-serving aldermen, Liz McCormack.
In a race that somewhat mirrors last year’s presidential election, Edgewood resident and city Development Commissioner Marcus Paca (pictured) will announce later this week that he is challenging 11-term McCormack for the Ward 24 aldermanic seat in a Democratic Part primary, he told the Independent Monday. See a map of the ward here.
Paca took out papers March 31 to run for the seat.
It’s one of at least two primaries brewing this season on the west side of town. Frank Douglass, who narrowly lost to Gina Calder two years ago for the Ward 2 seat in Dwight, is mounting a renewed challenge.
Paca, a strong backer of the mayor, said the Edgewood ward needs a change after having the same alderwoman for more than two decades. McCormack responded that she has successfully represented her constituents and has the benefit of decades of experience and working for them.
Paca said the election of Barack Obama inspired him to run. “I ran two voter drives last year and I found between 70 and 80 percent” of the 124 people that signed up were between 18 and 25 years of age. For the first time in their lives, they felt enthused about the democratic process, he said.
“I want to exploit that,” he said. “They had gone away to school and come back and want a voice” in running their city.
Paca, 31, is an n account executive for One Communications, a national systems company with an office in North Haven. He graduated from Hampton University in Virginia and earned his Master’s of Business Administration from Southern Connecticut State University. He also is a graduate of the city’s Democracy School in which a small number of volunteers are taken through a course in New Haven government. He has a son, Zoren.
McCormack was first elected to the Board of Aldermen in 1987 as part of a wave of women gaining seats, including now State Sen. Toni Harp and Elaine Braffman. She is well-liked in her ward, a diverse stretch of Edgewood stretching from the park to teh Sherman Avenue area.
One influential vote-puller in the neighborhood, activist Eliezer Greer, said he’s sticking with McCormack in this campaign. “She has done two decades of selfless service,” he said. “She has put every constituent and voter before herself.”
Although nobody had anything negative to say about McCormack, many said they didn’t know who their alder was and didn’t know how to contact that person, Paca recalled of his experience canvassing for Obama.
McCormack (pictured) said if people didn’t know how to contact her, it wasn’t because she didn’t reach out to them.
“Everyone who registers to vote gets a letter from me,” she said. “There were a lot of new voters from the last election and I contacted every one of them.”
“I think I am going to bring a sense of urgency and the ability to compromise” to the Board of Aldermen, Paca said. “This isn’t about fighting against Liz. At the end of the day, when you walk around the community, they are telling me that they haven’t seen her in years. Is a letter enough? I want to build on the excitement that the federal election has begun. It’s up to us to keep it going on a local level.“I want to get out there talking to the people, bringing people to City Hall,” he said.
He said he meant that literally: he would bring constituents with him to board meetings to make sure he does their bidding.
“One of main reasons I’m running is because of the dramatic change in demographics” in the Edgewood area in general and the 24th Ward in particular. “There is more of a mixture racially, stronger constituency in Hispanics, African and white community, a change in age demographics” that McCormack does not represent, he said.
McCormack, who chairs the Aldermanic Affairs Committee, said she “kind of doesn’t think along those lines. People are people. I look at how I can help you.”
Some of that help, she said, was in the fight against a laundromat proposed for the space between Walgreens and Dunkin’ Donuts at Whalley and the Boulevard, passed by the Zoning Board of Appeals but now being fought in court.
“We have two laundromats within two blocks that could be forced out of business if this is built,” she said. “This was a group effort of people working together,
I like to help people. I can’t always give them the answer they want.”
She said she was able to stop development of a four-story building at Whalley and Ellsworth avenues in the late 1980s and push the developer so that he “designed a building for our neighborhood.” He was only able to build a structure that complied with zoning and planning regulations in renovating the building that had been a fire-damaged hulk.
McCormack said she serves her constituents in ways that don’t generate publicity, such as notifying them if the Zoning Board of Appeals is considering an appeal that might impact them or their property.
In The Mayor’s Corner
Paca said his goal is to help small and minority-owned businesses succeed in the city. To that end, he said, he lobbied to be on the Development Commission, to which he was appointed by Mayor John DeStefano Jr. in January.
Paca said he has “a lot of of respect for John DeStefano. He has good vision for New Haven.” Paca said he wants to help “the mayor make the right decisions” but “I am not looking at being a rubber stamp with the mayor. It is important to work with him.”