An Election Goes Awry In The Hill

There was only one item on the Hill North community management team meeting agenda: electing new officers.

That proved more than enough to occupy the group for hours, after members alleged voter disenfranchisement by way of poorly-worded bylaws.

The atmosphere was tense as the cafeteria of the Career Regional High School filled with a crowd of around 30 for the meeting, which was held Tuesday night.

Two hours later, the room disbanded, with no set executive committee for the coming year — just a slate of interim leaders charged with fixing the bylaws.

The management team was supposed to have elected new officers in its joint July meeting with the Hill South team, but a poor showing of members led the group to delay the election until after the summer recess.

More than one member of the team noted that it wasn’t just a title at stake Tuesday night. With developments in the pipeline like a $100 million plant to remake a stretch of the Hill and another to rebuild Church Street South, the Hill North community management team— one of ten such neighborhood-based teams around the city that often serve as first-stop venues of grassroots democracy for city issues — is positioned to have a say.

Which meant leadership candidates were eager to get started.

Management team member Dawn Bliesener pointed out that the management team had no officers between July and October: ​“There’s nothing going on,” she said, taking charge. ​“We’ve already lost five months. I would like to open the floor.”

“Where’s the person supposed to be presiding over this meeting?” asked outgoing Vice-Chair Ohan Karagozian (pictured).

Outgoing secretary Dawn Gibson-Brehon — the only member of the former team leadership whose term had been extended to Tuesday night for the sake of running the election — rushed into the cafeteria with an armful of papers, bylaws and ballots she had printed out for the occasion.

“Due Time to Better the Hill”

Gibson-Brehon handed out the bylaws, established April 2015 by outgoing leadership. She explained that there were five executive committee positions up for grabs: chair, vice-chair, secretary, assistant secretary and treasurer. She admitted that she wasn’t sure why the treasurer position was available, given that the management team doesn’t have a bank account, and that the assistant secretary position had never been filled during her tenure as secretary.

Gibson-Brehon noted that outgoing Chairperson Lena Largie was out of the country for a family matter but was interested in continuing her tenure, adding: ​“Anybody else?”

Dawn Bliesener rose, declaring herself. In her three-minute campaign speech, Bliesener touted her role as a member of the ​“Hill-to-Downtown” steering committee, citing the need for leadership as the Hill figures out how best to direct funds for development in the neighborhood.

The third candidate, Ron Hurt, kept his message simple — citing a concern with the neighborhood’s high unemployment rate.

“You work with me, and I’ll definitely do work with you,” he said. ​“Teamwork makes the dream work.”

A final candidate, Harold Boyd, told the team that his focus was on crime, housing and ​“keeping the neighborhood clean,” adding that it was ​“due time to better the Hill.”

Gibson-Brehon then asked for vice-chair candidates. No one volunteered.

“Aw man,” she said. ​“You guys!”

“Too Bad, So Sad”

Residents, turning to the printed bylaws in their hands, dug in their heels, asking: How could only Ward 3 residents vote if the management team also represents Ward 4?

Gibson-Brehon tried to move the election forward by sticking with the bylaws, which stipulate that only Ward 3 residents who had attended four meetings in the last year could vote, she maintained.

Anne Boyd — mother of Harold Boyd — stood up.

“This election is based on inaccurate bylaws,” she said. ​“I’ll seek legal representation because I know it’s wrong.”

“Do it,” Bilesener challenged.

“That’s not the way it was meant,” Gibson-Brehon said against the accusations of the bylaws being discriminatory.

Alexandra Nofi — Bilesener’s daughter — pointed out that the bylaws had been around for awhile, so why hadn’t anyone bothered to bring up this issue before?

“Too bad, so sad,” she said. ​“You have to move on. You can’t just change things willy-nilly because some people had a revelation.”

Finally, team member Radu Radulescu interjected with a compromise: why not vote people into interim positions lasting until the end of the calendar year to fix the bylaws?

Gibson-Brehon made a successful motion to do so, allowing the election to move forward.

Factions Emerge

The vice-chair race was still empty. Hurt nominated outgoing Vice-Chair Ohan Karagozian, who declined for reasons he later revealed included a reluctance to work with Bilesener, he said.

Hurt tried again: Howard Boyd? This time, Boyd accepted the nomination, now in the running for both chair and vice-chair.

Treasurer and assistant secretary remained vacant. Bilesener declined a nomination for secretary, leaving only Ann Boyd in the running for Gibson-Brehon’s position.

Gibson-Brehon finally directed members to fill out their ballots, adding that they should write their addresses at the top. She and Andrew Orefice of Yale-New Haven Hospital’s community relations program collected the ballots and retired to a corner of the cafeteria to count votes and make sure all voters were residents of either Wards 3 or 4.

They returned, minutes later, to observe: The chair race was a tie between Hurt and Harold Boyd.

But there were three votes tied to addresses not in the jurisdiction Gibson-Brehon had set.

The team opted to count the last three votes, meaning that Boyd had won.

As Bilesener exited the cafeteria, Hurt agreed to serve as vice-chair thanks to some write-in votes (even though Harold Boyd, the sole person in the running for the second-in-command, also swept that position), while Ann Boyd won secretary, uncontested.

Before the crowd could disperse, team members asked to set a date for the special December meeting to fix the bylaws, so that the annual joint Hill North-Hill South holiday party wouldn’t be disrupted. Gibson-Brehon noted that the new leadership could figure out their own timeline.

In the aftermath, peace-maker Radulescu observed that he participated the election as uninformed voter, saying he didn’t know the candidates or what the positions consisted of.

Both Hurt and Harold Boyd observed that the bylaws were their first priority, alongside tackling larger issues in the neighborhood.

“I think it came out better than I expected,” Karagozian mused.