Will A Park Win Votes?

This lot on Birch Drive is one of the reasons that Sergio Rodriguez says he deserves a fifth term as alderman.

In announcing his re-election bid Monday night, Sergio Rodriguez highlighted a series of infrastructure improvements he has helped bring about in the 26th Ward, in upper Westville.

For evidence, he pointed no farther than across the street from the Birch Drive home where he made his announcement. A little park is beginning to take shape at the corner of Birch Drive and Ray Road on a wooded lot that backs up to the Yale Golf Course. The park will include several benches, a table or two with chess boards, and maybe even a fountain and lights.

The corner had become an ​“eyesore,” said Darrell Brooks, a New Haven firefighter who has lived in the neighborhood for 13 years and is co-chairing Rodriguez’s reelection campaign. Rodriguez has been ​“working with the neighborhood in organizing that clean-up,” said Brooks, who was among about 30 people gathered at the home of Simon and Annie Ngongi on a muggy evening for Rodriguez’s announcement.

Rodriguez faces a challenger in the Sept. 13 Democratic primary, Darryl Brackeen Jr., who has criticized Rodriguez, 61, for being out of touch. The 22-year-old youth organizer at his church announced his candidacy June 9, charging the sitting alderman with being inattentive to constituents’ needs.

Rodriguez seemed determined to prove Brackeen wrong. Along with the Birch Drive park, he cited several other improvements to the hilly streets that stretch through his upper Westville ward: new trees on Edgewood Way, the paving of Fountain Terrace, and speed bumps on Vista Terrace.

Rodriguez said the bumps, which do not go all the way to the curb, need to be extended. Drivers were maneuvering around the bumps. ​“We have to make it so there is no way you can escape the bumps,” Rodriguez said. He said he would work on additional traffic-calming in the ward, including changes to Fountain Terrace where cars sometimes zoom down the hill.

During Rodriguez’s announcement, supporters chimed in with other infrastructure projects for which Rodriguez had lobbied. Patricia McGill said her mother, Francis, who lived in the ward for 40 years, had tried to get sidewalks on Forest Road. After her mother died, McGill, who also lives in the ward, took her up mission. McGill said she finally succeeded with Rodriguez’s help. ​“We got sidewalks on Forest Road and the area has changed immensely,” she said.

Rodriguez said he hopes the chorus of satisfied constituents will help stifle Brackeen’s challenge, which has been aided by videos posted on Youtube and Facebook.

Susan Voigt, chair of the New Haven Democratic Town Committee, showed up at the announcement to support Rodriguez in his primary race. ​“I hope in the month of August to walk some blocks with you,” Voigt told the group.

Four aldermen also showed up to support Rodriguez: Jorge Perez of the Hill, Charles Blango of Newhallville, Claudette Robinson-Thorpe of Beaver Hills and Darnell Goldson of West Rock. Unlike some other competitive aldermanic races in town — which are pitting supporters of City Hall and the Democratic Party establishment against union-backed City Hall critics — this one appears to cut across factional divides. Voigt is on one side of many of those other races, for instances, while Goldson and Robinson-Thorpe are on the other.

Rodriguez identified raising $1 million to start two youth-run businesses in the neighborhood as his most important priority in a fifth term. He would like to do it in conjunction with the city’s philanthropic groups, he said. ​“I know that a lot of the organizations are very exhausted,” he said, but if the local groups can’t contribute they might be able to direct him to ones that could.

In response to a question, Rodriguez weighed in on concerns over the city’s $44.5 million bond sale in the light of Moody’s Investor Services recent downgrading of its outlook on the city’s financial stability. The bond sale is scheduled for Wednesday. ​“We need to have a serious conversation” about future bonding, Rodriguez said. ​“I have not heard of any meeting scheduled but we will be asking for a meeting about the full impact [of the downgrade] and how the city is going to manage this.”