Poole Takes Campaign To Old Home Ground

Mayoral hopeful Seth Poole got his start in politics chairing the WEB (Whalley, Edgewood, Beaver Hill) community management team. He and his neighbors fought successfully to relocate the police firing range from Sherman Parkway — close to his beloved grandmother’s house — to its new location, well out of residential earshot.

A few weeks ago that grandmother died.

On Tuesday night at the regular monthly WEB meeting, still inspired by his grandmother’s concerns, Poole was back on friendly grounds to pitch his ideas and advance his independent campaign for mayor. He’s petitioning to have his name appear int he uanffiliated party column on the Nov. 5 mayoral election ballot.

A self-described fiscal conservative, Poole made smaller government at a campaign event two weeks ago at a fiscal-themed forum convened at the main library branch.

Hailing WEB management team stalwart Bob Caplan as his political mentor, Poole, who seemed to know personally half the room of 20 or so folks gathered at the police substation off of Whalley Avenue, reprised themes from his previous appearance and hit new ones.

We need to cut the fat, waste, and corruption in how the city runs, he declared.

Then he got personal.

The father of a 3‑year-old, Poole said his youngster ​“unfairly didn’t get placement through the [school] lottery system,” reprising a story he told a night earlier in Wooster Square.

“Things like this prompted me to throw my hat in. There are a lot of problems that are buried in the bureaucracy,” he said.

Citing the lead paint inspection crisis that continues mired in legal battles while kids are at risk, Poole strongly disagreed with the city’s approach.

“They’re directing litigation in the wrong direction,” he said. ​“Take the big picture. Lead and asbestos should be remediated with federal dollars, not the pittance we have for it now.”

Poole said he grew up in one of the first houses in town remediated of its lead paint under a government initiative.

“About 1972,” he said, ​“is when they stopped [using lead in paint]. Still, so many of New Haven’s old homes are still contaminated, with kids and families paying the price.” The responsibility is still the federal government’s to fund a fix, he contended.

“As New Haven is a city of many firsts, let’s be the first and go to the source to secure the dollars and hold them responsible,” he said.

Poole reiterated his theme that the city is over-policed, that we need fewer cops andt all of those should be above the age of 25. As a youth development professional, he said a main reason is that the brain does not finish developing until about that age, and guns should not be permitted in hands attached to not fully developed brains.

Longtime area resident Carol Martin pressed Poole on the chronic officer exodus from the city: ​“These cops are all leaving and running to Yale. What do we do?”

“We’ve got to pay them more,” Poole said, and also make sure that the insurance and other benefits are reasonable and attractive.

Martin asked about more summer programs for city kids, particularly the impressionable eight to 13-year-old age group, in which her grandkid falls.

“Yes,” replied Poole. ​“There’s a way to do that. There are so many nonprofits” in the city, he said. You just need to organize them and unleash them, but education bureaucracy sometimes makes that difficult, he argued.

Then he unloaded on the New Haven schools.

“‘Kids First’ is a lie. I can’t tell you how hard it is to get a flyer into the public schools. They’re blocking access for our young people. I intend to open that up.”

Bring On The Community Land Bank

WEB Chair Nadine Horton then asked Poole: ​“How would you bring mixed use and other development here, as opposed to downtown only?”

“Great question,” said Poole. Then he suggested a solution to large outside real estate entities picking up so many properties: community land banking. 

When an audience member asked for an explanation, Poole was not short of words: ​“Community land banking allows community people to purchase these properties. Municipalities have the power to seize properties, and remediate them, and sell them. But not to the highest bidder but, for example, to the person with the best idea. Then 50 percent of the taxes on the reused properties for the first five years go back to the [community] bank, so all the houses are in the hands of those who care for them.”

Poole’s audience rewarded his five-minute presentation with a half hour’s worth of questions.

Martin said she liked Poole’s ideas, although she was not necessarily converted to being a Poole voter. ​“I got to wait to hear from everyone,” she said, but she praised Poole for being a good listener.

“I’m an independent like Seth,” said Horton. ​“I’m very intrigued.”

So was Dr. Hana Ali, a 30-year-old psychiatric resident at the Yale Medical School. ​“He is persuasive as a candidate,” she said. ​“I want to learn more about his campaign,” she said and she engaged Poole in a conversation about the differing roles of poverty and culture in shaping people’s development.

“I’m interested ih community psychiatry and healing,” she said.

Poole said his appearance on his home ground, the WEB team meeting, was only his second visit to community groups, although many more are planned as he ramps up his candidacy. He had no flyers to distribute, he said, because he doesn’t believe in tearing down trees unnecessarily. He will produce some by next month, he said.

The next stops on the campaign: an interview with Juan Castillo on WYBC on Wednesday and lunch with the folks at the Bethel A.M.E. Church.