Thomas MacMIllan Photo
Laurie Kennington (center) with Michael Boyd and Mary Thigpen.
Seeking to shift the “balance of power” in the city, Yale unions announced 15 official endorsements in this year’s heated aldermanic elections.
Locals 34 and 35 UNITE HERE, which represent Yale clerical, technical, service, and maintenance workers, are endorsing the 15 candidates for seats on the Board of Aldermen in advance of the Democratic primary on Sept. 13.
It may be the largest group of endorsements the unions have ever made, said president Local 34 President Laurie Kennington.
The endorsements come during a campaign year with an unprecedented number of union-afiliated candidates seeking aldermanic seats. Thursday’s endorsements include those candidates as well as other contenders who are not union members.
Kennington and 10 other members of the 34 and 35 executive boards gathered in a second-floor conference room at the New Haven Public Library Thursday to unveil the endorsements. She said the unions will now “do everything we can” to see them take office.
Kennington said the unions don’t have specific legislation they’d like to see passed. They’re simply looking for people who will bring “neighborhood voices” to City Hall, and install independent aldermen to shift power away from the city’s powerful executive branch.
“There is obviously a crisis in our city right now,” Kennington said: crises involving jobs, youth, and violence.
To illustrate that point, several union officials shared their personal stories.
Barbara Vereen, Jess Corbett, and Luz Vega (left to right).
Barbara Vereen, an organizer for the union, said she had to call her son four times while he was away at school at Hofstra to tell him that friends of his had fallen victim to gun violence. “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” she said.
Jess Corbett and Luz Vega said his brother and her husband have been unable to find work. Vega said she lost her home a year ago to foreclosure. Michael Boyd said he’s worried about the lack of positive activities available for his 16-year-old son.
If “neighborhood activists” are going to defeat candidates working with the established Democratic “machine” in the city, they’re going to need organizers, Kennington said.
“In our city, there’s a very heavy executive” branch, she said. The unions are endorsing candidates who will ensure that more voices are heard, she said. She said she is “reluctant to give specific examples” of instances when the powerful DeStefano administration has not listened to or suppressed other voices, since different aldermanic candidates have different stances on issues.
DeStefano campaign manager Danny Kedem had this to say about Kennington’s comments: “Whether its standing up with UNITE HERE in helping organize the Omni or fighting along side SEIU to ensure a place for labor at Yale New Haven Hospital, Mayor DeStefano is proud of his career as a happy warrior for the rights of workers. He believes that the city needs strong, vibrant partnerships in order to invest in our priorities such as getting illegal guns and drugs off the street, creating jobs, and getting our kids into college.”
Asked why the union hasn’t endorsed anyone in the mayoral race, Maureen Malone Jones of Local 34, said, “It’s not about the mayor. It’s about having a Board of Aldermen with newer voices.”
As for specifics of how the unions will work to put their endorsed candidates in office, Kennington said some union members are already volunteering for the campaigns. Members will also simply be talking to people around them about the candidates and why they’re voting for them.
And the unions will make sure voters turn out to the polls on Sept. 13. “We make sure our people get out and vote,” said Boyd.
Unions may also help raise money for the candidates, but that hasn’t started, Kennington said. “Honestly a lot of that hasn’t even begun yet.”
The endorsed candidates are:
Ward 2: Frank Douglass
Ward 3: Jacqueline Evans
Ward 6: Dolores Colon
Ward 9: Jessica Holmes
Ward 13: Brenda D. Jones Barnes
Ward 18: Sarah Saiano
Ward 20: Delphine Clyburn
Ward 21: Brenda Foskey-Cyrus
Ward 22: Jeanette Morrison
Ward 23: Tyisha Walker
Ward 24: Evette Hamilton
Ward 25: Adam Marchand
Ward 27: Angela Russell
Ward 28: Claudette Robinson-Thorpe
Ward 29: Brian Wingate
Vereen said the unions decided endorsements by inviting candidates to speak with a political committee.
The unions didn’t endorse candidates in the Wards 1 and 11 races because they don’t have primaries. In Ward 14, multiple candidates are running and the unions haven’t settled on one, Kennington said.
In Ward 23, the unions are endorsing Tyisha Walker even though she’s running unopposed in the primary. “We endorsed her before she was unopposed,” Kennington explained.
Not all of the candidates running in Ward 30, Carlton Staggers and incumbent Darnell Goldson, responded, so the unions have not made an endorsement in that ward, she said.
The endorsed candidates in Wards 3, 6, 23, and 28 have also been endorsed by the Democratic town committee.