Green AG candidate Krayeske with Veronica Douglas Tuesday.
He talked about electric cargo bikes, being new neighbors in Fair Haven Heights, and how people in positions of power must be more compassionate and be held accountable.
All of that — delivered on a cool, sunny Tuesday morning on Lexington Avenue — got Green Party attorney general hopeful and recent New Haven transplant Ken Krayeske Larry Ardigliano’s vote on Election Day.
The successful exchange occurred at Krayeske’s polling place, the Benjamin Jepson School at 15 Lexington Ave., where the candidate had ridden on his spiffy yellow electric cargo bike to meet the folks and to solicit votes.
Krayeske said he plans in the near future to move his now Hartford-based law practice to the Elm City. He’s there in part because the majority of Krayeske’s clients are state prisoners.
His aim outside of the Fair Haven Heights polling place Tuesday morning was as much to meet his neighbors as to garner votes in his long-shot attempt as the Green Party’s candidate to replace Democratic Party incumbent William Tong as the state’s attorney general.
Casually but effectively mixing the neighbor and policy messages, Krayeske made his case to Jose Maysonet. “I’m Ken Krayeske, running for attorney general on the Green Party. More importantly, I’m your neighbor.”
The candidate (right) with neighbor Jose Maysonet.
Then switching into fluent Spanish, he added (in the candidate’s translation): “The reason I’m running is I don’t like the way the current attorney general does business.”
Then Krayeske reprised for Maysonet a representative case in which the ultimate ruling compelled the state of Connecticut to test 20,000 inmates for hepatitis. (Click here to read more about that and other of his cases in Krayeske’s interview with the Independent). “The corollary benefit is that it helped to close the Northern Correctional Institution, which was a brutal place.”
Krayeske’s Spanish comes from a year spent in Spain as a Syracuse University undergraduate and also through his wife, who is Puerto Rican. Krayeske and Maysonet chatted, in more Spanish, about where his wife’s family hails from and where Maysonet’s family lives on the island.
Still, when Maysonet excused himself to vote, he wouldn’t tell a nosy reporter if the candidate had convinced him to vote the Green line for attorney general.
“It helps I speak Spanish,” said Krayeske, “And I know Puertoricanisms” through his wife.
A few minutes later, when he noticed Larry Ardigliano approaching wearing a bright lemon-colored bicycle helmet, Krayeske introduced himself and added, “I rode that awesome electric cargo bike. We just moved here. I’m running for attorney general and I do civil rights law.”
After a few words on the pleasure of riding bikes along the Quinnipiac and the Mill rivers and when Ardigliano expressed interest in the type of law Krayeske practices, the candidate went to the heart of his pitch: “I’m running because I don’t like the job William Tong is doing in holding his lawyers to account. We can exert state power with compassion. And the state can admit when it makes mistakes.
“But why doesn’t the state admit wrongdoing?” Ardigliano pressed Krayeske.
“Because if the state admits wrongdoing” instead of fighting each such allegation, he argued, “then it has to approach change. Women should not be raped in the state’s prisons. They shouldn’t have to give birth on a toilet. The attorneys I fought against were mean. This is the 21st century in America. That’s why I’m running, but I’m also here to meet my neighbors.”
Moments later when Ardigliano emerged from the Jepson lobby voting area, he said, “Holding people in positions of power accountable. That’s one of our biggest problems. He got my vote.”
Krayeske (right) with Larry Ardigliano.
He also got Maysonet’s vote.
Krayeske didn’t spend any money on his own campaign, he said. Instead, he gave what was available in his budget, he said, to the local diaper bank.
“Why should I spend money on what amounts to info warfare! Why make the media companies rich! Why are Lamont and Stefanowski spending millions when so many babies have diaper rash. This is why William Tong didn’t want to debate me. I’d have spanked him.”
As Krayeske mounted his bike, this reporter asked him what, on this election day, his next campaign stop would be.
It turns out this was his only one.
“I’m a lawyer, I’m going home. I’ve got briefs to write.”
Demarlo Allen with Winter outside King/Robinson polls: Is early voting safe?
Boosting electoral reform, with the help of stickers.
“If democracy isn’t accessible, it isn’t really democracy.”
With those words of caution — and with plenty of democracy-boosting stickers and flyers and lawn signs to boot — Steve Winter made an Election Day pitch to fellow Newhallville residents to vote yes for early voting.
Mayor Elicker (second from left) and Town Chair Vincent Mauro Jr. (far right) with entire statewide Democratic slate at BAR Monday evening.
Top Democrats from across Connecticut descended on a Crown Street pizzeria the night before Election Day to make their final case to voters in the “political capital of the state” that their party is the one to trust to protect democracy for the long term.
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Nora Grace-Flood and Thomas Breen |
Nov 3, 2022 6:46 pm
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Ray Pantalena: On track for recreational sales, thanks to Wednesday City Plan Commission vote.
Jordan Ashby Photo
Kebra Smith-Bolden: On track for cultivator license, thanks to Tuesday Social Equity Council vote.
A medical marijuana pharmacist is set to roll recreational bud and edibles onto Whalley Avenue as soon as December — after getting approved for the city’s first ever adult-use cannabis business special permit.
And another leading local cannabis entrepreneur has won a key vote of support from a state council to build out her own “social equity” cultivation and retail ventures.
The deadly Ella T. Graso-Columbus-Davenport-Orange Avenue intersection.
As another pedestrian death reminded New Haven of the perils of walking on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, plans to make that state-owned roadway safer have been pushed back yet again.
The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven has landed a $7.2 million state grant to help boost small businesses run by Black, Hispanic, women and immigrant entrepreneurs.
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Maya McFadden |
Oct 26, 2022 10:34 am
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Supt. Tracey: 181 school days required by the state.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) students may have to attend an extra day of classes this academic year to make up for a calendar mishap by district staff that saw one-too-few school days last year.
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Thomas Breen |
Oct 21, 2022 4:11 pm
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Patient care tech Jonysah Bouknight at Friday's presser.
Jonysah Bouknight was finishing up giving one patient a “bed bath” when she heard a loud noise — and quickly learned that another patient was having a stroke.
She took a deep breath, collected herself, and jumped into action, making sure the patients got the care they needed without letting the stress of her job completely overwhelm her.
Would letting people cast ballots earlier make the voting process easier? Or harder?
The two major-party candidates vying to become the state’s top elections official split on that issue — and on broader issues of how voting should work.
Institute Library Executive Director Jan Swiatek won’t have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning for much longer to worry about rain pouring through the historic Chapel Street bookspace’s roof — thanks to a major renovation-funding grant approved by the state.
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Thomas Breen |
Oct 18, 2022 1:00 pm
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A Connecticut-wide coalition of child care providers and advocates has stepped up its call for state government to increase funding for an industry in “crisis” because the demand from families far exceeds the supply of educators.
(Opinion) Politicians are planning — or praying? — for fiscal rain. Frontier now has free rein to prey on fiber-optic high-speed internet customers thanks to a labor double cross. And New Haven is praying for a respected veteran cop who got shot on duty.
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Kevin Maloney |
Oct 4, 2022 8:27 am
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Applying for federal money can be a complicated business. Mark Boughton has some ideas up his sleeve.
In his role as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services, he is charged with making sure that Connecticut’s towns and cities have the best chance at Infrastructure Investment and Job Acts (IIJA) monies for infrastructure projects across the state. He discussed the transformative implications on the Municipal Voice, a co-production of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and WNHH 103.5 FM.
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Thomas Breen |
Oct 3, 2022 12:18 pm
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Marc Criscio: Application submitted for heating help.
Approps Chair DeLauro: "As long as I have the gavel and pen, we're going to increase funding in this area."
Low-income Connecticut residents like Marc Criscio who need help covering their heating bills this winter can now tap into a state energy assistance program newly infused with an extra $20 million.
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Thomas Breen |
Sep 30, 2022 11:59 am
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Cutting the ribbon on the rehabbed Ferry St. bridge.
Construction crews wrap up work before bridge's official reopening.
Cars and trucks looking to cross between Fair Haven and Cedar Hill can use the Ferry Street bridge again, now that the state has wrapped up a $3 million rehab of a span that has been closed to traffic for the last five months.
Bob Stefanowski has a strategy for turning around the momentum in the home stretch of the governor’s race: keep talking about parents’ rights and crime and inflation.
Winfield at Canal Dock campaign event: "Hungry" for representation.
Gary Winfield upped the ante at a “Black the Vote” campaign rally for the statewide Democratic slate — by urging the party to think beyond 2022 to envision a Black governor.
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Thomas Breen |
Sep 28, 2022 11:38 am
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Wednesday's Chamber of Commerce-hosted candidate forum.
New Haven and Hamden Democratic state lawmakers threw their support behind fiscal “discipline” and recession preparedness when faced with a question that will likely dominate this year’s legislative session.
That is: What to do with Connecticut’s record budget surpluses?
Attorney general candidate Ken Krayeske at WNHH FM.
Ken Krayeske is asking voters to elect him the next state attorney general so he can settle cases with civil-rights attorneys like himself who file lawsuits on behalf of brutalized prisoners.
