Melissa Bailey Photo
As two simultaneous contests to fill a power gap commenced in Dwight, the race focused on who will bring a strong, independent voice to a neighborhood hit hard by violence.
Democrats in Ward 2, which covers Dwight/Kensington as well as a sliver of Dixwell, are scrambling to fill a void left by Gina Calder, who resigned as alderwoman on July 1, before the end of her term but one day too late to allow a new election.
At a meeting Wednesday night at the St. Martin De Porres Church on Dixwell, two dozen neighborhood Democrats met to make a short-term decision. They picked three names to submit to the mayor, who will choose one to serve as alderman for the rest of this year. The three are Greg Smith and Frank “Junny” Douglass, Jr., the two ward committee co-chairs (pictured above, from left), and Yale student Rachel Payne. Smith and Payne said they’re looking only to fill the seat short-term.
Meanwhile, two candidates have emerged for a separate battle over who will get the job for the full, two-year term that starts in January. Voters will head to the polls to consider that question at a Sept. 13 Democratic primary, followed by a Nov. 8 election.
Doug Bethea (pictured), a street outreach worker and longtime drill team leader, announced he’s throwing his hat in for the primary, where he’ll face what promises to be a spirited challenge against Douglass.
In interviews Wednesday, both sought to identify themselves as independent, grassroots candidates who’ll demand better resources for their neighborhood.
Like candidates across town in a busy election year, they both focused on local issues of crime and jobs. Their match-up mirrors a bunch of others in a second way: It may shape up as a contest between a supporter for City Hall and a candidate backed by local unions looking to establish a broader power base on the city’s legislative body. Douglass, a member of his Yale union executive board, has received a swell of campaign support from union activists in previous elections. Bethea said Thursday he believes the mayor is “doing a helluva job” leading the city; he got early support from Carlos Eyzaguirre, a seasoned vote-puller for Democrats who support the mayor.
Bethea, who’s 41, said he was motivated to run this year because he’s had enough with the black-on-black violence that is tearing his community apart. He has been confronting that problem every day in his work as a street outreach worker in the Dwight/Kensington and Dixwell area. The program, launched by Mayor John DeStefano, is run with city funds through a contractor, New Haven Family Alliance.
Long before he took that job, Bethea was mentoring Dixwell kids through the award-winning drill team he’s run for the past 22 years, Nation Drill Squad and Drum Corp.
His mission intensified after he lost his own son, Scotty, to gun violence in 2006. Bethea said he was hit hard again last month by the death of Donell Allick, whom he had coached in basketball years ago.
“That’s the main thing” behind the campaign, Bethea said: “for the kids to stop killing each other.” He said as alderman, he’ll have better connections to get kids jobs and services so they can to stay out of trouble.
“I need to get downtown as an alderman to get these young men some resources,” Bethea said.
Bethea said DeStefano is running the city well given the tough economic times. “We need to stop blaming City Hall” about youth violence in the black community. “We have to step up and say this is our problem.”
In his campaign, he’s seeking to run as an independent voice.
Bethea said he’s not interested in becoming DeStefano’s hand-picked aldermanic appointee — so he didn’t even bother offering his name up to be considered for the short-term appointment to fill out Calder’s term.
“The mayor can pick whoever he wants to pick,” Bethea said.
“I want to run” in an election, he said. He said no one asked him to do so: “I decided this on my own.”
Bethea said he’ll be running on the strength of his relationships in the neighborhood and his track record of hands-on community work. When he’s not leading hours-long drill team practices, he coaches basketball, serves as a community mediator, organizes stop-the-violence cookouts and gives out Thanksgiving turkeys.
He said that type of work is what an alderman should do.
“I believe an alderman should be hands on. We don’t need somebody who’s just going to sit in City Hall,” he said. Bethea said an alderman should field calls from the hungry and mentor kids who are on the wrong path. “An alderman should be able to identify the troubled kids in the community” and “be willing to talk to them face-to-face.”
Bethea, who grew up in the Elm Haven projects, lives at 200 Goffe St., on the sliver of Dixwell that’s included in Ward 2.
Douglass lives on the other side of the ward at 570 Elm St. in Dwight.
Douglass, who’s 58, put his name on the political map when he ran against Alderwoman Calder four years ago. A chef at Yale’s Trumbull College dining hall, he stays active in his labor union as a member of UNITE HERE Local 35’s executive board. His race made Dwight a battleground for Democratic machine and labor union forces. He lost that race by a mere 28 votes.
Douglass ran for office again in 2010, this time winning election alongside Smith as co-chairs of the Democratic ward committee, an arm of the local Democratic Party. He vowed to open up a “private club” and restore democracy to the ward.
On Wednesday he said he was moved to run for alderman again because his neighborhood is not adequately represented on the Board of Aldermen.
“I just feel there’s a need for some strong leadership in this community,” Douglass said. “In the past, people seemed to take this kind of lightly, and leave us hanging.”
Both Bethea and Douglass mentioned a need to go through the budget and examine why more resources aren’t available in Dwight and Dixwell.
“Where’s the money going?” Douglass asked.
He said there’s a feeling that more money is going to downtown development than to help a neighborhood where kids need more jobs and summer activities. Douglass called for more schools to be open in the summer to give kids a safe place to go.
He said he’d like to focus on “democracy and transparency.”
To that end, he and Smith opened up the door Wednesday to anyone interested in putting their names to submit to the mayor for the temporary aldermanic gig. Smith nominated Douglass, and Douglass nominated Smith.
The third nominee was Rachel Payne (pictured), who just finished her junior year at Yale. Payne, who’s 22, lives on Dwight Street. She said she met Douglass in the Trumbull dining hall where he works, as part of a summer job. She said she’s a summer intern for UNITE HERE, documenting leadership roles that dining hall workers are taking on in effort to promote sustainability at Yale.
Payne said she got into local politics because “I’m interested in the role that students can play in making the Board of Aldermen strong and independent.”
Matthew Brokman, an AFSCME representative and Dwight Street resident, oversaw the nominations. He called three times for any other interested candidates. None came forward, so there was no need to use the ballot box (pictured) that had been brought in case of a vote. All three names will be submitted to the mayor for the temporary aldermanic appointment.
After the vote, Payne stepped up to make a clarification: “I’m not going to be running in the primary,” she told the group. “I strongly support Frank’s run.”
Smith later echoed her remarks.
“I don’t anticipate running” in the primary or general election, he said. He put his name forward “to make sure Ward 2 has a voice” for the next six months.