Elicker Administration Pitches 4‑Year Terms

“In New Haven, it seems like there’s an election basically every six months.”

City Chief of Staff Sean Matteson offered those words of endless-campaign caution as he and the city’s top attorney pressed for mayors and alders to see their terms in office bumped up from two to four years each.

Matteson and city Corporation Counsel Patricia King made that four-year-term pitch Thursday night during the latest meeting of the Charter Revision Commission. 

They also urged the commission members to recommend keeping the number of elected school board members at two, and therefore the number of mayoral appointed school board members at four.

The meeting took place in person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The Charter Revision Commission is charged with the once-a-decade responsibility of gathering testimony and issuing recommendations on how if at all to change the city’s foundational governing document. The commission will meet multiple times per month until mid-May, when it plans to send a report to the Board of Alders to review and vote on. The alders will then finalize a question, or multiple questions, about alterations to the charter that will appear on voters’ ballots in November.

King and Matteson appeared before the commissioners roughly a week after a public hearing at which attendees testified in support of four-year terms for mayor, two-year terms for alder, and more elected representatives on the seven-voting-member Board of Education.

The meeting also took place in the early months of a contested mayoral campaign year, in which Mayor Justin Elicker, a Democrat, is seeking a third two-year term. Democratic challengers Shafiq Abdussabur and Tom Goldenberg are seeking to win the party’s nomination in September’s primary, and fellow Democrat Liam Brennan is exploring a run for mayor. Wendy Hamilton is also running for mayor as an independent.

“Let’s move into a four-year term,” Matteson urged the commissioners on Thursday night. ​“I have some experience with various administrations [having worked for former Mayors John DeStefano and Toni Harp]. You get elected to lay out your agenda and you’re working on it to get about a year into it and then you’re right back into an election.” 

Matteson added that there is a slight economic benefit to extending the current two-year terms for both alders and mayor to four years. 

He argued that a four-year election cycle would lower publicly funded campaign costs, especially since most mayoral candidates participate in the city’s Democracy Fund.

King also said that extending the mayor’s term of office from two to four years would allow for more stability of leadership in the city, especially for department heads and other senior officials of city government who generally serve under one mayor and leave government once a new mayor is elected. 

“You know, taking a job with a two-year job security term is not always that attractive. So I think it would also help in terms of recruiting candidates to work in leadership positions,” King said. 

Commission member and Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow asked Matteson and King how changing the terms of office to four years each would compare to other cities in Connecticut. 

Matteson told Furlow that updating the terms would put New Haven on the same footing as most other cities in the state and allow for more stability and long term vision in city government. 

"Elections Are The Foundation Of Democracy"

King and Matteson also made their case to the commissioners that the current hybrid model for the Board of Education — which has seven voting members, two of whom are elected, four of whom are appointed by the mayor, and one of whom is the mayor himself — allows for democratic representation, the inclusion of educational experts in decisions, and accountability. 

During the first commission’s first public hearing earlier this month, the city’s teachers union put forward a proposal to increase the number of elected members to the school from two to four while lowering the number of members appointed by the mayor from four to two. They also called for the mayor to be stripped of his voting power on the school board. 

These changes, Matteson and King warned, would ​“have several drawbacks.”

“It may lead to a less qualified board, a lack of accountability to the school district and the Board of Alders, polarization, inefficient decision making, and disruptive changes to the governance of the school district,” King said. 

“Appointed members of the Board of Education bring a range of critical expertise, accountability, and stability to the board, and removing them in favor of more elected members could result in a less effective board. Elected BOE members can be subject to the influence of partisan politics and special interests. This can lead to decisions that are not in the best interest of the district,” she added. 

King also said that the mayor’s vote is crucial to allowing for accountability to the school board while also arguing that the mayor has a ​“birds-eye view” of the city and thus has an important view when voting on citywide school policy. 

Elected Board of Education member Darnell Goldson and Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller both testified during the public comment section of Thursday’s commission meeting in support of changes proposed by the teachers union. 

“It’s always interesting to see the bureaucrats arguing against expanding democracy quite frankly. Elections are the foundation of democracy,” Goldson said. 

Goldson added that New Haven is the only city where appointed members hold a majority on the school board. He further argued that before the inclusion of two democratically elected members, the school met infrequently and approved financial decisions without meaningful oversight. 

“It was the elected board members that actually made this district more accountable not only to the board, but to the people in the voters of this district,” Goldson added. ​“So it’s frustrating to me to hear that this district in the city wouldn’t be well served.” 

Miller further added that by allowing for more elected members the board would be more accountable to stakeholders. She also pushed back against charges that there would not be competitive elections. 

“I’ve had many parents reach out to me to explore funding for one of the two elected seats and decided against it because it meant taking on a city-wide campaign,” Miller said. (Each elected school board seat covers half of the city.) ​“If we had more elected seats, I think we would be more likely to run for them because the district will be more manageable.” 

“The separation of powers is pretty important to a healthy system, and I think we should restore it here. I also think we should consider adding a requirement that at least two members of the Board of Education be current New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) parents, guardians or caregivers at the time of their election or appointment,” she added. 

Click here to watch a video recording of the full Charter Revision Commission meeting.