Alderwoman Robinson-Thorpe (left) and Denise Herbert.
As Alderwoman Claudette Robinson-Thorpe knocked on doors to announce that she’s running for reelection in Beaver Hills, she navigated a dividing line measured in sidewalks.
Most of the sidewalks on the northern end of Beaver Hills are in pristine shape. Those south of Norton Parkway, like in the front of Denise Herbert’s house, are in need of serious repair.
Allan Appel Photo
Colony Road sidewalk.
A ten-year resident of the neighborhood, Herbert said the last sidewalk replacement in her immediate area stopped short of her house at Goffe and Crescent. She had to settle for a patch or two last year.
“I won’t forget these streets,” Robinson-Thorpe told her, but with a warning that the city is broke and we can’t expect too much for the next year.
Then she pointed out with pride the sidewalks on Carmel Street across Goffe, which indeed had been replaced. “I fought for Carmel Street,” she said.
In 2009 Thorpe won her first term representing the 28th Ward by winning a Democratic primary by a tiny margin against incumbent Moti Sandman, who had City Hall backing. Sandman happens to live on well-paved Colony Road. Robinson-Thorpe lives on the Norton Parkway neighborhood dividing line.
(Click here for a previous story with background on Robinson-Thorpe’s life.)
This year she’s back, running again, with the backing of city unions and, it’s expected, against an eventual City Hall-backed candidate. (As of now, Ward 28 Democratic Party Co-chair Jess Corbett said, he has not heard of anyone interested in challenging the incumbent.) She began canvassing Saturday with campaign workers like the Reverends Henry Morris (pictured) and Scott Marks.
Robinson-Thorpe said that even as alderwoman does not feel entirely included in the meetings of the residents of the upper part of the ward.
She said she prefers not viewing the neighborhood as having “upper” and “lower” segments, richer and poorer, or focusing on the way crime seems to happen on Norton Street and below but not north of it. She said she works hard to convey the message that “it’s one community,” even if the condition of sidewalk repair would reflect differently.
Of her first term in office she said she was proud of helping to take the lead in killing a proposed Stormwater Authority and parking meter monetization scheme.
She said she has been surprised at the difficulty of getting ideas passed into law on the board. “I’m letting people know the process. You need 16 votes to get it passed. If someone calls me, I tell them why [something is not being done].”
Goffe sidewalk near Winthrop.
Speaking with Herbert about sidewalks, she said she’d like to see a citywide system under which different neighborhoods don’t have to beg or cajole to get to the top of the line. “There should be a single pot of money” and each of the wards should get an equal share, she said.
She said she has a good relationship with Director of Public Works John Prokop. But with so much work needing to be done around town, and with finances so tight, “I had a hard time” pushing for a Carmel Street redo, she said. “They threw me a bone.”
Robinson-Thorpe & Rev. Scott Marks.
“The sidewalks go where the voters go,” said Rev. Marks.
Amistad graduate Alexandria Blackwood.
That’s why Robinson-Thorpe told 19-year old Alexandria Blackwood to come to community management team meetings and to make sure to register to vote. Blackwood had registered, although she’s in college in Florida.
In her first term, Robinson-Thorpe said she has registered 150 new voters. In a ward with 1,000 registered voters, and where 500 to 600 vote, each one matters. She recollected that in her upstart bid against Sandman she won by about 19 votes.
She also said that when she came into office the management team meetings on the third Tuesday of the month at the substation on Whalley had about a dozen attendees; now it’s up to close to 20.
That’s where people hear, for example, about shootings. There have been three on Norton Street and Norton Parkway, where the alderwoman lives, since she took office.
She said the ward came together in getting more of a police presence. On the day of the scheduled Freddie Fixer Parade (which was subsequently postponed because of bad weather), the cops were out in force by way of preparation. They made two traffic stops and confiscated two guns. Robinson-Thorpe lauded that.
A social worker by profession, Robinson-Thorpe diagnosed crime problems in her ward as stemming from lack of jobs, and insufficient after-school programs.
She had had high hopes for recapturing the former National Guard armory on Goffe and Hudson as a center for youth programs and other services. But the legal complexities and the condition of the building now make her think that’s far more long term.
“What happens down here [that is, in the southern end of the ward] affects what happens up there. Guns have legs,” said Marks.
In the meantime, there are sidewalks to fix. “Politics is a pain in the ass,” 45-year New Haven resident James Dimery said through the screen of his house on Crescent Street facing the back of Hillhouse High, “but someone’s got to do it.”
“My new campaign slogan is ‘Faith in New Haven,’” said Robinson-Thorpe.
She asked Dimery if he would come to the management team meeting. “It’ll put me out,” he replied, “but I’ll come.”