Scenes from a campaign launch video (clockwise from top right): Candidate Brennan; at pizzeria with Mercy Quaye; in Ninth Square with Ben Berkowitz; biking with the kids; walking West Rock with Kerry Ellington; buying empanadas with Daniel Pizarro.
Attorney Liam Brennan made his mayoral run official Wednesday — with the help of a national strategist who helped defeat Sarah Palin and local activists as often seen pressuring politicians as supporting them.
Brennan, a 44-year-old Westville attorney who currently works as the “inspector general” for the city of Hartford civilian review board, made the formal announcement of his candidacy for the New Haven Democratic mayoral nomination with a 2:18 video (above) produced by local videographer Travis Carbonella.
“I’ve fought corrupt hedge fund managers and dirty politicians” and “advocated for affordable housing and educational equity,” the former federal prosecutor and legal aid attorney states in the video.
Click here to read a previous interview with WNHH FM in which Brennan discusses his background and his calls for ending drug arrests, a change in how public schools teach reading, and zoning innovations to create more affordable housing.
Brennan is challenging two-term incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker, who is running for reelection. Retired police Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur and ex-McKinsey consultant Tom Goldenberg have also launched campaigns for the Democratic nomination. (Activist Wendy Hamilton has filed papers for an independent run in the November general election. Republican John Carlson, who challenged Elicker in 2019, is also considering a run.)
Brennan confirmed that he will participate in the Democracy Fund public-financing program, as are the other Democrats, except for Goldenberg.
Brennan announced two key campaign hires.
He said he will contract with a firm called New Way Forward Strategies to manage the campaign. Sathvik Kaliyur, the firm’s CEO, consulted on Democrat Mary Petola’s victorious campaign over Sarah Palin in Alaska’s most recent Congressional race.
And Abdul Osmanu, one of three now 20-something Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members who won seats on Hamden’s Legislative Council in 2021, has signed on as field director.
Kaliyur will manage the campaign remotely, Brennan said. Asked if he sees that as a problem, Brennan noted that Kayliyur has done that in other states, including the Alaska race. “He works with somebody on the ground, like Abdul,” he said.
Wednesday’s campaign launch video features prominent New Haven backers of Brennan’s campaign, including community organizer Kerry Ellington, Narrative Project founder Mercy Quaye, SeeClickFix founder Ben Berkowitz, and artist Daniel Pizarro.
Ellington, who has organized mass police accountability protests, noted that she doesn’t often sign up to participate in political campaigns. She first got to know Brennan when hey worked together at New Haven Legal Assistance Association.
“Liam’s vision incorporates more of a collective leadership. He has an appreciation for community activists, for artists, for moms and pops right in the community holding those management team meetings. Those folks know Liam,” Ellington said. “We need to reimagine what our communities can look like, how our communities can be governed. We need new radical vision. I believe Liam has the seedlings for that. I’m excited to help him plant those.”
“We have a real opportunity to make some strides when it comes to gun crime and police accountability under Liam’s leadership. He has galvanized organizers, community leaders, and a combination of both grassroots and grasstop individuals who are coming together for the same cause,” Quaye told the Independent.
Berkowitz, who like Quaye grew up in New Haven, said this is the first campaign “I can remember in New Haven” that “really feels like a ‘we’ thing. It feels like a real opportunity to activate a whole group of people who are passionate about New Haven.”
“Having a thoughtful, passionate, kind person in office who can inspire other people to work along with him to solve New Haven’s biggest challenges in new ways and take risks — he’s the guy for that. I haven’t seen anyone else in New Haven,” Berkowitz said.
Brennan has called for emphasizing drug treatment rather than arresting New Haveners for drug crimes, and having police confiscate, say, cocaine or fentanyl without locking people up and continuing “prosecut[ing] a war on drugs that never worked.” He said the city has “failed” to pay teachers enough, promote affordable housing, or take “real steps to stop gun violence.” He calls for changing zoning to allow people to build many more townhouses and apartments in town — through relaxed zoning rules about density, parking, side-yard setbacks, mixed-use prohibitions, accessory dwelling units (ADUs) — and to create more apartments within existing buildings.
He has criticized the public schools for continuing to teach “balanced literacy,” a now-disproved method of reading instruction that urges students to use “clues” like pictures or the appearance of words to figure out what they are.
In response to that point, Mayor Elicker previously acknowledged that “until recently there hasn’t been the embrace of structured literacy.” He said that has begun to change this year. Structured-literacy advocates like the New Haven Reads organization influenced him to craft a recently approved $3 million plan for after-school and summer tutoring programs for city school kids emphasizing phonics. And he said the city is currently deciding between two state-approved structured-literacy reading programs to begin introducing in the classroom next year. Elicker has also pointed to a recent contract raising teacher salaries and successful efforts by New Haven police to track down and arrest people committing gun violence.
Fellow challenger Goldenberg issued a statement welcoming Brennan into the race, calling “the number of candidates running” “a clear message that the city of New Haven is dissatisfied with the current administration and wants change.”
Click on the above video to watch a previous interview with Brennan on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”