Allan Appel Photo
Four days after Mayor John DeStefano offered a sunny view of life in New Haven in his reelection campaign kickoff, former Hill Alderman Tony Dawson announced his own candidacy with a far more somber city portrait: “There is no laughter in our parks, only fear. Our streets are like a war zone.” And “the city sits on the brink of financial ruin.”
Dawson offered his impassioned remarks Saturday to a crowd of 40 supporters who gathered before a podium in front of City Hall’s Amistad Memorial at noon beneath a fittingly overcast sky.
Dawson makes the second African-American candidate to announce a challenge to the nine-term mayor in the upcoming Sept. 13 Democratic primary, which has been tantamount to general election in one-party New Haven since the early 1950s.
Graves (left) with Dawson Saturday.
The other candidate, Clifton Graves, was on hand to offer his congratulations. “I’m here out of respect,” he said, adding that he will himself formally be declaring next week; Graves has an exploratory committee already set up. Dawson plans to file formal campaign papers this coming week.
Darnell Goldson & Emma Jones.
Dawson, who’s 52 and served 16 years as an alderman, was introduced by West Rock Alderman Darnell Goldson, who called himself “the next Tony Dawson on the Board of Aldermen.”
On the stage and declaring “It’s about time, it’s about time” was criminal justice reform advocate Emma Jones.
One question raised in recent weeks is whether two African-American candidates will split the anti-DeStefano vote, limiting either one’s chances of winning. “He’s serious, serious, serious,” Goldson said Saturday of Dawson, “and those of us who are supporting him are serious.”
To one woman’s cry of hallelujah, Dawson took the stage and described his house and beloved Ann Street in the Hill. He bought the house when he was 16 and fixed it up. The house now anchors a tree-lined street and boasts a park filled with laughter and children playing.
But that’s not the case for many neighborhoods, Dawson said, pursuing his theme.
“Let there be no doubt, if we do not correct the course now New Haven is well on its way to becoming a city where no one wants to raise children, own a home, or work or do business,” he said.
Asked the single biggest change he would bring to City Hall, Dawson said: “One word: transparency. I would have a more open process in appointing individuals to board and commissions.” (Click here to read the instance of the school board blocking routine public access to communal discussions on major reform efforts.)
After declaring his love for the city and its cultural diversity, Dawson recalled fighting for community policing during his tenure as an alderman in the 1980s and 1990s. He said today’s Elm City police force “stands gutted by the DeStefano administration.”
As mayor, Dawson said, he would do everything in his power to assist the police and fire departments “to strengthen their work orce.”
Asked specifically what he would do to improve community policing today, Dawson, who is currently a lieutenant in protective services at Yale-New Haven Hospital, replied: “We have to get out of cars and into streets, engage people in conversation. You can’t do that riding in vehicles.”
“Regarding ‘No one wants to live here and do business,’ consistent with statements given in census data, New Haven has grown more than any city in Connecticut,” DeStefano campaign manager Danny Kedem said later Saturday when apprised of Dawson’s remarks.
He added that with regard to the city being on the brink of what Dawson described as financial ruin, “Over the last ten years, health care and pension benefits have gone from 12 to 25 percent of our budget. The mayor is committed to not raising New Haven property taxes; to city workers being able to live middle class lives but he wants health care and pensions more in line with the private sector.”
According to campaign spokesperson Jocelyne Hudson-Brown, Dawson is looking forward to participating in the Democracy Fund public-financing program, which offers matching dollars to candidates in return for limits on fundraising and spending. Graves said he plans to participate, too. DeStefano, who helped create the fund, has opted out this year.
Of the mayor’s non-participation in it this year, Dawson said: “Why would you create that and not participate in it?”
Responded DeStefano campaign manager Kedem: “The mayor ran using the Democracy Fund twice. He didn’t think it was successful in its own right to getting others to run. As a result he decided to opt out of the fund this time.” (Read more about that here.)