Allan Appel Photo
The victor.
Three people greeted Rosemary Foluké Morris as she got off the elevator in her building.
“Do you like to go to meetings?” one asked.
“Yes,” she responded.
“Good! We need a commissioner.””
Such began the political career of Morris, a retired mental health social worker who has been living for a year at the Charles T. McQueeney Towers, the development on Orange Street that also doubles at the headquarters of the Housing Authority of New Haven or HANH.
She agreed to run for a vacant tenant/resident seat on the authority’s Board of Commissioners. Tuesday, she won the seat in a close vote.
Morris was one of four self-nominated candidates, for whom ballots were being counted Tuesday at HANH’s headquarters in a well-subscribed initiative that is also a first for HANH.
Morris received 314 votes, Anais Nunez received 306 votes, Montreal Johnson-Godley received 141, and Chester Sylvester received 65 votes, with 62 votes either blank or improperly filled out. Of 8,019 residents qualified to vote, 888 ballots were cast, reported Emily Byrne, HANH’s director of communications.
Since its founding in 1938, HANH has always has had a tenant/resident commissioner on its board of five commissioners — five people who have ultimate approval authority over public-housing budgets and policy proposals. Until recently the tenant commissioner, like the others who serve voluntarily, has been appointed by the mayor.
A state housing law passed two and a half years ago allowed for direct election of the tenant commissioner by HANH residents, as long as the voters are heads of households.
The selection of Morris did not necessarily have to be via a democratic, one-person-one-vote election.
Moderator Berta H. Reed counts ballots Tuesday.
By terms of the new law, the several options available to the HANH include continuing the mayoral appointment; having the selection made by HANH’s Residents Advisory Board (RAB), a group of 15 or 20 people composed of presidents of the tenant councils; and, finally, having a direction election, providing at least 75 residents petition for this option, and the voters be restricted to heads of households in HANH’s portfolio of residents, that is, lease-holders either in the developments or in the authority’s Section 8 rental units throughout town.
HANH pursued the third option.
It began this January when the most recent resident commissioner, Alberta Witherspoon won election to the Board of Alders. So resigned her HANH seat
Witherspoon, as a member of the statewide Public Housing Residents Network, had been instrumental in lobbying for the law that provides for the direct election option, said HANH Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton, who dropped by Tuesday morning to observe the tabulating of hundreds of brightly hued tangerine ballots, in English and Spanish.
Tuesday’s ballot counted was an open event, supervised by an outside consultant, with the public including all candidates invited, although Morris was the only one of the four to attend.
The hefty number of ballots cast helps put in perspective a lingering stereotype of HANH residents as being passive takers and un-involved in the running of their developments, officials said.
Candidate Nunez lives in Farnam Courts Townhouses. Johnson-Godley lives at Westville Manor. Chester Sylvester, who lives in Section 8 scattered-site housing. Morris is retired on a disability.
Candidates all wrote out campaign statements, which were posted in all the community rooms and offices at the developments. They were required to make an “official” campaign appearance before eligible voters at HANH headquarters before the mailing in of ballots
Morris wrote in her statement that “Helping people is my calling.” In her appearance at the public meeting she reiterated that theme, offering to represent in person residents who fail to receive a satisfactory response from HANH staff or officials.
Nunez in her prepared statement cited her presidency of the policy council of the New Haven Board of Education Head Start program from 2013 to 2015 as one of her chief bonafides. Johnson-Godley, also with a helping professions background, wrote that he sees New Haven as a “city of hope” that he wants to help restore to the “beautiful neighborhood s that I remember growing up in.”
The fourth candidate, Sylvester, did not provide a statement, said Byrne, but votes for him were counted as valid nevertheless.
“This is democracy in action. Clean. No worry about campaign finance. No backlash. It was people going to the 10th floor [of HANH HQ] and presenting their case. All was positive,” Dubois-Walton remarked.
The new rule requires other city commissions, as well as alders and the mayor, to formally approve Morris’s election, which is considered a formality. With luck, that means that the first democratically elected member of HANH’s board might attend her first meeting by August, DuBois-Walton estimated.
The other four members of the HANH board are Chairman Erik Clemons, Matt Short, Waleska Candelaria, and William Kilpatrick.