Paul Bass Photo
The sun was shining in the parking lot of the 50 Fitch Street commercial plaza — and Toni Harp picked up on the theme.
She was greeting supporters Tuesday afternoon to her new mayoral campaign headquarters. And she was fired up.
Harp’s message: New Haven’s on the move. Reelecting her will keep that progress going.
“We can do this together! We can be better than we’ve ever been,” the three-term incumbent declared to several dozen loyalists with skin in the civic and government New Haven game …
… such as schools architect Ken Boroson (at center in above photo) …
… city small-business officer Gerry Garcia (pictured with son Daniel) …
… and Bethel AME Church pastor Rev. Steven Cousin Jr., who began the tight official portion of the event with an invocation beseeching the Almighty to “bless this headquarters.”
Civil rights attorney Alex Taubes (shown with the candidate), her 2013 campaign debate coach, introduced the event’s theme when he introduced Harp to the crowd. “Things are moving in New Haven. We’re doing things in New Haven, We’re building things in New Haven,” Taubes proclaimed. “We’ve seen cranes go up and poverty go down because we have a mayor … who works for all of the people in New Haven.”
“Mayor Harp is not about the flash. Mayor Harp is not about the politics. She is about the kids,” Taubes continued. “She needs people to look out for the politics. Let’s go out and work for her!” Click on the video to watch him and Harp address the crowd.
In her remarks, Harp exhibited an energy and confidence that had so far been less on display at campaign events. She spoke of how unemployment in town has dropped from 10.7 percent to under 4 percent over her first five years in office, while a new city small business academy has helped “over 300 people” launch enterprises, the high school graduation rate has climbed 10 percent to 80 percent, a memorial is on the way for homicide victims. She spoke of her first days in office, when she found herself attending numerous “funerals for young people.” No more students have been killed since her administration implemented the YouthStat program to help those young people most at risk of getting shot, she said.
Inside the headquarters, Tiffany Stewart (pictured) and Donnell Durden of the DISTRICT-based Aligning media studio recorded supporters like …
… Environmental Advisory Commission (EAC) chair Laura Cahn record “I Harp New Haven” (riffing on “I Heart New Haven”) tributes to the mayor.
Click on the video to watch Cahn’s segment come together.
Harp made a passing reference to ongoing challenges she wants to tackle in a fourth two-year term. She made no mention of any storm clouds on the horizon, of the school board fights, budget wrangling, and most recently lead paint enforcement criticism that have figured prominently in the campaign remarks of challengers like Democratic mayoral hopeful Justin Elicker.
About That Lead …
She did raise the lead paint issue in a conversation before Tuesday’s event. She argued Elicker and legal aid attorneys suing the city have unfairly accused her administration of not caring about the health of children exposed to lead paint in their homes, by dragging its feet on enforcing the law and relaxing the rules for when it pursues landlords when children test positive for lead poisoning.
Harp maintained her administration is as committed as ever before to protecting children from lead paint poisoning. “We are still remediating these buildings,” she said. “I signed off on $140,000 just today” to clean up lead in a residential setting.
It’s true that the city at one time had a lot more federal and state money to inspect and order clean-ups in the past, Harp said. So the city could intervene in cases when tests showed children under 6 years old with elevated blood lead levels (EBL) above 5 micrograms per deciliter (μg/dL), “because we had the resources.”
Now, with just three inspection positions (one of them currently unfilled), the city is guaranteeing it will intervene if children have lead levels of 20 micrograms per deciliter, a figure included in the relevant city ordinance, Harp said. In fact, no children currently have levels that high, and the city is indeed currently inspecting homes and ordering clean-ups in cases where children’s levels reach 15, Harp said.
Attorneys from New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) — in a class action suit representing 300 lead-poisoned children — are asking a judge to order the city to return to the 5 microgram trigger level. They put on expert testimony in court last Friday arguing that the Centers for Disease Control have updated research setting a new 5‑microgram standard for an “abnormal body burden” at which intervention should be triggered under the language of the city ordinance. The ordinance calls for government intervention at either the 20 microgram level or an “abnormal body burden.” (Click here to read about that court hearing; click here to read about a press conference Elicker held on the issue.)
Harp said Tuesday that her administration does intervene even at the 5‑microgram level by giving parents information about lead dangers and urging them to continue monitoring their children’s blood levels. Legal aid attorneys noted in court that until November, the city was prosecuting landlords for conditions that exposed children to the stricter level; they argue that the administration can’t unilaterally change that policy, a position with which the administration disagrees.