Paul Bass Photo
Alex Taubes with Mayor Harp at campaign headquarters.
(Opinion) During the primary campaign, I received many mailers from a campaign that trashed our mayor. It said the mayor is poisoning children, causing overdoses, taking money, and that she is essentially a criminal. While some negativity is to be expected in an election, in my opinion, this was character assassination of a black woman leader who has served our city selflessly for decades.
It worked though: Turnout was approximately 25 percent, and even lower in neighborhoods the mayor has championed. In some of those neighborhoods, turnout was close to 10 percent.
We know negativity suppresses turnout. But worse, no one is even talking about the mayor’s accomplishments. Mayor Harp’s Evergreen Wealth Building Project, the Small Business Academy, Mayor Harp’s work with the Laborers union to apprentice city high schoolers, YouthStat, Project Longevity, the Harp Bikes, the new businesses and restaurants opening every day, improved graduation rates and lower murder rates, the 2,000 new units of affordable housing. The vitriol obscures and confuses a record of change and progress.
As our city continues its rise from decades of disinvestment, I believe our mayor deserves recognition and respect for her role in that rise. But instead, everyone’s asking, does the mayor have a path to victory? Isn’t it over? Shouldn’t Mayor Harp just give up?
If you know Mayor Harp, you know that’s the wrong question. Does she give up? No. She tests limits.
When Toni Harp was six months old, Toni got her first lesson in not giving up. Her mother could not raise her, but did her mother give up?
No. She found Toni a better life with her grandparents. Her grandfather, whom she calls her father today, was a Pullman porter on the Santa Fe railroad. Her grandmother was a janitor on the Greyhound bus line. With union jobs and strong values, they raised Toni Harp as their youngest child. Toni believes in creating union jobs because she lived it.
When Toni Harp was four years old, she contracted polio. The doctors told her she wouldn’t live, much less walk. Did Toni give up?
No. She spent two weeks in an iron lung, then even longer recuperating, but she grew up to not just to walk, but run. For office, and for higher positions, ultimately becoming the first black woman mayor of the City of New Haven and the first woman president of the African American Mayors Association. (Why stop running now?)
When Toni Harp was 9 years old, the movie theater required black customers to sit in the balcony upstairs. This was 1950s Salt Lake City, Utah. Did Toni give up?
No. Toni led her mother, brother, and cousin down to the first floor, to the four seats she wanted, while others glared and stared. So she’s used to glares and stares. (Don’t try to tell her she can’t.)
When Toni Harp was a state senator, the ACLU and many Democrats opposed her bill to screen newborns for HIV. Did Toni give up?
No. She built a coalition, passed the law, and saved lives. It’s because she cares about children’s safety. It’s in her bones, because she remembers being that vulnerable little girl. (By the way, after prior administrations’ appointees dropped the ball on lead inspections, they no longer work for the city. And thanks to Mayor Harp – and no thanks to alders who supported her opponent – five new lead inspectors will be hired in the upcoming year.)
This is what Toni Harp said in the State Senate then, twenty years ago: “We are not here to do what has always been done. We are here to improve the public health. If that means that I have to take some stands that are different than the status quo, then I feel obligated to do it.”
Mayor Harp, if you do decide to run, will we give up?
No. We’ve learned from you. We will get back up and fight for our city.