Thomas Breen photo
Valerie Morrison, pasta salad ingredients in tow, signs Brennan's mayoral petition.
The high costs of housing — as close as downtown and as far as Austin, Tex. — were at the top of mind for Stop & Shoppers, as mayoral challenger and pro-development-zoning-reformer Liam Brennan brought his primary ballot petition to the Whalley Avenue grocery store.
Brennan, a Westville resident and formal legal aid attorney, is one of three Democratic challengers seeking to unseat two-term incumbent and party-endorsed candidate Mayor Justin Elicker in a Sept. 12 party primary.
On Saturday morning, clipboard in hand and “Liam For New Haven” flair pinned to his shirt, Brennan stood outside of the busy front entrance to the Stop & Shop at 150 Whalley Ave. seeking signatures for his primary petition.
He and fellow Democratic mayoral challengers Shafiq Abdussabur and Tom Goldenberg need to gather at least 1,623 signatures from registered New Haven Democrats by Aug. 9 in order to qualify to have their names on the ballot. Brennan and Abdussabur have already begun dropping off dozens of pages’ worth of signatures for their respective campaigns at the Registrar of Voters office.
Outside the Whalley Stop & Shop Saturday morning.
“Do you happen to be a registered Democrat?” Brennan asked time and again as shoppers pushed clattering metal carts into and out of the grocery store.
Almost always, the answer was yes.
Brennan — who planned to petition outside of the Stop & Shop basically all day on Saturday and Sunday — picked up five signatures in only 10 minutes.
He also heard plenty about shoppers’ concerns about high taxes, rising rents, and increasing numbers of people without a home.
Brennan: "We have a housing crisis."
Valerie Morrison signed Brennan’s petition for exactly that latter reason. She said homelessness is only becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the city, and New Haven needs a mayor who prioritizes addressing that issue.
Morrison serves as a missionary for Life Changing Outreach Ministries. She said she regularly hands out free food — usually home-baked ziti — along with T‑shirts, socks, toiletries, and other essentials to homeless people on the Green and on the Boulevard.
“We have a housing crisis,” Brennan agreed. That’s one of the biggest reasons he’s running for office, to make clear that homelessness is a housing problem, and to try to overhaul city rules to make it easier to build more housing across the city.
Morrison said she wants a mayor who’s willing to do what it takes to “improve” the increasing rate of homelessness in New Haven. How might that be done? “The rent went up too high,” she said about citywide housing prices. “Something has to be done.”
And what was she buying at the grocery store on Saturday morning?
Ingredients for pasta salad, Morrison said, which she plans to make and bring to her daughter to celebrate the latter’s moving into her first apartment, on Dixwell Avenue. Morrison said that, fortunately, for now, her daughter’s rent is subsidized and tied to her level of income. But that might not always be the case.
John Gomes (pictured above) also had housing on the mind as he agreed to sign Brennan’s primary-ballot petition.
What’s his top concern about life in New Haven today that he’d like the mayor, whoever that might be, to try to address?
“City taxes,” Gomes said he walked briskly to his car. “Housing taxes. Everything.”
"Austin Is A Mess"
When Brennan asked another incoming Stop & Shopper (pictured above) if she’s a registered Democrat, she said yes. But she’s a registered Democrat in Austin, Tex., and so couldn’t sign Brennan’s petition.
That shopper (who asked not to be identified by name for this article) said she’s been in town for the past week to visiting her daughter, who’s a grad student.
She said her daughter’s apartment building was recently sold. And the new landlord is hiking the rent by 50 percent.
Apartment “prices are through the roof,” she said, in New Haven, and in particularly in her current home of Austin. She said everything she owns right now is in storage.
“My goal is to do some traveling, walk the Camino, and come back and fight like hell,” likely by volunteering for a U.S. Senate campaign.
“Austin is a mess,” she said about how expensive it is to rent or own a home their right now. “It’s really disturbing.” She described New Haven as a “beautiful city,” but one with a clearly growing homelessness problem.
Her recommendation for New Haven’s mayor, whether current or future: “You need housing for people” who are elderly and living by themeselves. “There has to be housing that is safe, reliable,” and affordable for single adults, like herself. “There’s a lot of single people out there.”
Brennan said that, during his time petitioning at Stop & Shop so far, as well as during previous petitioning stints at Walmart, housing has been the number one issue brought up by New Haven voters. “Housing really resonates hugely with people across the spectrum.”
"There's A Lot Of Dirt Out There"
Brennan with Jose Santana.
But that wasn’t the only issue brought up by shoppers on Whalley Avenue Saturday morning.
Jose Santana — “no relation to Carlos” — said he’s stopped voting in recent years because “the more you vote, the more they don’t do shit. There’s too many crooked politicians.”
Brennan spoke about his anti-corruption work as a former federal prosecutor, and urged Santana to get back into the habit of voting and stay engaged with local politics and put in office people he and others can trust.
“You got to get through the crookedness. There’s a lot of dirt out there,” Santana cautioned, even as he signed Brennan’s petition.
Brennan said that that a Stop & Shop manager called the police on him earlier in the week as he was petitioning outside the grocery store. On Saturday, he got permission from the property's landlord, the Greater Dwight Development Corporation, before returning to get more signatures.
Ori Kellman, a native of Guyana who has lived in New Haven for 40 years, also said he doesn’t vote because he has no faith in the elected officials. He declined to sign Brennan’s petition.
If he were to vote, what would be his top issue that he’d want the mayor to address?
“We need to get rid of [paid] parking downtown,” he said. Street parking should be on a “first come, first served” basis, with no meters or fees standing in parkers’ way.
Kellman also said he’d like to see the city pull funds from the police departments when police officers “do wrong.” He said he’s friends with Randy Cox, sees him nearly every day, and doesn’t want his tax dollars going to support a department that caused such serious injury to his friend.
John Stallworth, meanwhile, signed Brennan’s petition even though he was up front with the mayoral challenger that he’s “going for Justin.”
Stallworth said he and his wife are regulars at a community garden on Blatchley Avenue. He met the current mayor when Elicker helmed the New Haven Land Trust. “He’s a good man,” Stallworth said about Elicker, and he always made sure Stallworth had whatever he needed to work the garden, where he grows tomatoes, collard greens, and cucumbers.
If he knows he’s supporting Elicker in the election, then why sign a petition to help get one of the mayor’s challengers on the primary ballot?
To support an active democracy and contested elections, Stallworth said.
Also, with only two-year terms for mayor, you never know who might be in that office next. Gesturing towards Brennan, Stallworth surmised, even if he doesn’t win this election, “He’ll be in there soon.”