Paul Bass Photo
Harp with WTNH’s Mark Davis at her campaign HQ Wednesday.
Toni Harp won’t seek to serve as New Haven’s mayor for anywhere near 20 years. And she heard the message from Justin Elicker’s voters.
Harp offered those remarks in an interview in her Whalley Avenue headquarters Wednesday, a day after winning election as New Haven’s next mayor and the city’s first-ever female chief executive.
She broke into a laugh when asked if she hopes to match outgoing Mayor John DeStefano’s record 10 two-year terms in office.
“Are you kidding? I’m too old to serve 20 years!” said Harp, who is 66 and has served in the state Senate for the past 21. “I would certainly like to serve another couple of terms.”
New Haven has had three mayors serve at least 10 years since 1951: Dick Lee, Biagio DiLieto, and DeStefano. The mayors who followed them each served between four and six years as new constituencies realigned the city’s political map.
Harp was otherwise all business as she began the transition to serving as mayor Wednesday, after celebrating her victory with an overflow crowd at Kelly’s Gastro Pub Bar & Restaurant Tuesday night and then sharing breakfast Wednesday at a diner with family and friends visiting from Atlanta.
She plans to name a transition team by Friday, she said. She said she has a “core” of members chosen but no director yet.
“Now the real work begins,” Harp said. “I recognize a lot has to be done. I’ve got to figure out who’s going to help me get this done.”
In addition to inheriting some fiscal challenges, Harp has set an agenda of new initiatives she hopes to launch, including six mentioned in this article. Those ideas including testing a 6 a.m.-6 p.m. wraparound neighborhood school concept at Lincoln-Bassett; organizing renewed tenant cooperatives with increased City Hall managerial oversight; helping to form a wholesale buying co-op for neighborhood groceries; registering lobbyists as part of a strengthened city ethics policy; developing an indoor local-food market and business incubator; and pushing Metro-North to create a 1‑hour commuter train route to New York, or at least a much faster option than currently exists.
While Harp scored a decisive victory Tuesday night, her opponent, petitioning candidate Justin Elicker, did far better than expected, capturing 9,416 out of 20,769 votes. Two years ago, by contrast, Mayor John DeStefano won reelection with a total of 8,556 votes in another closer-than-expected race.
“Justin’s message was an important one that needed to be heard” and that she will seek to respond to, Harp said Wednesday.
What was that message?
“A fresh approach to problems,” Harp said. “He’s been really clear that we need to rethink our environment. We need to make it easier for people get around the city on bicycle and foot.” She also mentioned “food policy” as an important part of that message. She said she’d like to see Elicker serve on a city board or commission to work on issues that matter to him.
Up the road on Whalley Avenue, Elicker Wednesday remained in the positive mood he demonstrated at his post-election party. He said he had written the same speech to deliver whether he came in first or second — celebrating the remarkable support the campaign drew and encouraging his supporters to continue pursuing their agenda in the city.
“My campaign surprised everyone. No one expected us to do as well as we did. This is an indication that ideas that we were talking about were inspiring to people,” he said amid the closing-up shop activities around him in the campaign office.
Elicker was asked for his take on what message he feels his campaign sent in the election.
He described one key part of the message as “clean government”: — not just the need for candidates to “run clean” through the public financing, but also the need to end the practice City Hall or the Board of Education handing out jobs or making other government decisions in “exchange” for endorsements or other forms of political support.
Part two of the message, according to Elicker: “frustration with the group of political players that have been involved for years.”
Elicker, who is 38, vowed to remain active in civic life. “I’m not leaving New Haven. I’m not changing my cell phone,” he said referring to how he broadcast that number throughout the campaign.
Beyond that, his only immediate post-election plan is to take his first vacation in a year.
Would he like to serve as a Harp appointee to a city board or commission?
“I don’t know,” he said.