Paul Bass Photo
Elicker fielding questions at reelection campaign kick-off.
Justin Elicker said he can understand where his numerous mayoral campaign opponents are coming from when they say they can do a better job tackling the city’s challenges.
He, too, was a mayoral challenger — in 2013 and 2019. He too thought he could walk into City Hall and expeditiously change course on major challenges like budgeting and housing and education.
Now Elicker is running for a third two-year term proud of accomplishments in those areas — and chastened by how much more complicated those challenges look like once a mayor takes office.
“One of the things that I’ve learned is these problems are much more complex, typically, than anyone would realize,” Elicker, a Democrat, said during an interview Wednesday about his tenure in office, on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. (Click on the video to watch the full conversation.)
Three Democrats — Shafiq Abdussabur, Liam Brennan, and Tom Goldenberg — are challenging Elicker for the Democratic nomination. Two other New Haveners, Wendy Hamilton and Mayce Torres, have filed papers to run as unaffiliated candidates in the general election.
“You read the news and you say, ‘I would do this.’ Well, there’s a lot of challenges to it,” he said of his challenges to mayoral incumbents. “It came from a good place, similar to the other candidates that are running now. You really believe that you could do things differently. And you believe that you could solve a lot of problems that are actually much more complex to address.
“That’s one thing that I’m reminded of over and over and over again: Whenever I think something’s easy, I’ll start to dig into it and talk to our staff and talk to other folks. And all sudden there’s all these other issues. “
One big realization in office concerned how hard city staffers work, how many long extra hours, because the workforce has shrunk over the years, Elicker said in the interview. That’s why he has sought to create some new public safety jobs and increase pay for numerous city positions in his new proposed annual budget, even though that meant raising taxes. That’s why he is pushing for a charter change in this year’s revision referendum process that would allow the city to hire some top appointees who live outside New Haven.
“You name the department, they’re overwhelmed. It’s because over the years we have reduced the number of people working in the departments. Frankly, our pay has not kept up in many categories with our partners and other towns or the other municipalities that will attract other employees,” Elicker said.
“There’s people that may have young kids that are going into school, and they live in a suburban town and are not willing to uproot and move to New Haven. It makes us much, much less competitive.”
His residency position has drawn criticism from one of mayoral campaign opponents this year, Shafiq Abdussabur.
Elicker said he has learned in office that people will give you a chance to explain a potentially unpopular position: “I’ve found that instead of saying, well, that’s politically too sticky of an issue, if we’re super open about it, by and large, people are responsive to it and understand it.”
Meanwhile, he has emphasized since his campaign announcement strides his administration has made: Passing laws and approving plans for more affordable housing, for instance; using federal pandemic-relief money to create new community centers in previously unused parks buildings, fielding a crisis response team of social workers to replace or supplement police on some emergency calls, obtaining tens of millions of new dollars a year in voluntary contributions from Yale and increased state PILOT (payments in lieu of taxes) reimbursements.
Elicker was asked during the interview about lessons he has drawn from any mistakes in his first three-plus years in office.
He said that three years ago he should have shown up at the first day of protests over the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in Wooster Square Park. He has made a point since then of attending protests against him.
Elicker’s opponents have made public education an issue in the campaign. They have criticized the mayor for the schools waiting longer than other communities to move from “balanced literacy” toward phonics-focused “structured literacy” reading instruction. They also criticized the Board of Education’s continued insistence of holding remote-only meetings.
Elicker acknowledged that it took too long to make the reading change, but noted it’s happening now. He said he personally should have focused sooner in his administration on literacy.
He also said the Board of Ed should hold hybrid remote/in-person meetings. But he argued that even though he appoints a majority of school board members, he doesn’t “control” them or dictate the board’s or school administration’s actions.
“I think that the some people think the mayor has total control over public schools and I can just pull a lever and all the board members voted. That’s just not not the case I’ve, I’ve appointed people to the board that are independent thinkers that work very, very hard are committed to our kids,
“It’s not just up to the Board of Education. It’s also up to the superintendent or and her team,” Elicker said about many debated public schools issues. “I think one of the things that a lot of people kind of watching me may feel is, ‘Oh, the Board of Education just says, ‘Superintendent, do this.’ And then the superintendent does it. But in reality, we need to be partners in this work. All of us need to feel some buy in for this work.”
Click above and below to watch videos of “Dateline” interviews with Mayor Elicker’s three challengers for the Democratic nomination, Shafiq Abdussabur, Liam Brennan, and Tom Goldenberg. Click here to subscribe to“Dateline New Haven” and here to subscribe to other WNHHFM podcasts.