“New Haven Rising” Rises

Pledges from some 300 New Haveners launched a new grassroots groups aligned with the city’s new labor-backed lawmaking majority — but designed to push from the outside for results on housing, health care and immigration.

“We, the people of New Haven, declare…” Tommy Thornhill, Connie Holt, and Fatima Rojas all stood and recited.

They continued reading solemnly the full preamble of the draft charter of a new citywide advocacy group dedicated to ​“economic, social, and racial justice.” Then Thornhill wrote out a check for $48 annual dues as a founding member of the new group, called New Haven Rising.

Hundreds joined him.

Or they paid a reduced membership of $24, or $2 a month, for a student, senior, or unemployed person.

The crowd thronged the cafeteria of Hill Regional Career High School Wednesday evening amid hoots of solidarity and optimism. It included many of the same activists and grassroots union organizers who had helped sweep in a new, labor-backed Board of Aldermen majority in November and then a new majority on the Democratic Town Committee.

This time their mind was not on elected office, but building an independent grassroots group to push an issues agenda.

Also on hand were organizers from the Connecticut Center for the New Economy, who were active in the New Haven 2011 aldermanic elections, and have been lending a hand until New Haven Rising formally emerges, elects a board, and hires an executive director. Those steps are scheduled for the fall.

The drafts of the charter and other materials are internal documents and not yet available, said Hugh Baran, one of the organizers and a CCNE staffer.

One of the main organizers, Rev. Scott Marks, said New Haven Rising has emerged out of that electoral grass roots organizing. It is an effort to keep up the canvassing door to door, ​“to train leaders and to hold the political system accountable. No matter who’s in office.”

To that end, the group is establishing itself as a 501(c)4 not-for-profit organization, which permits political advocacy. Leaders weren’t clear yet what form that advocacy would take; they said it would be generated, as was the charter, from the grassroots up.

Why is such an organization necessary, especially with such a like-minded Board of Aldermen, many of whom were in the audience and signing up for the $4 a month membership in the organization?

“We had a dramatic change on the Board of Aldermen. We could have another one. But our agenda does not change,” Marks said.

That agenda emerged from ongoing, door-to-door surveys of people’s concerns and weekly meetings that have been ongoing for months, said Marks. He estimated that organizers collected 500 to 600 surveys.

At the gathering at Career, the results were presented to the crowd in what was billed as the founding members’ launch and presentation of a draft charter. It pledges advocacy for housing, health care for the poor, jobs, investment in young people, schools, seniors, the environment, and the rights of immigrants.

Another of the early organizers, East Rock Ward 9 Democratic Party Co-Chair Lauren Miller, was among several who cited the Obama 2008 presidential campaign as an example not to follow: ​“Obama rallied around change and then it got quiet. We want New Haven to keep going, to keep pushing for meaningful impact.”

Black, white, and brown; young and old, East Siders and West Siders, were at the citywide gathering.

That was a big part of the appeal to Thornhill, a New Havener and East Rocker who does research for Yale at West Haven’s VA Hospital. He belongs to Yale’s UNITE HERE Local 34 union. In two years in town, he said has developed a sense of a city with separate communities.

“Quality of life issues are on all sides of town. Our neighbors are not necessarily next door,” said Edgewood’s Seth Poole, co-chair of Ward 24.

At Wednesday’s meeting, as people fanned themselves with the draft charter, organizers explained next steps. They have divided the city into seven geographical areas: Dixwell/Newhallville, Westville/Beaver Hills, Fair Haven and its Heights, Downtown/Wooster Square/East Rock, Dwight/West River/Edgewood, the East Shore, and the Hill.

In those areas organizers use the model of one leader finding three neighbors to become members who each in turn reaches out to ten. If you sign up 150 members, that earns the district two seats on the governing board for that area. For each additional 150 New Haven Rising members signed up, that’s an additional seat on the board, with maximum of five per geographical area. The maximum size of the governing board will therefore be 35.

All these people would assemble in the fall to vote on governing board members, who then will hire an executive director, and organize a program that can have citywide impact. Until then a provisional board, like a provisional charter, is in operation.

Marks said that the organization is already on the job. He said the group is eagerly awaiting the Board of Aldermen’s promised plan for a jobs pipeline linking local people to local work.

“It’s not an event. It’s a movement,” said Rev. Abraham Hernandez.

Those interested in more information or joining can call Scott Marks at: 203 – 804-6885.