All in: DuBois-Walton backers Tamiko Jackson-McArthur a member of the Board of Ed; street outreach workers Len Jahad and William “Juneboy” Outlaw, and activist Germano Kimbro at Monday’s exploratory committee launch.
Paul Bass Photos
DuBois-Walton with ConnCORP’s Erik Clemons, who introduced her at Monday’s event.
With the city’s most dramatically transformed neighborhood landscape as a backdrop, Karen DuBois-Walton launched her quest for the mayor’s office by challenging New Haveners to dream “big ideas” and take “bold action.”
DuBois-Walton did this late Monday afternoon at a spirited event announcing the creation of an exploratory committee for her run for mayor.
DuBois-Walton with former public schools COO and HANH Deputy Director Robin Golden, her deputy campaign treasurer.
She’s looking to challenge one-term incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker in a Democratic primary. Candidates often form the “exploratory” committees to begin raising money and building support for an official run; never in recent memory has a mayoral candidate formed one and then not proceeded with an official campaign.
Supporters at the announcement.
Monday’s announcement presented a contrast to Elicker’s January reelection announcement. Elicker stood outside the 200 Orange Street government official building to make that announcement with just one supporter beside him, his wife Natalie. DuBois-Walton assembled dozens (to keep within Covid-19 guidelines) of supporters active in the New Haven civic life to cheer her on and make speeches on her behalf amid the sounds of R&B tunes DJ’d by public-housing tenant activist Yul Watley.
Parent activist Sarah Miller (pictured), a key Elicker campaign organizer in 2019 and co-chair of his transition team, showed up Monday to support DuBois-Walton’s campaign: “I don’t think anyone is owed a second term. We need the most capable and visionary leader.”
And she chose one of the historically neglected corners of New Haven as the setting: The collection of public-housing developments tucked behind West Rock.
Under DuBois-Walton, the housing authority has remade that neighborhood. It has rebuilt decrepit developments into suburban-style streets that look like they belong on the set of the Truman show. It dismantled a despised barrier that for decades blocked through traffic from the neighborhood into Hamden. It launched youth programs and brought in an outpost of a community health center.
In describing her campaign vision, DuBois-Walton called the renewed West Rock an example of the kind of transformation she would seek to bring to neighborhoods across the city as well to public schools, policing, and economic development policies.
“I want to tell you why I chose to have this launch of this exploratory committee right here in West Rock,” DuBois-Walton told the crowd.
“To me, when you look around what happened here in West Rock, when you see the new Rockview, when you see the new Brookside, if you drive through the new Twin Brooks … you had to pass 122 Wilmot Road if you came up this way, our new elderly building, which is home to the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center as well …
“When you look up this road and see that you can see into Hamden without looking through a chain link fence or a wall …
“Then you know what happens when community members work together, have a big ideas and a big vision, and then take bold actions to make things happen.
“You see what happens when we can look beyond all the doubts, all the things people say we can’t be here in New Haven.
“And when we can dream and say everyone deserves something quality, something that says we value them …
“When you work together with leadership, when you take far too limited public dollars, but you get creative with them and you figure out how to use them to leverage more and more investment …
“When you don’t look at what we don’t have think and don’t think in terms of scarcity, but think about what is the possibility, what we can do …
“Then this is what you can create. And this is what we should be creating everywhere. We can create things that tell people that we value you regardless of what you have in your bank account. Together we will partner to give you opportunities you need to step forward.”
Ward 30 Alder Honda Smith addresses the gathering.
West Rock Alder Honda Smith echoed that theme in one of the event’s introductory speeches. She spoke of how DuBois-Walton arranged for the housing authority to help distribute free meals to 3,500 hungry households and employ neighborhood kids during the pandemic.
“You see these houses here?” Smith said, turning to the surrounding rebuilt homes. “We went to something from nothing here!”
The event took place on International Women’s Day, a point several male supporters noted.
Erik Clemons spoke about how he has urged DuBois-Walton to run for mayor as a role model for his four daughters. Clemons is in charge of rebuilding Dixwell Plaza as CEO of ConnCORP; he also serves as HANH’s board chair.
Parks and rec deputy chief Bill Dixon with the Rev. Steven Cousin at the event.
The Rev. Steven Cousin, a previous Elicker supporter, cast DuBois’s candidacy in the mold of Deborah and Queen Esther in the Old Testament, and of U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate Shirley Chisolm, Stacey Abrams, and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Speaking afterwards, street outreach worker Len Jahad cited the same political path breakers: “Black women galvanized America. They moved Georgia. They’re going to move New Haven.”
Westville’s Donald McAualy Sr., DuBois-Walton’s campaign treasurer.
During the “exploratory” phase of the campaign, DuBois-Walton can raise individual contributions of up to $375. (She said she plans to participate in the Democracy Fund public-financing program if she proceeds with an official campaign.) She also for now can retain her job as CEO of the federally funded Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH)/Elm City Communities. DuBois-Walton was asked about potential restrictions under the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from campaigning for elected government office. (The housing authority is federally funded.) She said Monday that she if she proceeds with subsequently forming an official campaign committee, she would take a leave from her HANH post. “I am not Trump,” she said.
In one sense, DuBois-Walton’s candidacy would take on more than a century of history in New Haven by challenging a one-term incumbent. The last one-term mayor, Thomas Tully, was elected in 1929; he wasn’t on the ballot in 1931. But no one-term mayor has lost a reelection campaign since 1917: His name was Samuel Campner. But Campner (New Haven’s first and only Jewish mayor) was actually a half-term mayor: As president of the Board of Aldermen (as it was then named), he ascended to the mayoralty in 1917 when the previous mayor died, and he served out the term.
DuBois-Walton, 53, came to New Haven to study at Yale. She worked at the Yale Child Study Center in the early years of its joint program with city cops to help children exposed to violence address their trauma. Besides heading the housing authority, DuBois-Walton has served as mayoral chief of staff and city chief administrative officer, overseeing line departments like police, fire, parks, and public works. She serves on the state Board of Education. In the past four years she has organized community-wide forums about how to respond to the Trump administration; and, with her husband, she has organized Storytellers New Haven, events at which a diverse group of people active in the community have shared personal life stories. DuBois-Walton and five fellow Black women in September launched a political action committee called Ella’s Fund aimed at translating this summer’s grassroots uprisings for racial justice into lasting state and local political power.