In The Heights, 3 Candidates = 3 Opinions

Fair Haven Heights voters have more choices than anyone else in town in this year’s general election: Three different candidates are seeking their support for alder in the Nov. 2 election, and they offer three mixes of positions on issues ranging from health care to policing.

They all promise to support more activities for youth and action against speeders. Two don’t support Covid-19 vaccination mandates; one does. Two are vaccinated; one is not. Two see a need for change in the ward; one doesn’t. They differ on plans to replace cops with social workers at some crime scenes.

The race pits Democratic incumbent Rosa Santana against Republican Deborah Reyes and Green Patricia Kane. We visited with all three on the campaign trail this week, and found out who’s saying what.

Deborah Reyes: Police Support, Youth Jobs

Deborah Reyes walked up to a Halloween-decorated door Monday afternoon and asked: ​“Do you know who your alder woman is?” A 17-year-old responded with a ​“no. She said her parents did not know the current alder either.

Reyes cited that response as a reason for running, as she canvassed Sherland Avenue, Summit Street, Robertson Street, and Carroll Street.

Throughout her campaign, Reyes said, about 90 percent of the residents she spoke with said they did not know who their alder is. ​“That will be one of my biggest things for me, having everyone know me and know they can talk to me as a normal person, mom, aunt, and caretaker,” she said.

Reyes, 49, has lived in Ward 13, which is in Fair Haven Heights east of the Quinnipiac River, for 22 years. She is a mother of three sons and one daughter aged 28, 24, 21, and 19, and works for the state’s Department of Social Services. She said she would like to see a change in leadership for her neighborhood to focus on street maintenance, resident voices, and development opportunities for youth.

Reyes has lived in New Haven since she was 5 years old. She attended the former Columbus School (now FAME) , Clinton Avenue School, Fair Haven School, Wilbur Cross High School, and Albertus Magnus College. She worked as a bilingual outreach worker for the city’s pediatric immunization program for ten years.

If elected, Reyes said, she would focus on making Fair Haven Heights more walkable, particularly for elderly residents. ​“The city needs to do an assessment of what streets have the most seniors and take care of those streets, so they can drive, so they can walk and have their nurses visit them safely,” she said.

While walking show Sherland Avenue, Reyes pointed out a sidewalk in near perfect condition. ​“I wish every street looked like this,” she said.

Reyes also vowed to push the city to offer more mental health services to sex workers who bring drugs and crime to the neighborhood. ​“I don’t want to take away from them, because they’re hustling, but it’s not safe for the community,” she added.

She said her hope is to push the Board of Alders to give more funding to existing after-school programs while pushing for those programs to open up to opportunities for more youth. She said youth from her neighborhood miss out on work opportunities and extracurricular programs due to a lack of access to preexisting services and because of programs’ age restrictions.

Reyes described herself as ​“bold,” unafraid to speak up on a board filled all with Democrats. ​“I guess it’s going to take a Republican to really sound the alarm for this city, because New Haven is in crisis mode,” she said.

Reyes called for some of the city’s Covid relief funds to go towards the police department to invest in mental health training for officers and surveillance cameras. (Mayor Justin Elicker has proposed doing the latter.) ​“With mental health training officers can learn to stop, look, and listen first,” Reyes said.

She added that long-term therapy care should be provided to residents that officers see dealing with domestic violence.

She expressed reservations about some of the details of a proposed Crisis Response Team plan to have social workers instead of cops respond to some mental health-related emergency calls. Reyes argued that police officers should be called to scenes first to determine if they are safe. ​“They should have an on-call mental health worker and licensed clinical social worker, but they should only be called when the scene is safe,” she said.

In 2018, Reyes was a substitute language arts and social studies teacher at Barnard School. She came away convinced about the need for smaller classrooms for all grades and more involvement of parent and guardian voices. ​“The schools have been silencing parent voices instead of validating them,” she said.

Reyes said she doesn’t support any mandate for vaccinations unless it also gives the option for employees to opt out and instead get tested weekly. ​“As long as we’re abiding by CDC regulations our choice should be respected,” she said. ​“Coercion is not freedom.”

Reyes remains unvaccinated due to a lack of ​“long term research” into the vaccine, she said. Additionally, she argued that as a sanctuary city New Haven, should be mandating immigrants to get vaccinated.

“I’m not against the vaccine. I’m just not comfortable with it yet,” she said.

Nearing the end of a canvassing afternoon, Reyes stopped by a family member’s house on Robertson Street.

Reyes and Nicole Segui talked about the need for more youth programming without limitations on eligibility. ​“We need to come together with one goal and its should be the kids,” Segui said.

“Usually when I vote I just go across the ballot,” said Segui, who is a registered Republican.

Segui has four boys who have been through New Haven Public Schools. ​“Shame on New Haven for dropping the ball on our kids,” she said. For two years Segui put her kids in a private school but had to take them out because of the cost.

Patricia Kane: Kid Power, Green Thumbs

Patricia Kane’s knees and back needed a break from walking door to door so much these past weeks. So this past weekend Kane canvassed by driving her BMW 328xi down East Grand Avenue to make the rounds.

Bishop Woods eighth-graders Javon Sims, Raymond Vasquez, and Vinson Woods walked alongside the car. Kane hired them to help distribute her flyers door to door. The students were paid $10 a hour for helping Kane canvass for the past week. After realizing she could use the help, Kane reached out to friend and Guns Down, Books Up’s Raymond Wallace to find a young and motivated canvass team.

Sims and Woods, 13, heard about the short-term job through Wallace’s Bishop Woods program called Young Kings. They then recruited their best friend, Vasquez, who is 14. The team distributed flyers on East Grand and Clifton Street for Kane’s campaign focused on neighborhood noise, parks, youth programming, and the Green Party.

“From what I heard, a lot of people agree with what the Green Party stands for, so my goal would be to build a bigger Green Party presence in the neighborhood,” Kane said.

Kane, a retired lawyer and active participant in civic debates, recalled the city using the canoe ramp off Clifton Street and Quinnipiac Avenue for youth programming years ago. She hopes to help get local partners to return to making use of the space if elected, and to promote more youth services in Fair Haven Heights.

“Our political system is 200 years old and doesn’t work anymore,” she said. ​“I want the people who have to live with the consequences to be heard.”

Kane said she would have voted against the 43 year Tweed airport expansion deal and instead argued in favor of a 10 – 15 year contract with renewal options.

For the past five years Kane has been an active member of the Quinnipiac East Community Management Team (QECMT), advocating for beautification projects in the neighborhood. She has proposed a citywide mandatory notice ordinance to keep neighbors in the loop with building projects. Despite getting several support letters from community management teams, she said, she hasn’t yet convinced the Board of Alders to follow up. If elected, she can introduce it.

“The people want to know what’s going on and want to have input,” she said.

Kane has also been an advocate for park preservation. She specifically is against the selling of the 0.67-acre playground on Kensington Street to developers planning to build 15 new affordable apartments.

If elected, Kane said, she hopes to push the city to support new businesses. She said the city could do more to help a person looking to open a new restaurant at 3 Clifton St. ​“We need new business over here,” she said.

To address the city’s policing and violence, Kane supports the Crisis Response Team proposal. She also would support Newhallville’s Shirley Lawrence’s idea to establish a walk-in mental health clinic at the abandoned state welfare building on Bassett Street to help New Haveners suffering from trauma.

​“Many people have lost loved ones or experienced gun violence themselves. The trauma is lifelong and can even affect the next generation and beyond,” she said.

If elected, Kane promised to promote an oyster and waterfront-themed neighborhood worker co-op to showcase neighbors’ artistic talents.

Kane argued that in addition to being provided information about getting vaccinated, residents should be told about alternative medical treatments for the virus. She argued that she cannot support the city’s vaccinate-or-test mandate because it does not ​“consider exception for those who have had Covid before. From my understanding, [they] have natural immunity. Those who have compromised immune systems [are] put at a higher risk if they get the vaccine without considering their doctors’ approval,” she said. (Click here and here and here for a different take on the immunity, or limited immunity, of unvaccinated people who previously tested positive.)

Kane did voluntarily get vaccinated, because of her age, she said.

“I don’t believe in telling people what to do,” she said. ​“We need to be more sympathetic and less judgmental.” 

After the Saturday hustle, the group went out for a celebratory pizza.

Rosa Santana: Improve Parks,Clear Air On Schools

Incumbent Rosa Santana is all in on vaccination and employee vax-or-test mandates.

Rosa Santana has an upcoming appointment set to get her booster vaccine shot. She said she opted for the third shot to keep her two sons and 90-year-old mother safe.

On the back porch of Santana’s Clifton Street home Tuesday, she talked about her re-election campaign. Santana continues to work remotely and conducted much of her campaigning via phone since March, she said. She also had back and knee surgery, which has limited her ability to do door-knocking this year.

In an effort to protect her family, Santana said, she got vaccinated. She said she supports the state and city mandates in place. ​“It’s not personal. It’s for your family and community,” she said. ​“A lot of people just don’t get it because they don’t want the government to tell them what to do.”

Santana grew up in the Fair Haven Heights ward at her parents’ Quinnipiac Avenue home. She decided on her current Clifton Street home because of its close proximity to her mom, to Fairmont Park, and to the waterfront.

She has served eight non-consecutive alder terms in the ward (in two chunks). She said she is seeking another two-year term to enhance Fairmont Park with a splash pad and playground, follow through on her work improving the street and sidewalk conditions, and increase neighborhood engagement.

By day Santana works in commercial banking.

Santana has distributed a newsletter to residents twice a year highlighting street repaving, sidewalk updates, and tree trimming/removals in the ward. When management teams were established, Santana helped to establish the QECMT to separate Wards 11, 12, and 13 from Fair Haven and focus on local issues.

This term she has led the charge in speaking up against the school system’s failed upkeep of HVAC systems.

Before becoming alder, Santana was known as the ​“baseball lady” because she was always in Fairmont Park, running a family baseball league for 10 years.

In an effort to push Tweed-New Haven Airport to ​“think more about the community,” Santana said, she has established a relationship with authority Executive Director Sean Scanlon.

“The neighborhood wants people who they can trust to stick around,” she said.

Noise has also been an issue for the neighborhood recently. Santana hopes to help improve this issue by bringing a village feel back to the neighborhood by connecting neighbors together and encouraging residents to talk with their neighbors about their issues and concerns.

To address crime, Santana said, she believes the newly created Department of Community Resilience ​“will help to look at these issues.” She added that she supports ​“true community policing.” She said she hopes the NHPD will offer more walking beats and community events to connect more with residents. ​“When my son was young, the cops knew they could knock at our doors and ask, ​‘Do you know where your son is?’”

“Seeing a police officer in a car, it’s not a deterrent,” she said.

Santana has helped to get state funds for the recently completed renovations at Fairmont Park.

In addition, Santana sits on Wooster Square Monument Committee. She supported approving the replacement plan for the removed Columbus statue in Wooster Square Park.

“We’re moving forward in right direction. We want to celebrate Italian heritage, and the new statue shows how a lot of families came over,” she said. Santana said the statue resembled her family when immigrating from Italy through Ellis Island with a suitcase and kid in hand.