Ward Debate, Vote Reflect City’s Divides

New Haven’s ​“upstairs-downstairs” divide was on display at a Democratic ward committee meeting Wednesday night in both a vote taken and an exchange about low-wage workers.

The meeting was held at Celentano School by the Democratic committee in the 21st Ward to question candidates for mayor, then conduct an advisory preference vote.

Ward 21 embodies some if the starkest extremes of New Haven’s divides: Down the hill on the eastern side of Prospect Street, it includes mansions and the city’s wealthiest residents in the largely white St. Ronan/Prospect Hill neighborhood. Down the hill on the western side of Prospect Street, the ward includes some of the city’s lowest-income blocks in the largely Black Newhallville neighborhood, as well as a portion of the Dixwell neighborhood.

After hearing from the candidates, the committee members indeed split their votes: 12 for incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker, 10 for Karen DuBois-Walton, who is challenging him for the Democratic nomination. Mayce Torres, who has filed papers to run for mayor, also spoke; she received no votes.

These ward committee votes are nonbinding. They serve as a way for members to advise their two ward co-chairs, who are to cast votes that count for the party’s endorsement at a July 27 Democratic Town Committee convention.

After the vote, ward Co-Chairs Ray Jackson and Kate Sacks said they will both vote for Elicker at the convention.

Before the vote, the ward’s income divide came up in the form of a question asked by Dixwell Community Management Team Chair Nina Silva.

Silva works part-time as a paraprofessional for New Haven Public Schools, a position that receives some of the lowest pay in the district. In recent years advocates have pushed to pay paras more. Silva recalled a Board of Education meeting on June 3 during which members voted 4 – 2 (with 1 abstention) against giving part-timers in the school district raises to $17.48 per hour.

“I was so frustrated when you voted against raising paras’ pay from $12,” Silva told the mayor, who has a seat on the school board. ​“We can’t afford to pay for groceries! And then you said that $13 is ​‘a victory.’”

“I felt so disrespected,” she added, referring to the statewide minimum wage increase to $13 that will occur in August.

Elicker denied making such a comment.

“I would never say that,” he said.

“I’m on the record here tonight, that I don’t think that $13 is adequate.”

He told Silva and the ward committee that while he does in fact support giving paraprofessionals a livable wage, the June 3 raise proposal needed to be studied through the Board of Education’s committee process first. (You can watch the full meeting and his full remarks in the above video.)

Silva told the Independent in an interview after the exchange that she also works two other jobs, as a caretaker for the elderly and selling makeup products. She did not divulge her vote, but said she hopes to see movement on the issue soon. (During the June 3 meeting, Elicker asked fellow board member and Pay Equity Committee chair Larry Conaway for a report on the issue at the next meeting.)

“It felt condescending at the time, but maybe I’m not remembering it right,” Silva said of the mayor’s June 3 comments.

The challengers were also given a chance to respond. Torres called the mayor a ​“CEO” rather than a governor. DuBois-Walton tied the issue to the mayor’s wider record.

“It’s indicative of a pattern with this mayor, where he does not act urgently on issues that need urgent action,” DuBois-Walton said. ​“Just like he apparently needs a study to understand that $13 per hour is not acceptable in our city, he needed a study to start the next study to eventually possibly react to the calls for changes in policing our community called for last year.”