And it’s not Hillary vs. Obama.
It’s not even a race for alderman. It’s a race for co-chairs of the Democratic Ward Committee — something that hasn’t happened in anyone’s memory in Ward 25.
Four candidates are running for the two slots in a March 4 election. One of them, Tim Holahan, contributed the article below about why he decided to get involved in politics at the ultimate local level. Other candidates are welcomed to submit articles on their experiences as well as photos to this email address.
Why We’re Running
by Tim Holahan
“What’s a ward committee?”
That was the most common response I got while going door-to-door in my neighborhood, New Haven’s 25th Ward, last weekend. I was asking neighbors to sign a petition to put me and my running mate, Mary Faulkner (pictured above handing in petititons), on the ballot as candidates for the position of ward committee co-chair.
That question is one of the reasons we’re running. Few people in our ward know much about the ward committee, or what it exists to do. The ward committee is the local arm of the Democratic Party. Its members endorse the Democratic candidate for alderman every two years, and its co-chairs sit on the Democratic Town Committee, where they endorse the Party’s mayoral nominee.
In the 25th Ward, there are more than ten registered Democrats for every Republican, a ratio typical for the city. Since New Haven is such a Democratic town, the endorsed Democratic candidate usually wins. So the ward committee wields real power in determining who will represent the citizens of the ward.
Having grown up in New Haven and returned to settle down in Westville in 2004, I know that our city and this ward are experiencing an ongoing renaissance, with many younger couples and families choosing to make their homes here. When my wife and I had our first child in July of last year, I began to think about how the decisions made by the city’s legislators and administrators affect my life, and will affect my daughter’s for many years to come.
When Mary called two weeks ago to ask me to run with her, I gave it some serious thought and agreed. I had met Mary at the meetings of the Westville/West Hills Community Management Team, which she chairs, and I knew her to be an energetic person committed to the community.
Mary and I agree about the need for greater openness and transparency in city government, and the need for debate on the crucial issues confronting the city: taxes and debt, education, services, and crime. We believe that more Democrats in our ward would get involved in these discussions if they knew how.
As the country wonders whether it’s on the brink of a recession or already in one, New Haven is seriously in debt and facing what looks like a major foreclosure crisis in 2008. Our public servants are not to blame for these problems. By running, we’re not trying to say that they have failed us.
What we are saying is that we think government works best when the governed are actively involved, when their voices are heard before decisions are made that affect them, and when the conversations about those decisions take place not only in the halls of power, but in the neighborhoods of the city.
We’re willing to put in some hard work to try to get those conversations going in our ward. We think an election for ward committee co-chairs, which hasn’t happened in a long time, will be a healthy thing for democracy, and the Democratic Party, in the 25th Ward.
Faulkner and Holahan created this website for their campaign.