Thomas Breen photos
Mayor-elect Justin Elicker at Tuesday’s protest. Below: Climate change protesters outside City Hall.
As the temperature fell below freezing Tuesday afternoon, dozens rallied outside City Hall to demand that the incoming mayoral administration follow through on campaign promises to prioritize fighting climate change.
Mayor-Elect Justin Elicker — standing and shivering alongside those climate activists as they called him to account — promised to not let them down upon taking office in January.
That frigid late-afternoon rally took place in front of the Amistad statue outside City Hall. It was hosted by the New Haven Climate Movement and Sunrise New Haven in collaboration with a regional chapter of the Democratic Socialists for America (DSA), the immigrant rights group Unidad Latina en Accion, the labor advocacy group New Haven Rising, and student activists from Yale University and Southern Connecticut State University.
Metropolitan Business Academy senior Adrian Huq (pictured), who emceed the 45-minute Post-Election Rally for Climate Justice, said that the roughly 50 people had braved the cold Tuesday afternoon to send a message to the city’s new mayor-elect.
That Elicker picks up where the Board of Alders has left off in its recent passage of a climate emergency resolution, which calls for the creation of a new city climate emergency task force, and that he follow through on a campaign pledge to work on reducing the city’s carbon footprint.
“Now comes the critical work to form the task force to cut our greenhouse gas emissions ASAP,” Huq said. Huq also called on Elicker to prioritize initiatives that educate residents about the effects of climate change, that eliminate all municipal greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, that dedicate one-tenth of 1 percent of the city’s annual budget towards staffing and sustainability measures that might help realize those goals, and that push the state to adopt a Connecticut-wide Green New Deal.
Speaker after speaker took up that same call Tuesday as they steadied their hands, raw red and shaking from the color, to direct their climate emergency message to the incoming mayor.
DSA Ecosocialist Alexander Kolokotronis (pictured) asked Elicker, “Will you be a ‘Movement Mayor’ or will you be a mayor who sticks within the ways of old?”
“New Haven can today be a green Model City that sets the stage for a Green New Deal nationally,” he continued.
ULA organizer John Lugo (pictured), standing in front of a towering Dia De Los Muertos skeleton puppet, urged Elicker to prioritize setting up a climate emergency task force and pressuring Yale University to invest more in climate change mitigation initiatives.
“Resolutions are only words printed on paper that will end up in the garbage polluting more,” he said. One idea he suggested for the mayor-elect: Hire local South and Central American immigrants who may have experience as farmers to grow food on the city’s many vacant lots. “Why not offer jobs to them” and turn these desolate spots into food-producing oases? he asked.
“I am hopeful and heartened to see the mayor-elect here, to see him out in the cold and shivering beside us,” Pastor Jack Davidson (pictured) of Hamden’s Spring Glen Church said.
By the time Elicker finally took the mic, he said, “My body is so cold … but my heart is so warm to see this kind of activism, particularly from the environmental community.”
He said he deliberately included climate change as one of the top 11 policy priority areas that his transition team will be looking into over the next month-and-a-half. He said he’s tapped local high school student climate activist Kiana Flores to spearhead that work for the transition team.
“I think Yale needs to do much more to help the city, particularly on financial issues,” he said, when asked how he might best pressure the university to step up its investment in climate change mitigation locally. He said he’s sitting down with Yale University President Peter Salovey soon to talk through the current town-gown relationship and how it might improve.
“This is my first demonstration since the election,” he told the protesters. “And it’s been the first time I’ve been the target of a demonstration. I hope that you join with me to collaborate together to address these problems.”
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Tuesday afternoon’s protest.