8 Vie For Newhallville Seats

The race is on in Newhallville, where eight candidates in four different slates are vying to become the neighborhood’s next hyperlocal Democratic Party leaders.

At stake: concerns ranging from crime to traffic, voter registration to attention from City Hall, and bolstering the Democratic Party’s strength in an all-but-single-party city to reforming party bylaws in the direction of transparency and accountability.

The campaign culminates this coming Tuesday, when registered Democrats in two of the three wards that cover Newhallville will hit the polls to elect the next ward committee co-chairs for Wards 20 and 21.

Those are two of six races citywide for what are normally low-profile positions that technically involve participating in party endorsements of candidates for city and state offices, but can take on broader ramifications for the direction of the city’s dominant political party. (Click here to read about a previous story about how the job is viewed by the longest-serving ward co-chair, who’s running again Tuesday as well, in the Hill.)

In Ward 21, which includes sections of Newhallville, Dixwell, Prospect Hill, and East Rock, incumbent co-chair and Bishop Street lawyer Kate Sacks is running for a second two-year term alongside first-time candidate Ray Jackson, a Shelton Avenue street violence outreach worker and former campaign volunteer for Mayor Justin Elicker.

They are being challenged for the Ward 21 co-chair seats by Maceo Troy Streater, a Dixwell Avenue resident and 180 Center staffer who unsuccessfully ran against incumbent Ward 21 Alder Steve Winter in last year’s party primary, and Maverick Jacobs, a local construction contractor and prison reentry mentor who also lives on Dixwell Avenue.

In Ward 20, which covers a majority of the Newhallville neighborhood from Thompson Street to the south, Winchester Avenue to the east, Cherry Ann Street to the north, and Dixwell Avenue to the west, UNITE HERE Local 34 union organizer Barbara Vereen and fellow union member Oscar Havyarimana are running for their fifth two-year terms as co-chairs.

They’re being challenged by Jeanette Sykes, one of the leaders of the Newhallville Community Management Team and the founder of the neighborhood girl-empowerment organization The Perfect Blend founder, who is running on a slate with long-time Sargent Assa Abloy worker, community outreach coordinator, and Bassett Street resident Rhonda Nelson-Sheffield.

The other ward that includes sections of Newhallville, Ward 19, will not have a primary this year because the incumbents, Claudine Wilkins-Chambers and Ethel Berger, are running uncontested for another two-year term.

The ward committee co-chair positions are some of the least understood roles in local politics. Their limited responsibilities per local Democratic Party by-laws are to convene committees consisting of up to 50 registered Democrats in their respective wards.

They then must cast ballots at the once every two years Democratic Town Committee convention in support of their respective aldermanic candidates, as well as for hopefuls running for mayor, city clerk, and one of two elected spots on the Board of Education.

The co-chairs often function as de facto ambassadors for the Democratic Party at the street-by-street level, working to register new voters, educate local party members about candidates running for office, communicate neighborhood concerns to their respective alders, and get people to the polls during elections.

The contested Newhallville co-chair primaries represent a bump in interest in neighborhood-level Democratic Party politics following last year’s heated mayoral campaign between Elicker and then-incumbent Mayor Toni Harp. In that race, co-chairs occasionally defied the party’s by-laws by barring the public from listening in on endorsement votes. 

Some co-chairs also earned criticism from the town party’s chair himself for casting their nominating votes for a candidate other than the one endorsed by a majority of their respective ward committees. The party bylaws as they currently stand allow for co-chairs to serve as ​“unfaithful” electors in relation to their committees.

There are six contested ward committee co-chair primaries in total this year. Check out the bottom of this article for a complete list of who’s running and when and where to vote on March 3.

Sacks And Jackson: Co-Chair Position ​“Needs To Be Reconceived”

Sacks and Jackson told the Independent during a Wednesday afternoon interview that they’re running on an incumbent-newcomer slate for Ward 21 co-chairs in large part because they wants to reform the written rules and on-the-ground practices of the local Democratic Party as it functions today.

“The job needs to be reconceived,” Sacks said. ​“We’re trying to make it a vehicle of the people.”

She said a priority of hers if re-elected will be to take a shot at redrafting the half-century-old bylaws that govern the local party.

When asked what overarching principle she intended to follow when reviewing and revising those rules, Sacks had a quick, one-word response: ​“Accountability.”

“I want to build a system that is the lowest-level of representative government,” she said about her vision for the role that ward committees play in the larger scope of New Haven politics.

That means making sure that the co-chairs are accessible to the voting public, and transparent regarding where they stand on any given issue or candidate. That they are hosting regular candidate forums during campaign seasons, as well as meet-ups to discuss key concerns in the neighborhood even when there are no elections on the immediate horizon.

“We have a very diverse and very intensely invested group of citizens here” in the four neighborhoods that span Ward 21, she said. They should be able to rely on the ward committee as vehicles for honest information and engaged discussion.

Jackson said that he learned a lot about the power of grassroots political engagement during his time volunteering and knocking doors for Elicker’s 2019 mayoral campaign.

“Justin from my perspective has stood tall for transparency,” Jackson said. ​“We haven’t had that on the ward level.”

“There’s no border wall between Newhallville and East Rock,” Sacks added. She said two committee co-chairs who are committed to knocking doors, actively recruiting committee members, hosting regular conversations about local politics, and communicating closely with the ward’s alder can go a long way in creating a united political culture across the disparate sections of Ward 21.

As far as the most pressing issues facing the ward right now, Sacks and Jackson singled out a variety of quality-of-life concerns that disproportionately affect the Newhallville side of the ward, including crime, blighted homes and vacant buildings, traffic safety, and a dearth of after-school programs for kids.

Streater And Jacobs: Who Represents ​“The Whole Ward”?

At February’s monthly Dixwell Community Management Team, Jacobs and Steater told neighbors that if elected they would focus on initiating more community meetings with the police.

Jacobs, who said he’s been a part of the Dixwell/Newhallville community for over 20 years, told the management team that he and Streater would also advocate for more mental health services for young people. The idea that generated a murmur of assent from the room.

And he said they wanted to spread the word about the management team through new mediums, including a podcast.

Their opponents in the race, Katherine Sacks and Raymond Jackson, were not present at the meeting. Neither was the ward’s alder, Steven Winter.

After Streater sat down, Jacobs took umbrage with a flyer that Winter had sent out to residents earlier in the month.

In the flyer, Winter endorsed Sacks and Jackson, and described that slate as best capable of representing ​“the whole ward.”

Jacobs expressed frustration with the flyer. Since Sacks is white and Jackson is black, he interpreted Winter’s phrasing to imply that only a mixed-race team could represent all of Ward 21.

“We’re gonna represent the whole ward,” Jacobs said.

Addie Kimbrough, a regular at the Newhallville management team, defended Winter, arguing that alders and other public officials regularly endorse candidates for ward co-chairs.

Winter: This Isn’t About Race

In a phone call follow-up interview, Winter told the Independent that ​“the whole ward” section of the flyer was not meant to imply that only candidates of a certain racial make-up are best positioned to represent the ward.

“We have a ward that covers four different neighborhoods,” Winter said.

“We need a team that’s going to effectively represent everyone, every single person, regardless of” their background or the color of their skin.

He pointed out that when he ran against Rodney Williams for the Ward 21 alder seat in 2017, Williams, who is black, campaigned on the slogan that he would represent the ​“whole ward.”

“It wasn’t a race thing then, and it’s not a race thing now,” Winter said.

He said that Sacks brings experience as an attorney ​“that can be really helpful as we look at our 50-year-old bylaws” for the local Democratic Party.

And Jackson ​“brings experience going out and hitting the doors really hard and getting to know people.”

“It’s those combinations of skillsets that I think will make sure that everyone in the ward will be well represented, from East Rock to Dixwell to Prospect Hill to Newhallville.”

Vereen And Havyarimana: Higher Turnout, More Services

At Tuesday’s monthly Newhallville Community Management team meeting at Lincoln-Bassett School, Vereen and Havyarimana said they are running for a fifth two-year term for the Ward 20 co-chair spots because they want to build off of a rise in voter turnout since they took office.

“That actually matters when it comes to getting services,” Vereen said.

Both incumbents are members of Local 34, a UNITE HERE union that represents clerical and technical workers at Yale. Havyarimana works as an animal technician at the university. Vereen is a chief steward of the union.

They said that, as voter participation rates rose in Ward 20, politicians began to pay more attention to the neighborhood’s needs.

“We made this area a stop for politicians,” Havyarimana said. ​“Ten to 12 years ago, the city didn’t care about Newhallville. Now, when it snows, you see a snow plow.”

Another part of their job, the candidates underscored, is to ​“stand by and support” the work of Ward 20 Alder Delphine Clyburn.

According to Vereen, this means going to community meetings, driving donations for community events at the Newhall Gardens elderly housing complex, and delivering food to home-bound ward residents through Food in Service to the Homebound (FISH) of Greater New Haven.

Havyarimana named Cherry Ann Street park, an outdoor community space that opened along the New Haven-Hamden border, as another project that the co-chairs worked on.

Vereen said that one goal of theirs for the next term would be to reach out to young people in particular and encourage them to vote.

And she said she wants to increase Ward 20’s voter turnout even further. ​“I want to be not just in the top five — because we’re up there,” she said.

In the 2019 mayoral election, a total of 645 Ward 20 residents voted, making it the seventh highest ward turnout out of the city’s 30 wards..

Sykes And Nelson-Sheffield: ​“We Want To Inspire Our Young People”

In a Thursday afternoon phone interview with the Independent, Sykes and Nelson-Sheffield said they’re running for the Ward 20 co-chair positions because they feel that voter turnout in Newhallville is still not high enough. While turnout did rank in the top 10 of all of the wards in 2019, it still fell just below 30 percent of total registered voters in the neighborhood for the November general election.

“It’s one thing to go out and register people,” Sykes said. ​“It’s another thing to get them to the polls.”

She and Nelson-Sheffield said they would prioritize engaging young people in politics by not just hosting youth-focused meetups, but also by reaching out through social media and through other digital means to bring in a tech-savvy potential electorate that doesn’t feel as connected to local politics as they should.

Sykes said she also wants to make sure to educate young people about how African Americans have historically been denied access to the polls. This hard-fought right should not be taken for granted, she said.

“We want to inspire our young people,” Sykes said. ​“Right now, our young people, they are not inspired to vote and do not understand the vote.”

“We want to pass that torch,” she continued, ​“and make sure they’re ready for that torch.”

Nelson-Sheffield said that she has lived in Newhallville for 50 years. That both she and Sykes grew up in the neighborhood and have dedicated their lives to the neighborhood.

“I just thought there was a lack of communication within the neighborhood,” Nelson-Sheffield said about why she and Sykes decided to challenge two long-term incumbents. ​“I just wanted to see if I could make a difference in bringing the community together.”

Clyburn: ​“My Heart Is Torn”

Clyburn said that she has felt a bit torn over this primary because ​“they’re both people I love.”

“We’re a family,” she said about Ward 20 in general, and about her relationship with Vereen, Havyarimana, Sykes, and Nelson-Sheffield in particular.

“Whoever wins, I just hope we really have a greater insight into taking care of our ward.”

She said that she picked Vereen and Havyarimana as her co-chairs when she first came into office as alder back in 2012.

“They’ve been there with me,” she said. ​“And I’m going to be there to support them.”

But, she continued, Sykes has also been a key ally and friend over the years, particularly through their shared involvement in the management team.

“My heart is torn,” Clyburn said.

Where And When To Vote

Ward 16
Location: John S. Martinez School, 100 James St.
Hours: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Candidates: Sarah Debala, Celestino Cordova
Mishele Rodriguez, Jayuan Carter

Ward 17
Location: Firehouse, 826 Woodward Ave.
Hours: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Candidates: Christina Laudano, Alphonse Paolillo
Marianna Apuzzo

Ward 20
Location: Lincoln-Bassett School, 130 Bassett St.
Hours: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Candidates: Barbara Vereen and Oscar Havyarimana
Jeanette Sykes and Rhonda Nelson-Sheffield

Ward 21
Location: King-Robinson School, 150 Fournier St.
Hours: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Candidates: Katherine Sacks and Raymond Jackson
Maceo Streater and Mverick Jacobs

Ward 26
Location: Davis Street School, 35 Davis St.
Hours: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Candidates: Amy Marx, Sharon Jones
Pamela Allen

Ward 29
Location: Beecher School, 100 Jewell St.
Hours: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Candidates: Audrey Murriel-Tyson, Major Ruth
Tamika Hollis