If approved, the proposal will split the Livable City Initiative. The newly created Office of Housing and Community Development will take responsibility for the creation of new housing in the city, while LCI will solely focus on housing inspections. The mayor also hopes to add eight new housing-related positions. 

City activists have critiqued LCI due to delayed inspection and unresolved complaints, often leaving tenants waiting months without receiving support from the city.

“It’s clear every day that housing is one of the biggest challenges that we’re facing as a city,” Elicker told the News. “While we’ve made a lot of progress, we have a lot more work to do, in particular, in two areas. One is increasing the number of affordable units in the city, and two is … improving our ability to inspect existing housing stock to ensure that it is safe.”

In total, these two housing programs will get more than $1.4 million in additional funding compared to the last fiscal year. Elicker’s proposed budget also allocates an additional $300,000 to support unhoused people. 

The proposed Office of Housing and Community Development

Included in the city budget is Elicker’s proposal to create a new Office of Housing and Community Development, which will partner with local organizations to build new housing and administer grants for future housing projects. If approved, the office will be a part of the city’s Economic Development Administration Division.

Currently, the Livable City Initiative is responsible for this work. 

Staff at the LCI who worked on housing development will be transferred to the new office, and an additional position — deputy director of Economic Development Administration — will be created to oversee it, according to Elicker. 

“It’s more appropriate for this work to be done within the Economic Development Administration,” Elicker said. “Economic development is the place [to which] developers first go when they’re wanting to start projects.”

Michael Piscitelli, the head of the city’s Economic Development Administration Department, explained that the new office will distribute funding for ongoing housing projects. According to Piscitelli, there are currently 3,500 new housing units in the city’s development pipeline — about 40 percent of which are affordable. 

Some of these projects are led by the city, such as a new series of townhouses on Grand Avenue, while other units are being built by external housing developers. The new office will support the projects by monitoring construction and providing technical assistance on grant applications.

In addition to supporting housing construction, the office will be in charge of administering grants for construction projects approved by the Board of Alders. Some of these grants include funding from the federal Office of Housing and Urban Development, which annually administers between $3 and $4 million in funds to the city of New Haven. Additionally, the office will draw on funds from the 2021 American Rescue Plan.

Piscitelli noted the need for affordable housing across the state of Connecticut. He said that the city has built 1,900 new affordable housing units in recent years but that the overall gap in affordable housing in Connecticut is upwards of 90,000 units. The new office will help improve housing policy, looking to increase the number of affordable units in the city, Piscitelli said.

Changes and improvements to LCI

The budget proposal will also add seven new staff positions with the Livable City Initiative, the agency that, under the proposed plan, will focus only on enforcing housing code and public space requirements throughout the city.

“I think [it’s] very important for LCI to focus on the core mission, what it was originally created for, which is ensuring our existing housing stock is of high standards,” Elicker said. 

Five of the proposed staff are housing inspectors, who, if approved by alders, will join the current team of 13 inspectors. 

According to Elicker, the attorney employed at LCI will join the Office of Housing and Community Development. The mayor thus proposed adding an attorney who will continue to work with LCI on housing compliance and inspections. LCI will also receive a new administrative assistant.

According to Piscitelli, these new positions will expand LCI’s capacity to engage in on-site inspections of rental units and section eight units on behalf of the city’s housing authority. 

LCI’s work entails a multi-step process of inspecting units, issuing orders based on code enforcement inspection and ensuring that landlords comply with these orders. Piscitelli said that staff expansion would increase efficiency within the agency, allowing LCI to make better use of government resources and increase the timeliness of their work. 

“We’ll be expecting a high level of process improvements such that we’re good on the timelines and we address the issues and make sure that our outcomes are good for the tenant who may live in the unit,” Piscitelli said.

Karen DuBois-Walton, the executive director of New Haven’s Housing Authority, noted the significance of improving LCI’s efficiency. 

“The city must increase its capacity to meet the requirements of the landlord licensing program,” DuBois-Walton wrote in an email to the News. “City resources can be most effective [by diving responsibilities].”

Alder Adam Marchand, a chair of the Board of Alders finance committee, which plays a major role in the budget adoption process, commended Elicker for paying attention to housing in his budget proposal. 

The finance committee will have its first budget public hearing on March 14.

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The budget proposal includes increased funding for education and housing and adds 31 new full-time positions to the city staff, including five housing inspectors. If approved, the budget will also reorganize New Haven housing programs and create a separate Parks Department.  

“He got it right this time … I like it,” Tom Goldenberg, a former mayoral challenger who had previously criticized Elicker’s fiscal year 2023-24  budget proposal, told the News. 

Goldenberg said that he supported the creation of a separate parks department, new housing inspection positions at the Livable City Initiative and a tax increase that is lower than last year’s, which is “encouraging.”

“We are pleased to see the increased investment in housing quality by adding needed positions at LCI,” Karen DuBois-Walton ’89, executive director of the New Haven Housing Authority, who challenged Elicker in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, wrote to the News. “Everyday we see the challenges families face seeking quality housing in the private market.” 

DuBois-Walton wrote that the decision to shift LCI’s focus away from housing development and toward inspections is a smart one. She also applauded the additional $300,000 allocated for the services for the unhoused.  

Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, said that increased salaries, which account for a large part of the increased educational budget, allowed many teachers to stay teaching in New Haven Public Schools. She said that this has made them feel that they are “being compensated fairly.” 

Per the teachers union contract negotiated last year, the salaries of public school teachers are rising gradually over the three years following the contract. Blatteau said that the increases are especially significant for mid-career educators.

“We have to continue to make sure that as many dollars as possible are making it directly to the classroom,” Blatteau said. “That means making sure that we’re paying for highly qualified professionals to support our students and making sure that the resources are in place so that we can do our jobs.”

In Elicker’s budget proposal, an additional $5 million is allocated for the Board of Education. According to Elicker, the city is also hoping to get almost $4 million more from the state for schools. This funding goes to the city’s Board of Education, which then decides how to use it, Elicker said. 

Chris Schweitzer, the head of the New Haven Climate Movement, wrote to the News that he would love to hear more from the city about its environmental investments to reach the Climate Emergency Resolution goals.

“Later is too late for climate change action,” Schweitzer wrote. 

The Mayor’s budget proposal has to be approved by the Board of Alders, who will likely amend the proposal. 

Upon seeing the creation of over 30 new city employment positions allocated across various departments, Ward 25 Alder Adam Marchand told the News he will pay attention to the costs that are going to be used for the new workers’ salaries. 

“At this point, I don’t have a strong feeling one way or the other,” Marchand said. “I’ve done this long enough that I take my time with it. I generally form my opinions slowly over the course of the workshops when I get a better understanding from the department heads about what it is they’re proposing and why they want to do it.”

The Board of Alders will be holding three hearings and six workshops on the budget over the next six weeks to solicit community input.

Marchand commended the Mayor for allocating more funds to the Parks Department and for giving a lot of thought to the housing scarcity around New Haven. 

Ward 27 Alder and majority leader Richard Furlow echoed Marchand’s statement, saying that though he’s only looked at the highlights of the budget proposal so far, he will pay close attention to the new positions created.

“Thirty-one new positions, that’s a lot,” Furlow said. “But the budget process will be for each department to explain why they’re needed, and then we’ll decide what do we believe in.”

Last year, the Board rejected 25 out of the 34 positions Elicker created. 

Fiscal year 2024-25 will start on July 1.

Ariela Lopez contributed reporting.

The post City leaders react to Elicker’s budget proposal appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Elicker announced his budget proposal in City Hall flanked by Michael Gormany, the city’s budget director, and other city officials. The budget proposal, which has to be approved by the Board of Alders, will restructure the Livable City Initiative, create a separate Parks Department and add 33 new city staff. The new expenditures will be mainly sponsored by increased property tax revenue. 

“This year’s budget is both responsible and responsive,” Elicker said at the press conference. “It’s responsible in that we continue to invest what we need to in pensions and debt … It’s responsive to calls from the community and the needs of a growing city.”

Structural changes, new positions in housing and parks

In this year’s budget, the biggest change Elicker proposed is changes to the Livable City Initiative, which has been criticized for its inability to protect tenants from negligent or predatory landlords.

“If anyone that lives in New Haven will walk around the city, [they] will understand that we have a serious housing challenge,” Elicker said.

The proposed budget includes funding for five housing inspectors to join the current team of 13. It also provides funding for two additional LCI staff workers, including one housing attorney.

LCI will see structural changes as well, Elicker said. 

“We need someone waking up every day that’s focusing on what the original intent of LCI was — inspections, housing, rental housing safety, rental housing accountability,” Elicker said of the change. 

The program’s housing development authority will be delegated to the Economic Development Administration, and LCI will instead fully focus on housing inspections and landlord accountability. 

In the new budget, Elicker also proposes to separate the Parks Department from the current Parks and Public Works Department. The two were merged in 2020. 

“We have heard a lot in these past several years from many community members … about how our parks are one of the most important assets in our city,” Elicker said. “The city needs to do better in ensuring that our parks are well maintained, there’s more responsiveness to community needs [and] the athletics fields are better maintained.”

The city will be divided into three park districts, with one manager assigned to each. These managers will be responsible for communicating with the residents on park-related concerns. 

The new budget also includes four additional staff members in the reconstituted parks department, including a superintendent of fields, a parks foreperson and two technicians who will focus on maintaining the city’s athletic fields.

Increased city expenditures 

The FY25 proposed budget has over $680 million in spending planned, approximately $17.6 million more than last year’s budget, for an increase of 2.66 percent. 

The increased spending is mostly the result of inflation and increased fixed costs, according to Elicker. But there are some new expenditures in the budget.  

In total, Elicker proposed adding 31 full-time and two part-time city positions. Besides new LCI and Parks Department positions, these include four sworn officer leadership positions in the Police Department and three captains in the Fire Department. 

According to Elicker, all new positions will account for approximately $2.97 million in spending — less than half a percent of FY25’s budget. 

Last year, Elicker proposed adding 34 new positions, of which alders approved only nine, citing concerns about the number of city government positions currently vacant.  He said that the only overlap between last year’s and this year’s proposed positions is fire captains, which he is required to add by the memorandum of understanding with the fire department. 

Educational expenses, which traditionally are the largest expenditure in New Haven, increased by $5 million to around $208 million for the fiscal year 2024-25, mostly as a result of increased teachers’ salaries, per the city’s contract with the teachers union. 

Debt service payments and contributions to the city pensions fund will increase by over $2.7 million in a new fiscal year, which Elicker attributed to the city’s financial responsibility.

“We don’t restructure our debt or do any fancy gimmicks to push costs into the future,” Elicker said. 

Financing expanded budget

Under the New Haven Charter, expenditures in the budget must be equal to the city income. 

“One of the hardest parts of my job is balancing the strong demand for more city service and having a tax rate that is something that our residents have the ability to pay for,” Elicker said. “In today’s world, you can’t even do the same without more [money] because of our increased fixed costs.”

Increased tax revenue accounts for most of the city income rise in fiscal year 2024-25. This year, the city will increase its mill rate — the amount of tax paid for every $1,000 in property value — by 3.98 percent, from 37.20 to 38.68. The city temporarily lowered the mill rate from 43.88 in the fiscal year 2021-22 to 37.20 last fiscal year to ease the transition after the reevaluation of the property values. 

According to the budget proposal, the city also hopes to get $2 more million in funding from the state compared to last fiscal year. 

The Board of Alders’ finance committee will hold several public hearings and workshops, and the full Board is expected to approve the budget in May. The Board can, and likely will, amend the budget. In the coming weeks, Elicker will also hold budget town halls to communicate his proposal to the community. 

The fiscal year 2024-25 will start on July 1.

The post ANALYSIS: Mayor’s proposed budget funds housing, parks appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Per the New Haven Charter, Elicker has to submit an annual budget proposal no later than March 1. After that, the budget needs to be approved by the Board of Alders; city alders will likely make amendments to it.

“We spend several weeks examining [the budget], asking questions of [city] staff, hearing from residents,” Alder Adam Marchand, who serves as a chair of the board’s finance committee, told the News. “Then, in May, the finance committee deliberates on the budget and typically makes changes through the amendment process. Then … it goes to the full board of alders for a vote, usually the last week of May.”

The fiscal year 2024-25 is set to start on July 1. 

The Budget adoption process

Over the next two months, the Board of Alders’ finance committee will hold three public hearings to solicit testimony from residents and five workshops with city officials to review the proposed budget in detail.

The committee will then meet to deliberate and amend the mayor’s budget proposal. The first committee vote is scheduled for May 13. 

Marchand said that the board usually passes the final budget with a “large majority” of votes. He attributed it to the prolonged discussions that happen throughout the budget adoption process and said that all alders who do not sit on the finance committee are still encouraged to share their ideas and input. 

Typically, the board adopts the version of the budget that the committee approves, but “every now and then” some amendments are also adopted on the board’s floor before final vote, Marchand said. 

Last year, the Board of Alders adopted the final budget with the same revenue and expenditure numbers that Elicker proposed, although they did change specific allocations of the funding. This means, Marchand said, that for every amended expenditure to the Mayor’s budget, the board needs to also take off some of the Mayor’s spendings.

City income and expenditures 

Property taxes are by far the largest income source for the City of New Haven. Last year, property taxes accounted for 49.3 percent of city income. They have increased due to the bump in property values after the city-wide revaluation. 

This year, the city will not reevaluate its properties, but its planned property taxes income could still be slightly higher, Marchand said, due to new property developments. 

New Haven also largely depends on the state for funding. Last year, it accounted for over 40 percent of the budget, of which 22 were allocated specifically for education. 

“The charter requires us to pass a budget where the revenue is the same number as the expenditures,” Marchand said. “One of our big functions is to be wise fiscal stewards for the city. Each year we try to help the city achieve a stronger financial position.”

Elicker has also regularly stressed fiscal responsibility in his remarks and this year’s proposed budget will likely reflect that commitment. 

Education is the largest expenditure in New Haven’s budget. Last year, education costs rose by $8 million to a record high of just over $203 million, which accounted for more than 30 percent of spending. This increase was largely driven by the New Haven Public Schools teachers’ salary bump, per their negotiated union contract.

In the coming fiscal year, education costs will likely increase further, as teachers’ salary will rise again.  

Another large source of expenditure in New Haven’s budget comes from salaries and employee benefits, accounting for 15.7 percent of the budget last fiscal year. 

In his past budget proposal, Elicker proposed the creation of 34 new city positions of which the board approved only nine — the largest disagreement on the budget. This year, any added or removed positions by mayor or alders will reflect their priorities for the city.

“When the mayor wants to propose new positions, for example, we try to understand if those positions are really necessary, if they contribute to needed services, if they help the city achieve the policy goals that are in our legislative agenda,” Marchand told the News.

The annual spending that will carry into the next fiscal year is debt service and pensions for public employees, which accounted for 10.43 percent and 13.29 percent of the budget, respectively, last year. 

Last fiscal year’s planned spending was $662.7 million. 

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On Saturday, NHSO performed seven pieces in front of the filled St. Mary’s Church, lit with candles. The concert tickets were sold out, and part of the proceeds will go toward the Yale-based organization Doctors United for Ukraine, or DU4U. 

“It was really not so much a fundraising activity but an activity to bring to the forefront what is happening in Ukraine: who is getting hurt, how they are being treated, and what people in the community here can do,” Andrey Zinchuk, professor of medicine at the University and vice-president of DU4U, told the News.

In 2022, DU4U already partnered with NHSO to raise money for medical supplies and training in Ukraine.

This year, NHSO originally planned to host just one candlelight concert on Friday, Feb. 23. When DU4U reached out and asked for help again, the tickets for that first show were almost sold out.

Elaine Carroll, chief executive officer of NHSO, told the News that she was worried there would not be enough seats for all those who wanted to come to support DU4U, and the Orchestra decided to give another concert, which was sold out as well. 

“[DU4U] told us about the work that they were undertaking to bring support to … victims of the war in Ukraine, and that inspired us,” Carroll said, recalling the initial partnership between NHSO and Du4U in 2022. “When they approached us about wanting to do a second event, we were very happy to accommodate them.”

All people who attended the concert on Saturday had the option to donate proceeds from their tickets to DU4U. Concertgoers were also encouraged to make an additional donation to an organization. As of Sunday, Zinchuk does not yet know how much the organization was able to raise that night. 

According to Zinchuk, DU4U will use the raised money to support its efforts in Ukraine, which include delivering the needed medical equipment, providing mental health support for war-affected civilians and training doctors in Ukraine. The organization also previously brought six doctors to study at Yale and hopes to expand this program in the future. After the concert, the organization awarded Yale professor Ilan Harpaz-Rotem for his work teaching mental health providers during his trips to Lviv, Ukraine.

“So much of the success [of the concert] is because of the real passion that the doctors have for what they’re doing,” Carroll said. “They were so generous with their time in promoting the event. They had wonderful suggestions.”

One of the DU4U’s suggestions was to start the concert with the “Melodia” by Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk. After this piece, NHSO, headed by violinist and concertmaster David Southorn, also performed compositions by Felix Mendelssohn, J.S. Bach and “Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi. 

Marc Anthony Massaro told the News he attended the concert because of the “level of musicianship” of NHSO and the professionalism of its performers. 

“Something I was unaware of was how exceptional the acoustics are in St. Mary’s Church. I had no idea it would sound this good,” Massaro said.

Tim Taylor said he was impressed with NHSO’s command of Vivaldi and called the performance “phenomenal.” Similarly, Allen Gibbens came to the event to listen to NHSO performing “Four Seasons.”

Michael Schaffer told the News that he found the piece by a Ukrainian composer to be “fabulous” and said it spoke to the ability of people to be resilient and optimistic no matter what the circumstances are.

St. Mary’s Church is located at 5 Hillhouse Ave.

The post New Haven Symphony Orchestra raises money for medical supplies for Ukraine appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In a conversation moderated by history professor Marci Shore, Starr talked about his experience as a Black independent journalist in Ukraine and colonialism and race in Eastern Europe. He also discussed how he believes the United States should support Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.

“The genesis of my work is really predicated on us better understanding each other, and that we all have to be invested in each others’ safety and security,” Starr said. “The safest, the most progressive thing that we can do for Ukraine is give them guns to fight, because there’s no point of talking about a peaceful Ukraine if they are dead.”

Starr, who grew up in a majority-Black community in Detroit and went to Philander Smith University, an HBCU, said that when he applied for summer abroad programs before his senior year, he picked only African countries as destinations. Nevertheless, he was placed on a trip to Russia. 

That new experience shaped him, he said, and after graduation, he spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small Georgian village. There, he said, he started understanding colonialism and race outside of the United States through conversations with Georgians, who shared their experiences of being discriminated against by Russians as “the Black people of the Caucasus.” Inspired by his time abroad, Starr also did a Fulbright exchange scholarship in Ukraine in 2009. Living in the region, Starr learned about Russian colonialism.

“Western hegemony and Western colonialism [are] not the only hegemony … and colonialism that exist,” Starr recalled realizing. 

After returning to America, Starr worked as a national political correspondent for various American outlets, covering both the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections, but traveled to Ukraine every year. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Starr said he was in Ukraine, staying with his friend, who then enlisted in the army. 

He followed his friend and started covering the war from the ground in Ukraine, where he currently resides most of the time. He conducts his reporting from the war’s front lines and writes about Ukrainian civilians. 

“He is here as somebody who is working outside of an academy and outside of a corporate news agency and has been making his own way with a very creative kind of journalism,” Shore said of Starr.

His mission, he says, has become to help cross the bridges between Black and Ukrainian communities with just a selfie stick, a phone camera, “language skills, street smarts and Black Jesus.” 

Experiences away from home have shaped Starr into an advocate for shrinking the empathy gap across cultures and promoting the idea that the Black community in the United States is in many ways similar to the Ukrainian community in Eastern Europe, he said. 

“White nationalism is putting Ukraine’s security at risk,” Starr said, reflecting on the federal bill that would provide aid to Ukraine currently stalled by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. “This racism that’s targeting us is now being used to weaponize support for Ukraine. Everybody is in this together. So we’re going to have to make a decision about how much care we have for one another.”

Although Starr said that he does not know if his work will inspire people to take political action, he knows that some will trust him better because “he looks like them.”

He added that he also believes Ukrainians feel that he, as a Black man, can understand them better than foreign white correspondents. He said that he does not operate on the idea of “objectivity,” trying to balance opinions as traditional news media outlets do. He described himself as, instead, committed to being truthful and fair. 

“The voice that I’m speaking with … that I communicate with and the honesty and the moral consistency that I bring to the conversation is not something that would pass a lot of editors,” Starr said. “So I don’t need them.”

Claudia Nunes, a visiting fellow in the School of Environment who attended the event, believes that Starr’s reporting brings the aspect of the physicality of the war to communities across the ocean — and across racial, linguistic and cultural barriers. 

“Because he takes the truth this seriously, his reporting appeals to hearts,” Nunes noted. “Our interpretations of what is happening in Ukraine would vary only slightly, not as much as they used to, if we all had access to unfiltered truth. And Terrell gives it to us.” 

The event was sponsored by the Poynter Fellowship; the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program and the European Studies Council.

The post Independent American journalist discusses his reporting in Ukraine appeared first on Yale Daily News.

But after a “turnaround” in his life, his career in New Haven Public Schools, and community activism, Redente became the only challenger to oust an incumbent alder in New Haven in the 2023 election. 

Redente said he is led by childhood traumas and strives to help those who go through hard times like he once did. In his work as an alder, he said he hopes to address gun violence and drug use in New Haven, support its youth and bring infrastructure investments into Fair Haven, the heavily Latine neighborhood he believes was overlooked for a long time. 

“I never thought I’d be a politician. An alder? Me? Never,” Redente said. “I feel like I switched universes. I like to fight for the marginalized groups.”

A Fair Haven upbringing

Redente is the son of Frank Redente, Sr., who ran Farnam Neighborhood House, a local club and gymnasium that was popular among Fair Haven youth. 

Redente Jr. did not like staying in Farnam House. There, he was “Frank’s kid,” which he said put extra social pressure on him. He knew he was queer from an early age and living in a household where it was not safe to come out, he said he gravitated to the streets “to prove what a man [he] was.”

“Right around eighth grade, going into high school, I got involved with dealing drugs and gangs,” Redente said. “I wasn’t necessarily part of the solution around here, [but] very much a part of a problem.” 

He said that as a kid he was also bullied. His trauma, he said, led him to bad choices. His trauma, however, also guided his later work. 

Jimmy Flynn, a childhood friend, told the News that he knew Redente was going through personal problems but never knew much in detail. In 1992, Flynn was incarcerated but kept in touch with Redente. He was surprised when he learned Redente was getting into “a little trouble.”

Redente said that when he was around 18 years old, many of his friends were in prison. Redente got lucky, he said, and was not charged with serious crimes. Redente then got a part-time job at Fair Haven School, where he would spend the next 30 years of his life, starting as a security guard and becoming an outreach worker for the entire Fair Haven district.

Thirty years in New Haven Public Schools

“I never thought in a million years I would work at a school with kids,” Redente said. “But right away, when I started working in the school, people noticed that I was good at what I was doing as far as building relationships with the students.” 

Redente said he believes that as a result of his childhood trauma, he tries his best to understand students who misbehave and help them out. 

Redente was transferred to Edgewood Magnet School, where after two years as a security guard, he was promoted to a truant officer. In this role, he reached out to students with continued absences to bring them to school, connect them with mental health services and provide any other support needed. 

“He turned his life around. [It’s] a lot of people’s aspiration, but this guy is actually doing it,” Flynn said. 

Redente then moved back to Fair Haven School and became a youth development coordinator. In this position, he supports families and students in need. Oftentimes, he said, this means getting outside of school walls, “on the streets.” 

In public schools, he said he deals with children who suffer from traumas like he did. Many students, he said, are impacted by the violence in the community and come from poor families. Kids rely on him, Redente said, and that is what keeps him motivated to do his work. 

A year ago, Redente also became an official street outreach worker in Fair Haven, working with children at risk in all Fair Haven schools. 

Outside of school, Redente also worked with kids coaching basketball, which he said he sees as a tool to keep children “off the streets.” 

Over the years of work with children in New Haven, he lost many of them. On his arm, Redente has over 50 names tattooed — all teenagers and youth he knew who died prematurely, some because of cancer or asthma, but most because of gun violence. This week, he added a couple of fresh names on his shoulder. 

“I’ve had to console too many mothers and grandmothers who have lost their kids,” Redente said. 

On the campaign trail

In New Haven, incumbents rarely lose elections. Redente is the first candidate to unseat an incumbent alder since 2015, and those challengers were supported by Yale’s politically powerful UNITE HERE unions.

In this year’s Ward 15 election, incumbent Ernie Santiago, who had been an alderman for 12 years, ran for reelection with endorsements from Mayor Justin Elicker, Rep. Rosa DeLauro and the influential Local 34 – UNITE HERE union. 

Redente recalled that he first thought of running when his neighbor built an illegal car business in his backyard, which constantly emitted noise. After talking with many officials, he said, he was able to get the city to file a cease-and-desist order. Getting “the wheels of justice moving in this city” motivated him, but nowhere in this process did his then-alder Santiago respond to these issues, according to Redente. 

“My neighborhood was deteriorating,” Redente said. “Nobody else was stepping up year after year. This guy was just handed the alder position because nobody ran against him.”

Santiago did not respond to a request for comment. In an interview with New Haven Independent last summer, after he failed to secure the endorsement of the Democratic Town Committee, Santiago said that ​“communications broke down between [him] and [his] constituents.” He attributed it to his busy schedule serving on multiple city boards and alder committees.

Another Fair Haven Alder, Sarah Miller ’03, told the News that Ward 15, which borders her own Ward 14, had not had an active representation for years, and a lot of people had been complaining to her about Santiago’s unresponsiveness. 

When she learned that Redente, whom she knew was a person ready to work, she publicly supported him and helped him with his campaign. 

Both Miller and Flynn said that everyone in the neighborhood knew Redente. Miller recalled that when she was canvassing for his campaign and got turned away at one door, she showed Redente’s campaign handout with his picture, and it changed the attitude of that resident. 

Part of his local fame is because of his father’s work, Redente said. Another part is his active outreach work in the community and work with children in Fair Haven public schools, according to Miller. 

Flynn, who got out of prison through a community service program last May and now works with New Haven Rising, told the News that Redente supported him throughout the whole process of reentry. Flynn, seeing how Redente helped him and others in the community, decided to support his campaign. 

“He believes in his community, he’s invested in his community,” Flynn said. According to him, Redente started taking calls and requests from the community even before he got elected. 

Redente gathered a group of Fair Haven residents with whom he said he knocked on over a thousand doors in his neighborhood, another explanation for electoral success. According to Redente, he was proud to increase the voter turnout in a neighborhood that usually votes the least in New Haven. 

Last year, on Sept. 12, Redente won 64 percent of the ward’s votes in the Democratic primary, becoming the party’s nominee. During the general election, he ran unopposed and was inaugurated into the position along with 29 colleagues in January. 

Two months in an aldermanic chamber

Although Redente defeated an opponent whom many of his current colleagues had endorsed, he said that they warmly welcomed him, and he had “great” conversations with the Mayor and other alders.  

“Politics is really new to him, and what I’ve appreciated is that he asked a lot of questions, and he’s really trying to learn the ropes,” Miller said. 

In a new seat, Redente cooperates closely with Miller and another newcomer from Fair Haven, Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith ’14. The three are now building up a community management team to address Fair Haven’s issues. 

Redente sits on the Community Development, Education and Youth & Youth Services committees and said he was excited to recently vote on approving the creation of 150 affordable housing units during his first committee meeting in early February. 

While in office, he also wants to address gun violence and drug use, he said. Redente said that he first wants to facilitate the agreement on “a fair” police union contract. Over-policing is not good, he said, but he wants to see “well-trained, culturally competent police officers with secure jobs, which don’t make them stressed out.” Addressing shortages in the force will help police officers build stronger relationships with communities, he believes.

“I’m a former gang member,” Redente said. “I’ve never in a million years thought I would advocate for the police.”

Another priority for him is bringing infrastructure investments to Fair Haven, starting with fixing sidewalks, many of which have not been renewed in decades. “Broken windows,” underdeveloped infrastructure in his neighborhood, bring crime and violence, he said, and he wants to fix it. 

So far, he has also recruited Manuel Camacho, a student at Southern Connecticut State University, to serve as a co-chair for Ward 15 and join Redente’s team. 

“He told everyone and was very honest about it: “I don’t like politics. The reason I am doing this is because I care about people,” Camacho said of Redente. “That’s the type of people we should elect.”

The next alder elections will be held in 2025. 

The post PROFILE: Frank Redente’s path from gang member to alder and activist appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In 2019, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed into law a bill that incrementally increased the minimum wage in the state from $10.10 per hour at that time to $15.00 by 2023. The bill also instituted yearly raises based on the federal Employment Cost Index starting this January.

“The minimum wage for many years remained stagnant, making existing pay disparities even worse and preventing hardworking families from obtaining financial security,” Lamont said at the press announcement of the increase last year. “This is a fair, modest increase and the money earned will be spent right back into our own economy and support local businesses.”

Five years ago, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a minimum wage increase that pegged its growth to economic growth. The minimum wage in Connecticut increases annually on Jan. 1, tied to the Employment Cost Index, a measure of nationwide wage growth calculated by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

According to Connecticut Labor Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo, the increase will benefit between 160,000 and 200,000 minimum wage workers in the state.  

Gildemar Herrera, who represents New Haven’s municipal management employees as the president of AFSCME Local 3144, welcomed the increase in the minimum wage but said that she foresees little impact on working families struggling to afford rising food prices and rent hikes. 

The state minimum wage, among other key programs, directly impacts the many working families Herrera represents, especially single mothers with young children to support. Herrera said that she worries, in particular, about immigrant families struggling to pay the bills.

Those earning a $15.69 wage remain “working poor,” according to Herrera, who said that more should be done to support those workers. 

But Garrett Sheehan, the president of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, said he was opposed to the automatic minimum wage increases, and that he would support policies that promote flexibility and follow “economic realities.”  

“While we understand the increased cost of living and are fully supportive of paying employees livable wages, we sympathize with employers, specifically small businesses who are the most negatively impacted by the consequences of well-intended legislation,” Sheehan said. ”There should be a balanced approach to minimum wage policies — one that aims to support the prosperity of businesses and the well-being of our workforce.”  

Historically, the introduction of a minimum wage was tied to women’s labor politics in the late 19th century, as mostly women were working in the lowest-wage jobs, according to Yale labor historian Jennifer Klein. Bartolomeo said that nowadays, approximately 60 percent of minimum wage earners in Connecticut are women. 

Another policy challenge Klein identified is employers reclassifying their workers as non-employees to evade labor standards and minimum wage legislation.

What makes low wages unlivable in the U.S., Klein says, is the absence of state benefits, like healthcare, childcare and housing, which some other countries subsidize. 

“Nobody ever became not poor working for minimum wage,” Klein said, echoing Herrera. “What you really need to talk about is what’s going to change the balance of power for workers. And what are you going to do to make that possible? The technocratic fix is not enough.”

Klein said that she believes that minimum wage increases will not necessarily push businesses away from the state. When employers need more workers, “they hire more workers.”

When the minimum wage increase was passed, State Rep. Robyn Porter emphasized that the increased wages for residents would benefit local businesses and produce revenue for Connecticut. Announcing the most recent increase, Lamont seconded this sentiment. 

For tipped workers in Connecticut, the minimum wage is lower — at $6.38 for waiters and $8.23 for bartenders. This year, CGA might consider a bill that will eliminate this gap. 

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. 

The post New Haven labor and business leaders disagree on automatic minimum wage increases appeared first on Yale Daily News.