Vote For ... What?

Candidate Graves gives his phone number to Monterey Place’s Jeanette Britt.

Monday, November 6, 2017 - 

Jeanette Britt told the candidate knocking on her door that she had been tricked.

A man came to her house a few years ago selling life insurance, and she had bought it, assuming that it was a permanent plan that could be cashed out if she were ever in financial trouble.

She later learned that the policy was for term life insurance, which has no cash value and only pays a beneficiary if the owner dies within a specific period of time.

She told this story to Clifton Graves on Saturday when Graves knocked on her door seeking her vote this coming Tuesday in the election for a new probate judge. Graves, a Democrat, is running against Republican Melissa Papantones. (Click here to read a previous story detailing the issues in the race and the two candidates’ biographies, and to watch or listen to a joint radio appearance they made. Or click on the Facebook Live video at the bottom of this story.)

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“Debate” Features Call For Democracy

Paca, Ganong show up.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 

At a mayoral “debate” Tuesday night where no active mayoral candidates debated each other, two policy proposals did surface: creating a hybrid elected-appointed Board of Police Commissioners and expanding public financing for city elections.

The New Haven Democracy Fund organized a mayoral debate on Tuesday night in the library of the Benjamin Jepson Magnet School on Lexington Avenue in Fair Haven Heights.

The Democracy Fund is a city program that provides public matching dollars for New Haven mayoral candidates who abide by certain fundraising restrictions, including limiting individual campaign contributions to no more than $370 each.

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Harp Crushes Paca 3-1

Kim Edwards, Sarah Ofosu embrace after their primary.

By by PAUL BASS, ALLAN APPEL, MARKESHIA RICKS, THOMAS BREEN, & MICHELLE LIU

Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - New Haven Democrats gave an overwhelming vote of confidence Tuesday to Mayor Toni Harp, as she clobbered challenger Marcus Paca in a party primary in which she won all 30 wards in the city.

Final returns showed Harp with 74.5 percent of the vote to Paca’s 25.5 percent. Counting absentee ballots, Harp received 5,788 votes to Paca’s 1,977.

Both camps had anticipated a closer race because of Paca’s energetic campaigning, contrasted with Harp’s lower-key style. Both sides in effect made the primary election a referendum on Harp’s first two terms in office, from her leadership style and budgeting record to her housing and criminal-justice and pro-immigrant policies.

Harp, Sanctuary Policy Get Senator’s Endorsement

Harp introduces Blumenthal at endorsement.

Monday, August 28, 2017 - Two Connecticut politicians who have ardently defended New Haven’s status as a sanctuary city promised supporters that they would continue to protect local immigrants from what they see as unjust federal orders of deportation.

That promise came from Mayor Toni Harp and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal at a reelection campaign event Saturday.

Around 50 local politicians, labor organizers, and New Haveners gathered in a small classroom at the New Haven Federation of Teachers Union Hall at 267 Chapel St. to see Blumenthal as he formally endorsed Harp in her bid for a third two-year term as mayor of New Haven.

Harp faces challenger Marcus Paca in a Democratic Party primary on Sept. 12.

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Paca: I’m Like Yates; Harp’s Like Trump

Paca lambastes Harp administration at DTC candidate forum on Saturday.

Saturday, July 15, 2017 - 

Is New Haven a stable city that has become safer, more responsibly governed, and more attuned to the needs of its students and workers over the past four years? Or is it barely treading water, rife with violence and unemployment, led by a mayoral administration bent on political retaliation and deceit?

Mayor Toni Harp said the former, and her challenger for the Democratic mayoral nomination, Marcus Paca, offered the latter view as they pitched their candidacies Saturday morning to 60 party leaders during a forum held by Democratic Town Committee (DTC) on the steps outside the Betsy Ross Parish House on Kimberly Avenue.

Holmes Passes The Baton

Decker, Holmes at Thursday night’s announcement.

Friday, July 14, 2017 - 

A political science graduate student who already doubles as a zoning commissioner and a union organizer is looking to pick up the batons of criminal justice reform and community engagement from an East Rock alder who has decided not to run for reelection.

The grad student, Charles Decker, a sixth-year Yale PhD candidate in political science who also serves on the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) and has been one of the leading organizers of Yale’s graduate teacher union UNITE HERE Local 33, formally launched his Democratic campaign to become the next alder for East Rock’s Ward 9 on Thursday night from his campaign treasurer’s apartment at Orange Street and Bishop Street.

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