New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Mayorelect’s transition team a good step in collaboration
Let’s talk about just collaboration.
The race for New Haven’s mayoral seat has, in many ways, felt high stakes and neverending this year. From the beginning, it was clear that each candidate had ardent supporters and a visible following that made debates and open forums feel like monthly thermometers for the state of collaboration in the city.
Now just one week after the election and with Justin Elicker firmly cemented as New Haven’s mayorelect, tackling inclusive collaboration seems to be the first order of business. How do we know? Elicker’s transition team touts a diverse group of roughly 25 people who have an array of political beliefs, a variety of social values and, most importantly, weren’t all in Elicker’s camp from the beginning.
“I think it’s really important to give credit to the people that were supportive of Mayor Harp during her campaign for being willing to join this transition team,” he said. “In particular because I asked them to join very soon after the election. I think it shows courage on their part and their dedication to the city.”
Elicker’s transition team cochairmen are state Rep. and Labor Committee CoChairman Robyn Porter; Kica Matos, Vera Institute director of the Center on Immigration and Justice and former city community services administrator; and Sarah Miller, New Haven Public Schools Advocates cofounder — each of whom has a long reputation of working for equitable change and progress across the city.
I’ve seen New Haven expand and contract in several directions over the last 15 years. At times, the politics felt like a finely tuned and welloiled machine that inhaled and exhaled in perfect unison. I’ve seen the choreography of aldermanic meetings skip a couple of steps, and the routine of Board of Education meetings fall into chaos. For me, a clear pattern emerges when city leaders force inclusive collaboration — progress.
I caught up with Elicker earlier this week to see why this strategically inclusive style of collaboration was important to him. His answer: It’s the best approach forward.
“There was a lot of thought that went into the people that were chosen and asked to be on the transition team,” Elicker said over the phone on a number he’s given out to New Haven residents and doesn’t plan to change. “At the end of the day, no mixture of people is going to be perfect. But the spirit of the team is that it’s as diverse and inclusive as we can get.”
Six years ago, Elicker took on the challenge of vying for New Haven’s top seat and lost. The lessons from that campaign, he said, were clear: He needed to spend a lot more time in neighborhoods that didn’t know him and less in the ones that did. That, combined with intentionally seeking and developing authentic relationships with New Haven residents since 2013, is what he and his supporters think made the win possible.
One of those supporters and a transition team member, Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen Jr., said Elicker has always been committed to the community. Still, while serving as executive director for a major nonprofit organization, the
New Haven Land Trust, he was able to learn more about New Haven and build relationships that made a win like this possible.
“I think the difference [between his first campaign and this one] was the demonstration of accessibility,” Brackeen said. “Before, he had been in the community for a long time, but most people didn’t know who he was outside of his neighborhood. Essentially, he just expanded the work he was already doing citywide. He made himself available. He didn’t even change his number. Every call he got, he answered it, and he made authentic relationships throughout the city.”
Elicker’s transition team, filled with grassroots activists as well as established political and organizational leaders, has an ideological balance that I think is required to solidify his commitment to collaboration.
As he explains it, the necessity of including grassroots organizers is apparent when considering their commitment to finding new, innovative and drastically reformative approaches to policymaking and issuesolving. Their approach, balanced by the expertise of issue leaders, will force recommendations that carry a full spectrum of considerations for New Haven.
“The seasoned New Haven leaders know a lot about how government works and how the nonprofits oftentimes are good about pushing back on how things traditional work,” he said. “You need both of those in today’s world to be effective in addressing the underlying problems that many of the seasoned people have not been able to do. Having this clash of different approaches to addressing the challenge is a way to come up with more creative solutions and to push back on some of the traditional approaches to problemsolving.”
It’s experimental, and we have few examples of what this kind of acrosstheaisle collaboration looks like in New Haven. But if it proves to be the best representation of ensuring city leaders have an open tab on resident feedback from respected organizers, committee members and issue leaders, Elicker said the spirit of this team shouldn’t end with the mayoral transition.
“The interesting aspect of any transition team is that it’s a short, intensive process to give the mayor recommendations [for a short period of time],” he said. “When in reality, there should be groups of people providing community guidance and recommendations to the mayor every step of the way.”
This, in a lot of ways, is what justice looks like.
I think there’s no denying the successes of Mayor Harp’s administration. She was an accomplished state senator and brought her expertise to New Haven at a time when leadership and progress were severely needed. Now, after a long year of divisive uncertainty, the balanced and justiceminded composition of Elicker’s leadership team might just be a look into what’s possible for a city on the mend.