New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Elicker welcomes four new city leaders
NEW HAVEN — Mayor Justin Elicker welcomed three new department heads and a key liaison to City Hall on Friday — overseeing such key areas as Labor Relations, City Plan and the Fair Rent Commission — just four days after announcing a series of changes that included the departure of several other longtime city leaders.
Equity — something at the heart of Elicker’s goals for his second term — came up multiple times in the priorities expressed by appointees Wendella Ault Battey as Labor Relations director, Wildaliz Bermudez as executive director of the Fair Rent Commission, Laura Brown as
City Plan director and Barbara Montalvo as his new liaison to the Board of Alders.
“I’m very confident that the four new members of our team that we are going to announce today are going to hit the ground running and help us” make the city a better place to live and work, Elicker said Friday.
Battey and Montalvo will begin work Feb. 14, Brown will begin Feb. 28 and Bermudez will begin March 7, they said.
For Battey, an attorney who is a native of New York who worked in New Haven more than three decades ago and now lives in Bloomfield, it marks a return of sorts.
“I’m glad to be back,” said Battey, who has worked for the last 27 years as a member of the State Board of Labor Relations — and served as its acting chairwoman for the past five years.
“I look forward to it and I hope that you all will not be disappointed.”
A graduate of Hofstra University with a law degree from Brooklyn Law School, Battey
“has a history of success in resolving conflicts and bringing disputing parties to consensus,” according to the city..
She is the only Black mediator with the state Department of Education and a labor and employment arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, it said.
Bermudez, described in her biography as “a passionate advocate for cities,” also is coming from Hartford — where she served from 2016-21 on the Hartford Court of Common Council and also served in several City Hall roles for two administrations.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and a master’s in environmental science from La Universidad Metropolitana in Puerto Rico.
Bermudez said one change that has taken place in recent years is that the problems of city dwellers have become more visible, and issues that have come to the forefront “have been health and housing.”
“The Fair Rent Commission is a tool that we have in New Haven that not all communities have in Connecticut. But we could use it more proactively,” Elicker said.
Bermudez said in response to a question about how she might let more people know about what the Fair Rent Commission offers, said, “It’s pretty simple and it’s about meeting people where they are” and promoting it.
Brown, a native of Taunton, Mass., and resident of the city’s Westville neighborhood, spent 10 years in Wisconsin after earning a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Wisconsin.
She moved to southern New England in 2014 and has worked since then as a community and economic development educator with the University of Connecticut Extension. She holds a B.S. in psychology and communications from Clark University in Worcester, Mass.
“I’m really so honored to be able to serve,” said Brown, who previously worked several jobs for nonprofits. “As my friends will tell you, I have a thing for small cities.”
She said that as director of City Plan, “I will be putting all my work through the lens of equity.”
She later said that zoning “is a tool that we use to achieve equity,” although “it may not be the only tool in the toolbox.”
Among other roles, Brown is co-chairwoman of the Working Group on Structural Racism with UConn’s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources and “is continuously working toward undoing oppressive norms, structures and policies,” according to her biography.
Montalvo has worked for the city since 2013, when she began as administrative records coordinator in the Office of Legislative Affairs. More recently, she has worked as a treasury and investment analyst with the city Finance Department.
She comes from a union family and served two terms on the executive board of AFSCME
Local 3144, according to her biography.
“I look forward to continuing to work with everyone in this new way,” she said.
On Monday, Elicker, one month into his second term, announced he would be replacing City Plan Director Aicha Woods and Elderly Services Director Migdalia Castro, among others.
Meanwhile, Fair Rent Commission Executive Director Otis Johnson and Public Safety Communications Director George Peet will be retiring, and Labor Relations Director Cathleen Simpson planned to move on to other pursuits, Elicker said.
The flurry of activity, about a week after the city let go its director of public health nursing, came as the four-year contracts for all of the employees involved were expiring.