Liam Brennan forms committee for possible New Haven mayoral run

NEW HAVEN — A fourth Democrat, former federal prosecutor and legal aid lawyer Liam Brennan, is considering challenging incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker for the party nomination in the November mayoral race, saying, “I think there’s an appetite and a space for really innovative ideas that can change the way the city works.”

Brennan, 44, is a married father of four city magnet school students who lives in the city’s Westville section. He recently filed papers to form an exploratory committee for a possible mayoral run and said this week he hopes to make a decision by early to mid February.

“I am officially exploring that possibility,” Brennan said, citing easing the city’s affordable housing problems, improving its education system and reforming the criminal justice system among his top priorities.

He pledged to run “an innovative and different campaign” if he were to decide to run.

“I love New Haven,” Brennan said. “I think it’s the most wonderful little city in the country . ... It’s so diverse, it’s so beautiful, it’s got natural resources.”

Brennan, a Stamford native and graduate of Yale Law School, currently works as inspector general in Hartford investigating police misconduct.

If he decides to run, he would join former McKinsey & Co. consultant Tom Goldenberg and former alder and retired police sergeant Shafiq Abdussabur in the race, as well as Elicker.

Brennan cited the need for urban “infill” housing among the most important issues for the city.

“I’d like to see it made easier to build naturally affordable housing,” he said. There is a need for both additional marketrate housing and subsidized non-market-rate housing, Brennan said.

Right now, “our zoning rules make it pretty nearly impossible to build,” particularly on smaller lots that used to have houses on them but don’t qualify according to current zoning regulations.

“There’s all these requirements on setbacks” and other issues, Brennan said. “We can change the zoning rules to make it easier to build.”

This is particularly an issue in older neighborhoods such as Dixwell, Newhallvile and the Hill, he said. “We have empty lots that we can’t build on,” Brennan said. “Once the zoning rules came in ... they made it so you couldn’t put back up what was there before.”

With regard to education, “My kids have been in schools for eight years,” he said. “I’ve seen teachers leaving mid-year for years — even teachers who want to be there.” And during that time, “there’s really been no public discussion” of the city’s education issues, he said.

With regard to criminal justice, “I think the war on drugs, it’s done, it’s over, it’s failed,” Brennan said. “It needs to end.”

“Drug addiction is a public health issue” and needs to be treated as such, Brennan said, echoing the direction the city is moving under Elicker.

“Violence is a criminal issue,” but “they affect each other,” he said.

“Too often, drug prosecutions are used as a proxy for violence,” he said. “Violence is an issue that we need to investigate specifically.

“I know people in Westville who use drugs and they will never go to jail for that,” Brennan said, suggesting the system isn’t fair. “There are plenty of people at Yale who used drugs ... and they will never face the criminal justice system.”

Brennan worked for years as a federal prosecutor, working in the Department of Justice’s fraud section in Washington, D.C. Then he moved back to New Haven, becoming head of the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Public Corruption Unit. Among other cases, he was involved as lead prosecutor in the case against former Gov. John Rowland, he said.

After leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he worked for New Haven Legal Assistance for four years before beginning a stint as executive director the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center.

In Hartford, as the city’s first inspector general, he works with Hartford’s Civilian Police Review Board, he said.

He didn’t criticize Elicker by name but said of the city under Elicker’s leadership, “I just don’t see any vision ... and I think leadership should say, ‘We have goals ... and this is how we set out to meet those goals.’ ”

That’s important for things such as improving education and getting guns off the street and “I really haven’t heard anything along those lines,” Brennan said.

“I think the mayor sets out, like, vision goals, what he or she wants to” and then city departments implement them, he said. “But I think it takes the person that we vote in or vote out to set those priorities,” Brennan said.

Elicker on Wednesday said, “I’ve talked about a New Haven where everybody has an opportunity thrive and everyone on our team is working toward that goal. Two years ago, we rolled out a public safety strategy that included increasing violence intervention programs, opening a reentry welcome center and creating a crisis response team. We’ve accomplished all those things.

“Several years ago, I rolled out an affordable housing plan that included an inclusionary zoning” component “and some policy changes,” Elicker said. Now, “we have 600 rental affordable units,” with “1,600 in the pipeline ... On youth and education, we’re opening more youth and community centers” and implementing a strategy to address school absenteeism, he said.

If he decides to run, he would join former McKinsey & Co. consultant Tom Goldenberg and former alder and retired police sergeant Shafiq Abdussabur in the race, as well as Elicker.

Brennan