“The University of Idaho student band, a tribe from the North, brave and bold, bearing banners of Silver and Gold, donned blue and white, tried and true, to subdue all Yale’s foes,” the official statement from the governor said.

With Yale’s marching band unable to make the trip over spring break, Yale Athletics reached out to Idaho’s Vandal Marching Band on Sunday, March 17 — the day Yale defeated Brown to earn a spot in March Madness — asking if it could sub in.

The musicians, wearing Yale T-shirts and calling themselves the “Van-Dogs,” gained national media attention after performing during Yale’s first-round win over Auburn and also earned praise from the team’s players and coaches.

“It’s outstanding that the government did that to recognize the band,” head coach James Jones told the News after Lamont’s proclamation. “It was such a selfless act and I’m humbled that they were able to come out and support us and be recognized in this way.”

Lamont’s statement commends the band’s effort to learn “Bulldog,” the Yale fight song, and its commitment to “understanding Yale traditions.” It also credits the band as a contributor to the Bulldogs’ upset victory over Auburn.

After that game, the band briefly returned to the University of Idaho for a campus recruiting event before making another 90-minute trip to Spokane on Sunday to perform during Yale’s second-round matchup against San Diego State.

“Our entire goal was to do the best we could to represent Yale University and the State of Connecticut as well as the University of Idaho and the Gem State,” Spencer Martin, Idaho’s director of athletic bands, wrote to the News. “We are so humbled to be honored by Governor Lamont and the State of Connecticut.”

By all indications, Lamont is a big fan of college basketball.

The University of Connecticut men’s team won last year’s national championship, and the UConn women boast a record 11 national championships. Lamont has taken to calling the state “the basketball capital of the world.”

On March 21 this year, Lamont released his March Madness brackets, accompanied by a nearly two-minute video discussing the prospects of each of the five Connecticut teams that had qualified for either the men’s or women’s tournaments. No fewer than ten of the governor’s 26 posts on X in the past two weeks have concerned college basketball.

David Bednarz, a spokesperson for Lamont, wrote in a statement to the News on Thursday that the governor decided to declare “University of Idaho Day” after seeing news coverage about the Idaho band’s service to the Bulldogs.

“Proclaiming a day in the university’s honor is a fun way to show that while our two states may be on opposite sides of the country, acts of good sportsmanship like this can bring us together,” Bednarz wrote.

Thursday’s announcement was not Lamont’s first time focusing the ceremonial power of the governorship on March Madness.

Last spring, after the UConn men’s team qualified for the Final Four, Lamont proclaimed a “Husky Weekend” before traveling to Houston to watch the games. But Lamont ruffled feathers by saying on a radio show that Houston was “butt ugly” during his visit. He later apologized to the city’s mayor.

For the University of Idaho, there is no apology — only thanks.

Yale and the University of Idaho are 2,193 miles apart.

The post Lamont honors Idaho band for cheering on Bulldogs appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The senior Connecticut senator mostly recounted anecdotes from his long political career and offered advice for novices. The hourlong event in Linsly-Chittenden Hall was interrupted briefly by pro-Palestine protesters.

Standing before a crowd of roughly 100 students, Blumenthal stressed the value of starting out in politics by forming relationships through local campaigns and community organizations.

“Go back to your roots,” Blumenthal said he was told by Justice Byron White LAW ’46 during the now-senator’s year clerking for Justice Harry Blackmun. Blumenthal added, “You don’t have to go back to your hometown, but you do have to set down some roots.”

Five minutes into the senator’s introductory remarks, an attendee stood up and began to read a statement demanding that Blumenthal “call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.”

About a dozen students pulled out pieces of white cloth with the word “ceasefire,” and some held them up while walking by Blumenthal at the front of the room.

“You refuse to hold Israel accountable, but we will hold you accountable,” the protester yelled, referring to the over 32,000 people Israel has killed in Gaza since Hamas killed 1,200 and took over 250 as hostages during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “Shame on you, senator, and shame on all of you who remain complicit.”

The protesters, numbering about 30, marched out of the room while chanting “shame.” Blumenthal resumed a minute and a half after he had been interrupted and said he regretted that the protesters could not hear his position on the ongoing war.

He told the remaining group that he supports an “extended pause” in fighting along with the release of Israeli hostages and certain Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. He also called for increased humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“Many in the Congress, like the president, are losing patience with the Netanyahu government,” Blumenthal said, referring to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The rest of the event focused less on current events than on sometimes extended stories from Blumenthal’s nearly five decades in public life.

When asked how individual testimonies affect policymaking, Blumenthal spoke about the PACT Act of 2022, which expanded benefits for veterans exposed to toxic chemicals, and brought up legislation he has introduced to protect minors on social media.

During the Q&A section near the end of the hour, one student asked Blumenthal whether it amounted to a conflict of interest for members of Congress to trade stocks.

Blumenthal, whose wealth exceeded $80 million in 2015, said he holds no individual stocks personally and has no hand in trades by his wife’s company that he reports in disclosure forms. He would support banning members of Congress and their spouses from owning stocks, Blumenthal said, adding that it was “pretty tender territory” at home, a line that drew laughs.

Blumenthal told the News after the event ended that he enjoys returning to Yale, where he attended law school and where three of his four children have been students. The fourth will start at the law school in the fall.

He said he was not surprised by the pro-Palestine protests. “What I really hope to do with protesters is to engage with them and hear their point of view,” Blumenthal said.

The News was unable to seek comment from the protesters who marched out of the event.

“Our organization is in support of our peers’ right to stand up for the causes they believe in,” wrote the Yale College Democrats in a statement to the News. The group added that it adheres to the University’s policy against event disruptions, which the moderator announced before Blumenthal spoke.

Blumenthal, 78, has served in the Senate since 2011.

The post Blumenthal reminisces with Dems, interrupted by protests appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The question is on local leaders’ minds after alders voted this month to let certain city administrators seek exemptions to the typical residency requirements — a move Mayor Justin Elicker said he hopes is the first step toward greater flexibility for more officials.

The Board of Alders approved, by a 26-4 vote on March 4, an ordinance change allowing incumbent city coordinators to get waivers to move outside city limits if they prove to alders “a critical need or extraordinary hardship due to exceptional circumstances.” New Haven currently has three coordinators: top mayoral lieutenants who each oversee a large swath of the city government. 

Elicker told the News he appreciates the measure but would like to go further, by easing or removing residency requirements for all department heads, who are one rung below coordinators, except for the fire and police chiefs.

“There’s, I think, generally the concept that someone that’s a New Haven resident maybe has more skin in the game,” he said. “At the same time, for these highly specialized positions, it is incredibly difficult at times to identify people that are New Haven residents to fill them.”

For example, Elicker said, before the city hired Kristy Sampieri as comptroller, it took two years to fill the position. Elicker said recruitment for municipal jobs has only grown harder in recent years amid a competitive labor market, leaving roughly 200 of the city’s 1409 full-time positions vacant.

Ward 27 Alder Richard Furlow, the Board’s majority leader, said it would be more difficult to persuade the alders to weaken, let alone eliminate, residency mandates for department heads. While coordinators serve at the mayor’s pleasure, department heads work under four-year contracts.

“Part of our legislative agenda is good jobs for New Haven residents. And so these good jobs should start where we are, at City Hall,” Furlow said.

He added that he would be open to rethinking the residency mandate for certain posts but thinks the government should better advertise available jobs to New Haveners.

Board President Tyisha Walker-Myers, who represents Ward 23, is assembling a working group of alders and city officials to consider the merits of residency requirements for each department head position, according to Furlow.

Connecticut law since 1989 has forbidden residency mandates for unionized government workers such as police officers, firefighters and teachers. But other cities in the state have requirements for more senior office-holders, as New Haven does.

In 2021, Hartford loosened its residency mandate with an ordinance amendment that lets four department heads request waivers to live outside the city.

Hartford’s then-mayor, Luke Bronin — who is teaching a Yale Law School course about local and state governance this semester — told the News that officials who live out of town can be just as devoted to serving residents.

“It’s often very hard to get somebody to change school districts, sell a home and move in for a job that they might not have two years later,” Bronin said. “Especially where cities are small, a city should be able to have the flexibility it needs to attract the right team.”

Elicker proposed ending residency requirements for department heads during New Haven’s charter revision process last year, but the idea did not catch on as a charter amendment.

The measure enacted this month is far narrower. Exceptions are only available to coordinators, a senior rank that at most four people can hold — and only to coordinators who have already served for a year.

To receive an exception, a coordinator must be experiencing significant hardship, such as one related to their family, health or finances. Even with an approved waiver, they must live within 50 miles of New Haven’s borders and in Connecticut.

“I feel strongly that any leadership positions for this city should reside in this city,” Ward 10 Alder Anna Festa, one of the four alders to oppose the measure, told her colleagues before the vote. “We don’t have anyone that is qualified to fill these positions that resides in the City of New Haven?”

The most immediate effect of the ordinance amendment could be to allow Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle to move in with her family out of town.

Elicker has not formally asked the alders for an exception for Rush-Kittle, who continues to live in New Haven. Elicker’s spokesman said Friday that the mayor plans to do so but has no firm timeline.

“With my family based in Rocky Hill, like other working families, I’m glad to be able to do the job I love during the day and then commute home to be with family on the evenings and weekends,” Rush-Kittle wrote in a statement provided by the mayor’s office.

Elicker has also not set a timeline for proposing to the Board of Alders a measure to allow residency exceptions for department heads. Furlow said the question may have to wait until after the budget process concludes in May, or even until the fall.

The other two current coordinator-level positions, besides chief administrative officer, are economic development administrator and community services administrator.

The post As alders ease residency rules, Elicker wants more leeway appeared first on Yale Daily News.

“Some people are Red Sox fans; some are Yankees fans. Everybody is a UConn fan today,” Lamont told the crowd, standing in front of the victorious players. “That’s what it means to this state. Everybody is a fan.”

That was last year, with only one Connecticut team in the NCAA Division I national men’s basketball tournament. This year, after Yale’s nail-biting win in the Ivy League championship on Sunday, two men’s teams from Connecticut will compete in March Madness — leaving politicians in the state, and in New Haven, with divergent or uncertain loyalties.

The Huskies, seeded No. 1 across the 64-team tournament, and the Bulldogs, No. 52, would face each other in Boston in the Sweet 16 round if both teams win their first two games, meaning that at most one Connecticut men’s team could reach the Elite Eight. Unless the intrastate showdown comes, questions of allegiance remain largely academic.

But if statewide elected officials are taking sides, the dilemma may fall hardest on Lamont, Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz ’83 and Senator Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73. It’s a choice between Connecticut’s flagship public university and their alma mater, whether from the School of Management, college or law school.

“It’s like choosing between children here,” Bysiewicz said in an interview, noting that she spent her first year of law school at the University of Connecticut. “I’m wishing Yale the best. Let’s be honest, UConn’s the top seed. So we’ll see how it goes.”

Lamont declined to pick one team but told the News he would attend the Yale-UConn matchup if it happens. He said he would wear blue, a color the two schools share. In a statement to the News, Blumenthal also expressed equal enthusiasm for both teams.

Political incentives, to say nothing of basketball prowess, would seem to favor the Huskies.

Lamont could use goodwill during an ongoing budget fight with UConn administrators, and the university’s main campus in Storrs educates about 19,000 undergraduates, nearly 70 percent of them Connecticut residents. Even with recent increases in its local investment, Yale faces continual pressure to give more money to New Haven and hire more New Haveners. Only approximately 400 Yale College students hail from Connecticut.

Asked for their views on the two Connecticut men’s teams entering March Madness, even prominent New Haven politicians refrained from siding with just the hometown team.

Mayor Justin Elicker SOM ’10 YSE ’10 wrote that the Bulldogs “will have the City of New Haven rooting for their success in the Big Dance” — before concluding his statement, “Go Bulldogs and Go Huskies!”

When pressed for which team he would support in a hypothetical Yale-UConn game, Elicker, through his spokesman, declined to comment.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who was born in New Haven and has represented the city in Congress for 33 years, similarly wished “both teams the best of luck” in a statement to the News.

There was no such parity in comments from DeLauro’s colleague Rep. Joe Courtney, a UConn law school graduate whose district includes Storrs.

Courtney wrote that he is “a lifelong die hard Husky fan” who would be “watching every minute, and rooting for a repeat” of UConn’s championship. But he added, “Yale’s buzzer beater win at the Ivy League tournament was impressive. They are a dangerous underdog.”

The Bulldogs, though underdogs they may be in their first-round game against Auburn on Friday, do have some unequivocal fans in New Haven politics.

Ward 29 Alder Brian Wingate, the vice president of Yale’s service and maintenance staff union, Local 35, told the News he hoped to cheer on the Bulldogs at Delaney’s Restaurant & Tap Room in Westville. Still, in his March Madness bracket, Wingate predicts that UConn will beat Yale in the Sweet 16.

College basketball has carried a special weight in Connecticut in recent years, as the Huskies’ success has galvanized many in a state with no major league men’s professional sports teams. Three teams from the state are set to compete in the women’s national tournament, in addition to the two men’s teams.

“We are the basketball capital of America when it comes to college basketball,” Lamont said in an interview. “It’d be exciting as hell if Yale was a bigger part of that.”

Yale and UConn have not competed in men’s basketball since 2014, when the Bulldogs upset the Huskies by one point, ending UConn’s 13-game winning streak in the series.

Correction, March 22: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz.

The post Politicians torn after Yale and UConn make March Madness appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The elections marked the third time in seven months that New Haven voters reaffirmed their support for a Democratic apparatus allied with Yale’s UNITE HERE unions. Roughly 1,200 New Haven Democrats cast ballots at polling places amid Tuesday’s rain, handing party-backed candidates four times the number of votes earned by opponents running with the insurgent group New Haven Agenda.

“The candidates that we supported all had decisive and convincing victories,” said Vincent Mauro Jr., the Democratic Town Committee chairman. “It speaks to the faith and stability that the party has shown, along with its partnerships with labor and the Board of Alders.”

New Haven Agenda represented the first coordinated effort since 2012 to replace Democratic ward co-chairs, who vote to endorse party nominees and organize voters in their wards. The bloc of 12 candidates focused on criticizing UNITE HERE’s dominance in city politics and a host of neighborhood concerns.

Jason Bartlett, a defeated Ward 6 co-chair candidate who chaired the New Haven Agenda slate, acknowledged in an interview shortly before the polls closed that he and the other challengers faced tough prospects against an established party infrastructure spanning ward committees, City Hall and the State Capitol.

“You don’t have to win even one seat to start opening up the party to more people and putting your ideas on the table,” Bartlett said. “In terms of my personal objectives, part of it was just getting people to participate. That to me is a win.”

In recent weeks, candidates on both sides of the contest canvassed voters on the phone and in person, seeking support for elections that occur only infrequently, when more than two candidates qualify for the ballot. Elections took place in Wards 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 18, 28 and 30, covering the Hill, parts of downtown and East Rock, Quinnipiac Meadows, East Shore, Beaver Hills and West Rock.

The incumbent co-chair slate, called Dems for Dems, celebrated its landslide wins at the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council building in Fair Haven with beers and cheers for co-chairs arriving from long days at their polling places. The gathering featured speeches by Mauro, Mayor Justin Elicker and Scott Marks, director of the union-affiliated organization New Haven Rising.

In his remarks, Mauro said complaints about undue influence wielded by UNITE HERE were “all horseshit” and touted the coalition — evident in the jubilant crowd — that critics say amounts to a political machine.

Leslie Radcliffe, a voter in the Hill and member of the Ward 4 Democratic committee, said she was impressed by the turnout, given the low-profile nature of co-chair roles. Ward 4 had over half the turnout Tuesday as in the mayoral general election in November.

“For a little known topic, a little known position, it did stir up some good trouble,” she said. “It was good that there were challengers and that there was attention brought to it.”

Radcliffe voted for her incumbent co-chairs, Jennifer Chona and Howard Boyd, but said she wished candidates on both slates had spoken more with residents.

Clarence Cummings, who won reelection as a Ward 3 co-chair, told the News that he met his two opponents, Inez Alvarez and Martha Dilone, for the first time at the polling place. He said he hopes they attend ward committee meetings going forward — a message echoed by other supporters of the victorious slate.

“Typically, you don’t have a lot of contested elections for ward co-chair,” Elicker said in an interview. “Bringing attention to that position is also important.”

The top vote-getter from in-person machine ballots on Tuesday was Gary Hogan of Ward 28, which covers most of Beaver Hills; he earned 252 votes.

The post Incumbent slate sweeps Democratic co-chair elections appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Two Democratic Town Committee co-chairs in each of the city’s 30 wards handle voter engagement and vote at party conventions on nominations for higher office. The election pits the current leadership, backed by Yale’s influential UNITE HERE unions, against a slate of challengers seeking to change the party’s direction.

The polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. in Wards 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 18, 28 and 30, which cover the Hill, parts of downtown and East Rock, Quinnipiac Meadows, East Shore, Beaver Hills and West Rock.

Why are the elections happening?

Most years, Democratic Town Committee ward co-chairs go uncontested. But a new group, New Haven Agenda, announced in January that it would seek to dislodge incumbent co-chairs. Some of the slate’s candidates failed to collect the required signatures or had paperwork rejected for technical reasons, but 12 qualified for the ballot.

The New Haven Agenda candidates, broadly dissatisfied with the city’s current government, have brought to the campaign a variety of concerns about their neighborhoods, such as speeding cars, uncontained trash, poorly paved streets and the expansion of Tweed-New Haven Airport. The incumbent slate defends the record of city politicians supported by UNITE HERE.

Who are the candidates?

Jason Bartlett, a Ward 6 co-chair contender who leads New Haven Agenda, has a long history in Connecticut politics. Most New Haven Agenda candidates, however, are residents with scant political experience.

They include an artist, a dancer, a former lawyer, a community activist, a restaurateur and a bookkeeper. Tom Goldenberg, the defeated 2023 Republican and Independent mayoral candidate, is the slate’s treasurer, but not a co-chair candidate.

The incumbent slate, formally called Dems for Dems, consists largely of members and allies of UNITE HERE unions, some involved in city government. Among the party-backed candidates in wards with contested elections are Ward 12 Alder Theresa Morant, former Ward 6 Alder Dolores Colon and Sean Matteson, Mayor Justin Elicker’s chief of staff.

How have they campaigned?

Candidates on both slates have called voters and knocked on doors in their neighborhoods. Both sides held campaign events on Saturday, Feb. 24, in the Hill, the neighborhood south of downtown where three contested elections are happening. A rally for the party-backed slate drew about 50 people, while about 20 people attended a New Haven Agenda meet-and-greet.

According to financial filings, Dems for Dems raised $4,370.34 in individual contributions between Feb. 7 and 25. In the same period, New Haven Agenda took in $1,794 from individuals, almost half from Bartlett. The slates have spent money on yard signs, flyers and online advertising.

New Haven Agenda released a video last week in which Bartlett criticized political spending by UNITE HERE. He called the unions a “special interest group” and said they lead local officials to neglect certain community issues such as education and public safety — a characterization challenged by union allies.

What are the stakes?

Victories for any New Haven Agenda candidates would signal that some New Haven Democrats are ready to consider alternatives to the union-backed power structure that has been in place for over a decade. Conversely, if candidates on the incumbent slate prevail, the election could solidify the city’s political status quo.

Some, such as Ward 4 co-chair contender Joe Fekieta and former Mayor John DeStefano Jr., see the New Haven Agenda effort as preparation for another mayoral campaign by Goldenberg in 2025. He has not announced plans to run.

Even still, it is not clear whether 12 Democratic ward co-chairs of the 60 across the city could significantly sway a mayoral campaign in favor of a primary challenger.

The next election in New Haven, Connecticut’s Democratic and Republican presidential primaries, will come on Tuesday, April 2.

The post What to know as New Haven Democrats pick ward co-chairs appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Now, the fired official, Jason Bartlett, is leading an initiative to challenge the city’s political leadership by replacing Democratic Town Committee ward co-chairs. Even as discrimination complaints Bartlett leveled against the city in a federal lawsuit remain unresolved, he maintains that the insurgent co-chair slate, New Haven Agenda, does not stem from personal grievance.

“It’s not really about Elicker,” Bartlett, a veteran of Connecticut politics and a candidate for Ward 6 co-chair in the Hill, told the News. “I’m a change agent, so it’s always been about change.”

Democrats in eight of the city’s 30 wards will head to the polls on Tuesday to each elect two ward co-chairs, organizers who mobilize voters and participate in party nominations.

New Haven Agenda is the first co-chair slate to take on the dominant role Yale’s UNITE HERE unions play in city government since union-backed Democrats took over the party in 2011.

The new challenger slate’s treasurer is Tom Goldenberg, the 2023 Republican and Independent mayoral candidate whom Elicker handily defeated.

“I’m really not clear what the purpose is of running a number of people against other ward co-chairs, many of whom have a strong history of engaging in New Haven in a very positive way,” Elicker said in an interview. Pointing to the involvement of Bartlett and Goldenberg, Elicker added, “People can make their own judgment about their motivations.”

Bartlett served in the state House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011, representing a district in western Connecticut. He came out as gay in 2008, making him among the country’s first openly gay Black state legislators, if not the very first. Former Mayor Toni Harp appointed Bartlett to the role of youth services director after he had managed her 2013 campaign.

From that post, he launched Youth Stat, a cross-department program to support vulnerable children and teenagers, and other initiatives such as summertime three-on-three basketball tournaments. But Bartlett also faced accusations of favoring personal associates for city contracts, particularly for a long-stalled, never-built Escape Teen Center. Bartlett has strongly denied the allegations of wrongdoing.

“Jason is extremely passionate about the children of the city and is unwilling to accept the status quo,” Kermit Carolina, a city education official who worked with Bartlett on Youth Stat, said. “As a result of him challenging the status quo, sometimes he has people who may not like his particular direct approach.”

According to the New Haven Independent, Bartlett’s work on the Escape project became a target of a 2019 FBI investigation into the Harp administration. In June 2019, Bartlett stepped down from his role as Harp’s reelection campaign chair, and Harp put Bartlett on paid administrative leave. A spokesperson for the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment for this article.

Challenging Harp for the Democratic nomination, Elicker pounced on the controversy as an example of mismanagement and corruption in City Hall. One Elicker online advertisement from the race focused squarely on Bartlett, claiming that his paid leave amounted to a loss for the city of $30,530 to date.

Bartlett said the attacks on him, which he saw as a deliberate smear campaign, became a “huge part” of Elicker’s case against Harp, with lingering repercussions for his life.

“He drove Democrats throughout the state away from me,” Bartlett said. “I was a recognized political strategist, African American, gay guy in the state, and by saying the things he said about me — people are afraid, with the mayor of a major municipality.”

Elicker disputed Bartlett’s characterization of his centrality to the Elicker campaign message. He declined to comment on its effects on Bartlett’s political career.

Elicker’s 2019 campaign manager, Gage Frank, said that the election-season criticism of Bartlett fell within normal campaigning and that public officials should expect their actions to be examined closely.

“He gets things done for some people, but the method in which he achieves those goals is sometimes questionable,” Frank, who served as City Hall communications director at the start of Elicker’s term and later worked for a 2023 mayoral challenger, said. “That was what people brought to light to me when I was working on this campaign.”

Bartlett filed a complaint in November 2019 with Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, alleging a hostile work environment and discrimination by city colleagues on the basis of his race and sexual orientation. He filed a related federal lawsuit against the city, Bartlett said, for which he, Harp and Elicker gave depositions in the fall of 2022. The city has sought summary judgment, with no decision yet by a judge.

In 2020, Bartlett ran for a state senator seat in New Haven as an Independent but lost to the incumbent Democrat. In a campaign video posted to YouTube, Bartlett spent three minutes discussing his recent ouster from the New Haven government and said, “A bogus reason was given to terminate me.” Last fall, Bartlett advised Goldenberg’s mayoral campaign.

Former Mayor John DeStefano Jr. told the News that he sees the New Haven Agenda slate as an effort to lay the groundwork for another mayoral bid by Goldenberg.

“It seems a pretty straightforward prep for town committee endorsement in 2025 — nothing more, nothing less. I think it’s fine, and it’s what you do,” DeStefano said.

To Bartlett, the Democratic Town Committee ward co-chair campaign represents the latest political foray in a life of independent-minded efforts for change. Bartlett made clear in interviews with the News that his co-chair campaign has nothing to do with past tensions with Elicker, his former boss.

In a video released last week, Bartlett again took aim at the political influence of UNITE HERE, which he said caused local politicians to overlook some community issues — among them, education and supporting youth.

A union spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, UNITE HERE Local 35’s chief steward, told the New Haven Independent in response to Bartlett’s video that she is focused on youth opportunities, among other policy issues, and on voter engagement.

In Ward 6, Bartlett and fellow challenger Stephen Rabin face incumbent co-chairs Doris Doward and Dolores Colon, a former alder.

The post Fired by Elicker, Jason Bartlett now leads co-chair challenge appeared first on Yale Daily News.

A slate of mostly incumbent co-chair contenders drew about 50 people, including top Democratic leaders, to a morning rally in Trowbridge Square Park. A smaller gathering at the Hill Museum in the afternoon featured candidates tied to New Haven Agenda, the first coordinated attempt in over a decade to dislodge the lowest elected rung of a party infrastructure dominated by Yale unions.

Speaking forcefully at the event for party-backed co-chairs, Mayor Justin Elicker attributed the rival slate to continued disappointment from last year’s mayoral election. Tom Goldenberg, the Republican-endorsed candidate whom Elicker routed at the polls, serves as the treasurer for New Haven Agenda.

“There’s an element of, I think, bitterness that’s coming out of November,” Elicker said. “We as a community came together and overwhelmingly crushed the opposition, not because they were weak, but because we are strong as a community, and we are going in the right direction.”

The co-chair challengers disagree. At their event, the challengers pointed to concerns ranging from poorly paved streets to uncontained garbage — and a general complaint that Yale’s UNITE HERE unions exert too much control over city government. New Haven Agenda fashions itself as the champion of community voices, rather than special interests, and has no policy platform.

DTC co-chairs — two in each of New Haven’s 30 wards — organize Democratic voters in their neighborhoods and participate in picking party nominees. They go uncontested in most election cycles, but this year New Haven Agenda candidates qualified for the ballot in eight wards, setting up elections for Tuesday, March 5. Registered Democrats can vote for their ward’s co-chairs.

“These are democratically elected positions,” Goldenberg said. “We should be happy to have choice.”

Both sides have begun to canvass voters and picked up their efforts with the events on Saturday and new campaign flyers. Vincent Mauro Jr., the DTC chairman, said he takes the challenges seriously. He has prepared voter identification lists for co-chairs and volunteers to mobilize their supporters for what are expected to be low-turnout elections.

The 9:30 a.m. rally in Trowbridge Square Park in the cold on Saturday brought a show of force from elected officials, such as Elicker, State Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney and State Rep.  Juan Candelaria. Speakers and attendees, including UNITE HERE union organizers, shared a sense of closing ranks to defend their own, as suggested by the incumbent slate’s name, Dems for Dems. Candelaria called the crowd a “family.”

“When I was asked to step up as a co-chair, I said yes,” Ward 3 co-chair Angel Hubbard said. “We can organize together to make sure we elect those who are helping to push for more safety in our streets, more programs for our youth and the resources we need to make more opportunity available for all.”

After 20 minutes of speeches, the crowd milled around, taking coffee and donuts from a table. Many then dispersed into the neighborhood to knock on doors.

About four hours later and less than a mile away, a group of New Haven Agenda candidates and their guests gathered at the Hill Museum for an event billed as a “meet and greet.” The museum mainly displays works by local artist Gregory ​“Krikko” Obbott but on Saturday also featured an installation by Joe Fekieta, a candidate for Ward 4 co-chair, who had assembled flowers and trash he collected in the streets.

Jason Bartlett, a Ward 6 challenger and former city official who is leading the New Haven Agenda coalition, told the group of fewer than 20 people that many residents have asked him what a DTC co-chair does.

“I always say, just to keep it simple, that we’re at the very bottom,” Bartlett said. “We’re out there to talk to constituents, to talk to the voters, to figure out what’s on people’s minds, what do they really care about?”

After four other candidates introduced themselves, an attendee asked whether they were qualified for the co-chair roles, which focus less directly on local policy than on political work like getting out the vote. In response, Fekieta proposed offering gift cards to people who show up at the polls — or even a raffle for a free car, an idea that prompted laughter.

To Goldenberg’s surprise, Ward 6 Alder Carmen Rodriguez and the ward’s two incumbent DTC co-chairs, cheered at the rally in Trowbridge Square Park, came to the New Haven Agenda meeting as well. Rodriguez declined to comment on the challenger slate’s prospects come March 5, but said the competitive co-chair races brought increased political activity to the Hill.

“To be honest with you, it’s exciting to see,” Rodriguez said.

The Hill has the highest concentration of contested co-chair races, in Wards 3, 4 and 6. Elections will also be held in Ward 7, which includes parts of downtown New Haven and East Rock; Ward 12 in Quinnipiac Meadows; Ward 18 in East Shore; Ward 28 in Beaver Hills and Ward 30 in West Rock.

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Many protesters in a crowd of over 100 derailed Elicker’s speech for 25 minutes with angry chants, overshadowing a nondisruptive plan by other activists, mainly associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP.

Members of a loosely defined coalition lobbying for the resolution met virtually last Wednesday and Thursday to discuss how to proceed after the chaos at City Hall, according to Henry Lowendorf, a JVP New Haven co-founder who chairs the Greater New Haven Peace Council.

By his account, which the News could not independently verify, most participants favored continuing to lobby alders in private, as opposed to the sort of antagonistic public pressure used during the State of the City.

“We have to deal with the Board of Alders as human beings,” Lowendorf said. “There’s a recognition that you cannot bully the Board of Alders, and you certainly cannot bully Tyisha Walker-Myers.”

Since the resolution was proposed in late November, Board president Walker-Myers has not assigned it to a committee — which she has pledged to do — leaving the effort at a standstill in the legislative process. She and other alders have met with supporters and opponents of the resolution. During the State of the City disruptions, Walker-Myers raised her voice in annoyance but also stayed after the meeting to hear activists out.

Chloe Miller LAW ’25, an organizer of the ceasefire coalition who submitted the proposed text to the Board, declined to comment for this article.

On the night of Elicker’s speech, two groups of protesters attended the Board of Alders meeting to protest in support of the ceasefire resolution. 

Around 20 JVP protesters, wearing matching shirts, gathered at the entrance to the Aldermanic Chambers. At the same time, a larger group gathered outside City Hall, led by organizers from Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America and the recently founded group Socialist Alternative New Haven.

Yet after the alders and attendees entered the chamber, two groups of protesters jointly filled the entire back of the room.

Over a half-hour into Elicker’s speech, a Yale first year associated with Socialist Alternative, who did not comment for this article, loudly asked Elicker if he “can oppose Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in Gaza” and support the ceasefire resolution, starting the 25-minute disruption.

Lowendorf said that he attended the State of the City to protest for a ceasefire resolution without disrupting the mayor’s speech. The JVP group planned only to sing before the meeting began, according to Lowendorf.

After the interruptions began, Lowendorf left the chamber, disappointed by what he saw as “an attempt not to promote a ceasefire resolution, and not to promote a coming-together of people, trying to unify people around some humanitarian issues, but rather an attempt simply to disrupt and project anger,” he said.

Twenty-one minutes into the disruption, JVP activist Zachary Herring ENV ’24, who had earlier spoken with Board President Tyisha Walker-Myers, got the room’s attention to call for greater unity.

“There’s more division that’s happening in this world; we need to be coming together. I can feel it in the air just in this room right now,” he said. When another protester began to interrupt, Herring begged, “Please listen to me. Please, please, I’m with y’all.”

After threats of arrests from police, the first-year activist asked protesters to “march out for Palestine,” saying in a megaphone that he did not want anyone to get arrested. While most DSA-affiliated protesters left the chamber, JVP activists stayed.

“Disrupting this proceeding is making me less likely to want to [support the resolution],” Ward 25 Alder Adam Marchand told a group of five protesters, with whom he had a long conversation.

Despite the chaos that night, several alders — including Marchand, Ward 19 Alder Kimberly Edwards and President Walker-Myers — told the News that they had meaningful conversations that night and hoped for them to continue.

Activists hoping to win the city’s full endorsement of their ceasefire resolution face a considerable hurdle in Mayor Justin Elicker, who said after his speech that he did not support the resolution’s proposed text.

“I’m concerned about the use of the word ‘genocide,’ for example. I’m concerned about the word ‘ceasefire,’” Elicker said. “I think there’s a lot of language in it that is thoughtful, but we would have to allow the process to move forward.”

The Board usually passes its decisions unanimously, but the Israel-Hamas war risks splitting its 30 Democrats. It is yet unclear whether the Board will find 16 votes needed to pass the resolution, let alone 20 to, per the New Haven charter, override Elicker’s potential veto.

Alder 26 Amy Marx told the News that a resolution about the war does not belong in the New Haven Board of Alders. Marchand and Edwards told the News that they would consider supporting the resolution, but not in its current form.

It is unclear whether activists are planning to disrupt future alder meetings.

The next full Board of Alders meeting is on Tuesday, Feb. 20.

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