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Supporters of Mayor Toni Harp held a “Mayor Toni Harp Appreciation Day”
NEW HAVEN — Supporters of Mayor Toni Harp held an appreciation event Wednesday evening that quickly turned into an election rally, with over 100 people pledging their support to get out the vote for Harp on Nov. 5.
Harp named a hefty list of achievements during her six-year tenure as mayor before reminding supporters that, despite her loss to challenger Justin Elicker in the Democratic primary election, they can still vote for her on the Working Families Party line.
“I want you to know I’m still on the ballot,” she said.
Harp bemoaned that, while she was carrying out her duties as mayor, Elicker began campaigning in the wintertime.
“It’s a heavy lift being mayor and running for mayor,” she said, while facing off against “a man who could afford to campaign for mayor full time.”
Elicker “falsif(ied) my record” and “barraged” her with “negative, false and misleading” accusations, she said.
When asked about statements made by supporters that the primary election resembled a “public lynching,” Harp said she would not go that far, but she does believe the campaign was a negative one.
“I’m ashamed someone would think that’s what they have to do to become mayor of the city of New Haven,” she said.
Harp said she stands by her record of public service for New Haven since the 1980s, and her record as mayor since 2014.
“It is now up to the people to decide who becomes mayor,” she said, as supporters beamed, many holding up their phones, stopping her speech at times to chant her name. “Going forward, let’s pledge together to continue serving New Haven and to reject the politics of negativity and falsehoods that characterized this year’s campaign season.”
Among the achievements Harp listed were the city’s current surplus, tearing down a fence between Hamden and New Haven, restoring the College Street Music Hall, lower crime rates, the launch of the YouthStat program and beginning work on a worker-owned laundry in Newhallville.
Veronica Douglas-Givan, who acted as emcee, said the purpose of the event was to show the mayor support and to thank her while she’s still around.
“When you leave a legacy, when you’ve worked hard, you don’t want folk to forget about your work,” she said. “We don’t want to wait to get her message out.”
West Haven Black Coalition President Carroll Brown — “an honorary resident” of New Haven in her words — took the mic from organizers of The People’s Campaign, a registered PAC in support of Harp, and told supporters Harp “shouldn’t have to worry about Dixwell and Newhallville voting for her.” Those communities should be turning out in large numbers for Harp on Election Day, she said, but they “have to want it” for her.
“You can’t afford to sit tight, you can’t afford to sit still,” she warned.
Emma Jones, chairwoman of the People’s Campaign, said she wanted to have an event to raise awareness. She said attacks perpetuated by Harp’s opponents in campaign literature resonated with her as injustice. After the primary election, she was the supporter who said Harp was “lynched publicly;” on Wednesday, she said she still believed the campaign was “comparable to a political lynching.”
“We know she suspended her campaign, but we have a voice too,” Jones said. “Righteous, decent people want to say something. Silence against the mean-spirited things that happened would read as approval.”
Harp didn’t respond to any of the negative attacks when they happened, Jones said. She said Harp’s campaign manager never did either.
Attorney Alex Taubes, the treasurer of the pro-Harp PAC, quickly pulled up a photo of an Elicker mailer on his phone that he said was misleading and “playing on stereotypes” about black leadership. At top, the mailer accuses Harp of corruption and mismanagement above four quadrants: one mentioning an “FBI corruption probe,” another mentioning the city’s lead poisoning epidemic, a third referencing the spate of K-2 overdoses on the New Haven Green and a fourth referencing the mayor’s 11 percent tax rate increase in 2018.
Taubes said it’s misleading to say an FBI subpoena of city hall records was a probe into Harp herself.
“Unless (Elicker) is getting information from his wife, there’s no way to say (calling it) an FBI investigation is accurate,” he said, reviving a conspiracy theory launched by Harp supporters that Elicker’s wife Natalie, an assistant U.S. attorney, conspired with the FBI.
Furthermore, he said the mayor could not be fairly linked to K-2 overdoses, nor is it fair to link her to a decades-old lead poisoning problem (The city admitted in court it relaxed standards on mandatory lead inspections to save money).
Taubes defended a flyer approved by the Harp campaign that linked Elicker to President Donald Trump, accusing both of being overconfident and incompetent; Trump for saying Mexico would pay for a border wall and Elicker for saying he would ask for more money from Yale for city services.
“That had a pretty good point to it,” Taubes said. “It’s arrogant. They’re acting like it’s unfair, which is a double standard. She’s not allowed to say anything about (attacks), but Elicker is treated as a victim.”
Malcolm Welfare, a technology teacher and library media specialist at King/Robinson School who is also a People’s Campaign volunteer, said the city should know about its options heading into the general election.
“We need to rally around our leaders,” he said.
Not all of the supporters at the Elks Club Wednesday were intimately involved in organizing for the mayor. Sean Hardy, a member of the support staff at Mauro Sheridan School, said he attended the event to express his support for Harp because she’s always responded when he reaches out. He said he appreciates that she’s accessible to the students.
During the lead-up to the primary, Elicker engaged in a citywide door-knocking campaign in all neighborhoods of the city. Harp did far less campaigning on the streets of New Haven, sending mailers only to predominantly black and brown neighborhoods in the final week of the primary campaign. Her most infamous mailer strongly implied Elicker would promote the use of drones to monitor and police black and brown neighborhoods.
In the final debate before the primary election, Harp sought several times to distinguish between the neighborhoods she said Elicker represents — white and wealthy — and those she represents.
“In certain neighborhoods, particularly those areas I represent, it would be almost impossible” to run a publicly financed campaign, she said at the Sept. 5 debate, differentiating her base from Elicker’s base along class, and implicitly racial, lines.
Elicker said he had no comment on the claims the campaign was akin to a lynching Wednesday afternoon. He rejected charges that his campaign was negative and filled with smears and distortions.
“That’s simply not accurate; everything my campaign raised was raised in the press. My team and I went to great lengths to ensure the messaging was accurate and fair.”
brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
CTINSIDER.COM
Supporters of Mayor Toni Harp held a “Mayor Toni Harp Appreciation Day” celebration at the Elks Club Wednesday where she reminded them that her name will still appear on the ballot on Nov. 5.
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