THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 19, 2023 - July 25, 2023
State Sends $2M To Fair Haven Childcare Hub
year serving New Haven area children and families, she said. “What a great way to kick off this year of celebration!” She said that the local childcare program is fully enrolled, and has a waitlist of around 150 infants and toddlers and an additional 40 prechoolers. LULAC bought the Haven Street ex-warehouse property in
August 2020 for $800,000 and has subsequently moved out of its long-time former Fair Haven home on James Street. This state money will “allow us to continue serving” the 100-plus young children LULAC provides care for, Byrd-Vaughn said. Without this aid, the program might not have been able to re-
locate and wouldn’t be able to complete construction on its ongoing Haven Street projects, thereby displacing 100 families who currently rely on the program for quality affordable early childhood education. “We know our services are impacting children’s full development from the very early age that we are able to enroll them,” she said. Each of the seven fellow speakers at Wednesday’s presser returned to those same points again and again as they stressed the importance of government investments in quality, accessible, affordable childcare. “Just one or two years of high-quality early childhood education dramatically changes someone’s trajectory,” Elicker said, referencing the Perry Project’s yearslong study of the impact of preschool on a program participants’ lives. “The data is clear. If we invest in our youngest people, we’re going to dramatically change their trajectories in the future. This is the right thing to do, not only for families, but for the children and their future.” In that vein, he said, the city recently won aldermanic approval to spend $1.6 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds on partnering with Hope for New Haven / Cercle Inc. to administer a workforce development grant program for early childhood education and childcare providers in New Haven. Alders also recently signed off on spend-
individual donations during that threemonth time frame. That compares to $54,295 raised by Abdussabur, $34,231 by Brennan, and $30,196 by Goldenberg in that same period. Those numbers also show that, for the second set of filing reports in a row, clean money prevailed. That’s because the three candidates participating in the city’s public financing Democracy Fund program — Elicker, Abdussabur, and Brennan — all brought in more in individual donations than Goldenberg, who is not participating in the Democracy Fund. They did so even as those three Democracy Funders agreed to forswear special-interest money and individual contributions above $445 in exchange for public finance-provided matching funds and grants. All as part of a program designed to help more people, including those without great personal wealth or rich connections, to run for mayor. Goldenberg, meanwhile, continued to seek out individual donations worth up to $1,000 apiece — the state-law-allowed maximum. He brought in ten such maxedout contributions this quarter, and then
lent his campaign another $10,000 of his own money. In total, according to these four Q2 campaign finance filings, Elicker has raised $227,482 in individual donations, and has brought in $257,042 in total monetary receipts (including Democracy Fund grants and matches). Abdussabur has raised $101,365 in individual donations, and has brought in $112,305 in total monetary receipts. Brennan has raised $66,020 in individual donations, and has brought in $76,464 in total monetary receipts. And Goldenberg has raised $77,688 in individual donations, and has brought in $116,913 in total monetary receipts (including a prior $25,000 loan Goldenberg gave his own campaign earlier this year.) These reports also show that Elicker has much more cash in the bank at the end of the quarter than any of his three Democratic rivals. Elicker has $181,425 on hand at the end of Q2, Abdussabur has $62,069, Brennan has $36,768, and Goldenberg has $23,880. “I’m grateful for all of the support our campaign has received,” Elicker is quoted
as saying in a campaign press release sent out on Monday. That release states that Elicker has received 884 donations from New Haven residents so far. “New Haven residents have seen the progress we have made over the past four years — on housing, on public safety, on education and on the city’s finances. We have more work to do and New Haven residents clearly want to continue in the direction we are headed.” “I am so proud of the continued momentum we saw in this second quarter through our fundraising and by sharing our robust platform to address community issues,” Abdussabur is quoted as saying in his own campaign email press release on Monday. “There is a clear growing chorus for change in this city, and you can see it firsthand by the diversity of donors backing our campaign.” His release noted that Abdussabur’s campaign saw a 15 percent increase in donations from individuals this quarter “while the incumbent saw a 33% reduction in contributions this quarter.” “We exceeded our fundraising goals for the first six months, which is fantastic,” Brennan is quoted as saying in a cam-
by THOMAS BREEN New Haven Independent
As a dozen preschoolers laughed and bounced around a fenced-in outdoor playground on Haven Street, city and state officials gathered in a Fair Haven childcare center’s parking lot to celebrate a $2 million early-childhood-education boost from the state. On Wednesday morning, Gov. Ned Lamont, state Office of Early Childhood Commissioner Beth Bye, Mayor Justin Elicker, and a half-dozen state and city legislators and childcare providers and supporters met up outside of LULAC Head Start ’s warehouse-turned-classroom space at 106 Haven St. to mark $2 million in state bonding now heading to the long-time local childcare program. LULAC Head Start Executive Director Mikyle Byrd-Vaughn said that that recent surge in state aid will help LULAC construct a resource center for children with social-emotional and behavioral challenges, a family resource center, and a teachers lab at a Haven Street site that already serves more than 100 children who come from low-income families and who are between the ages of 8 weeks and five years old. “I know with the right environment, with the right support around you, with community engagement, children can do the unimaginable,” Byrd-Vaughn said during Wednesday’s presser. LULAC Head Start just entered its 40th
THOMAS BREEN PHOTO
LULAC Head Start ED Mikyle Byrd-Vaughn: "Our services are impacting children's full development.”
ing $1.4 million in ARPA on an agreement with United Way to run an “expansion and enhancement grant program” supporting local childcare providers, and still another $500,000 in ARPA aid to work with United Way on developing an “early childhood education and childcare strategic plan” for the city. “One of the critical areas in our society is the fact that so many children are coming to kindergarten unprepared to be there,” State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney said. That can lead to a “downward spiral” of behavioral challenges and educational struggles over the course of a young person’s life in school. “Whereas if they were prepared to walk into their first day of kindergarten with confidence, with preparation, with anticipation and with happiness and a sense of comfort and belonging,” Looney said, “it would make a world of difference, not only at age five going into kindergarten, but for the rest of their educational lives.” Fair Havener and LULAC Head Start parent of two Tienna-Lynn Norman said that her four-year-old son and one-yearold daughter have both benefited tremendously from participating in the neighborhood childcare program. She said that her son was “speech-delayed” but, upon going to LULAC, “he learned very quickly. His speech improved very quickly.” About LULAC, she said, “they were very, very welcoming from the start.”
paign email press release from Monday. “But, more importantly, we set out to build a grassroots, people-powered campaign and that is exactly what we have done. By focusing on direct voter outreach and a shoe leather approach, we have been able to run on a series of issues that challenges that status quo and points to a better direction for New Haven’s future.” His press release also states that, when taking into account funds raised when he was still exploring a run for mayor and also the Democracy Fund $23,000 grant and other matching funds to come, his campaign has actually raised over $112,000 so far this year. Goldenberg’s email press release from Tuesday states that the $116,913 his campaign has raised so far this year — through individual donations and his own loans to himself — represents “the most of all challengers in the race.” He said the list of donors to his campaign includes “three former U.S. city mayors, and numerous community leaders, and current and former elected officials. Goldenberg looks forward to gearing up for the primary election in September and mobilizing supporters at the polls.”
Elicker Leads Pack In Q2 Fundraising by THOMAS BREEN
Mayor Justin Elicker out-fundraised his Democratic primary rivals by between $14,000 and $38,000 in individual contributions this spring — and still has over $181,000 left in the bank — according to the latest mayoral race campaign finance filings. Those reports cover campaign money raised and spent between April 1 and June 30 in this year’s race for mayor. All four Democratic candidates vying for the party’s nomination in the Sept. 12 primary — two-term incumbent Justin Elicker, retired police sergeant Shafiq Abdussabur, former legal aid attorney Liam Brennan, and ex-McKinsey consultant Tom Goldenberg — submitted their required campaign finance reports with the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) by Monday’s filing deadline. The reports offer a snapshot of where the race stands, at least from a dollarsand-cents perspective. Viewed from that angle, the current mayor has a serious advantage. According to his campaign’s second-quarter filing report, Elicker raised $68,788 in
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