“Row B” includes candidates on incumbent Mayor Curt Balzano Leng’s list. Leng has been in office since 2015, but did not get DTC approval this year and applied for a spot on the ballot.

Read on for candidate biographies, which are based on written responses to a New Haven Register survey that each respondent completed.

Row A

Dominique Baez (holder)

Baez is from Hamden with nine years of experience working with a nonprofit organization that develops free programs for unemployed Connecticut residents, she said. She’s running for a second term, she said, to continue promoting local economic development and to ensure developers hire city residents into the project’s workforce, a requirement she managed to include. in a recent municipal agreement.

Baez called fiscal stability and the lack of partnership as key issues Hamden faces. “As a city councilor, I have shown patience and courage in the budget process, leadership in creating jobs for the residents of Hamden and I look forward to using my experience in building partnerships to continue. my work while welcoming a stronger community contribution, beautifying our urban corridors for economic growth and a healthier Hamden, ”she said.

Kathleen ‘Katie’ Kiely

Kiely is a Hamden Elementary School teacher and member of the Democratic Town Committee who believes Hamden’s main issues include property taxes, transportation options, and fairness in the allocation of resources to municipal services, to neighborhoods and schools. She runs to strengthen the community that she says has enabled her to fulfill her dreams of having a career and owning a home, she said.

She wants to help solve problems “instead of just identifying them”. As a city councilor, Kiely would engage with government officials, promote policies that empower all residents, connect residents with the government center, and “implement ways to move a proactive agenda forward,” he said. she declared.

Cory o’brien

O’Brien oversees strategic partnerships as a program manager for Philips North America, he said. A former Hamden city councilor, he got involved in politics because he realized that Hamden needed “people who believed in transparent and honest tax practices,” he said.

When asked to identify the city’s top three problems, O’Brien was unequivocal: “money, money and money,” he said, noting that Hamden’s tax rate was one of the highest in the state. He suggested that property taxes affect “lower incomes and minority residents disproportionately”. The former city councilor said he would advocate for a “multi-year financial plan showing realistic projections and the city’s plan to deal with known increases” and for “diligent budget management” throughout the year.

Laurie Sweet

Sweet runs her own birth doula business and has been an active volunteer in local campaigns, she said, adding that she had previously spent time on the board of a preschool in New Haven and had helped accommodate asylum seekers. The 2021 primary marks her second candidacy for the board, and she said she was running for a position again because concerns she heard from residents two years ago had not changed.

The biggest issues Hamden faces, Sweet said, include taxes and debt, infrastructure and transparency. “I spent hours listening to the concerns of voters in Hamden, hearing how they would be forced to move if taxes were to rise again,” she said. “I will be transparent, accessible and quick to answer your calls, so that we can begin to tackle the issues facing our city.”

Line B

Richard mutts

Mutts is the founding director of the Born Rich Foundation and the equity and inclusion coordinator at Wesleyan University’s Upward Bound Math and Science program, he said. He has run out of “a lifelong passion for serving others and providing community service” and inspiring others to “become agents of positive change”.

Mutts named “diversity of thought, inclusiveness and responsibility” as top priorities and said promoting these concepts can help individuals bring their experiences to the table. As a city councilor, he would empower residents to get involved in educating them about the city’s infrastructure, to collaborate “with families, schools and other agencies to formulate strategies and actions based on solutions ”and ensure“ equitable opportunities for a wide variety of residents to collaborate. ,” he said.

Berita Rowe-Lewis (incumbent)

Rowe-Lewis holds a Master of Science in Labor Relations and Human Resources from New Haven University, she said, and has over 30 years of experience in leadership roles at the Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale University. She is currently majority leader of the Legislative Council.

The city councilor is seeking re-election to “champion the security needs and concerns of all residents of Hamden” and not for “political or personal reasons,” she said. To solve its three main problems – public safety, education and debt – it would seek to establish a STEM secondary school in collaboration with the public sector, continue pension reform, improve “youth and community development” and involving stakeholders as a “critical component” of a “strategic plan to combat crime”.

Kathleen Schomaker (incumbent)

Having served on the council for six terms, Schomaker said, she is seeking re-election to retain her experience in the city’s legislature. Currently pro tempore chair of the board, she previously taught social sciences at Columbus College of Art and Design, spent six years developing environmental programs at Yale University and now works as Hamden’s sustainability coordinator, she declared.

Its priorities include “managing ecological, economic, financial and social sustainability”, “the full inclusion of the poorest communities” in all initiatives and fiscal management that help the city to control taxes and increase funding. subsidies, she said. To find the best approaches to the problems of the city, it would “focus on the quality of our civil discourse”.

Rachel Scolnic Dobin

Scolnic Dobin was born and raised in Hamden and sits on the town’s Disability Commission. She is a social worker for the Jewish Family Service of Greater New Haven, where she works with “some of the most vulnerable individuals and families in our community” and runs an outreach program that “meets clients where they are and helps to stabilize them with their basic needs ”.

Asked about Hamden’s main problems, she said the city faced significant socio-economic disparities and needed “better ways to connect to services,” adding that she would work to help ensure that needs fundamentals of residents in difficulty are satisfied. She would use her experience in organizing major fundraisers to develop programs that bring the whole community together, she said, and also use her networking skills to attract businesses to town.

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