Everyone Has A Reason

Day 2 panel reminds us why this work is important

The name representation matters works two ways. First, because we govern better when everyone has a place at the table. But representation matters also because when you see someone that looks like you serve for the greater good, you can see yourself in that role. The panel of seasoned experts that was part of Representation Matters’ second day of training was there to share, as moderator Melvette Hill of the Parent Leadership Training Institute put it, the jewels, the wisdom that they had as elected officials.

In addition to Hill, who is the State Director of PLTI, attendees were joined by Aidee Nieves, President of the Bridgeport City Council; Suzette DeBeatham-Brown, Mayor of Bloomfield; Catherine Iino, First Selectwoman of Killingworth; Ed Ford Jr., Middletown City Councilmember; Francisco Santiago, New Britain City Councilmember; Roberta Gill-Brooks, Branford Tax Collector; and Gerard Smith, First Selectman of Beacon Falls all shared the personal anecdotes of their experiences as elected officials that made the over hour-long session seem like it was a quick chat amongst friends.

The first question set the stage for the entire conversation, asking the attendees what challenges they each faced as a person of color starting out in local government.

Mayor DeBeatham-Brown told listeners one of the key moments that led to her becoming mayor after a period in which she thought she didn’t want to run. She was told by an incumbent “That either you’re setting the agenda or you’re on the agenda you have to figure out what you want.”

Those words helped her figure out what she wanted: “I wanted to be at the table to help to set the agenda to make sure that when decisions are being made when you’re looking out of your window and not thinking about how your decision will affect me or people that look like me, I have to make sure that I am there to help to set the agenda for people that look like me when they look out of their window.”

There are challenges that come with being in these roles. Roberta Gill-Brooks said that she feels the diversity work ends with electing a more diverse representative: “They don’t mind you being there because they can check their diversity box, but they want you to stay in a certain space.” Ultimately, that’s not how representation works, and Gill-Brooks said that you have to bring your own chair to the table so that you can accurately reflect your own views.

Despite their current success, many of these leaders expressed external doubts that they had internalized. Aidee Nieves recounted her a-ha moment when she thought about the work she had put in to build leadership skills, saying : “I just said I don’t have to doubt myself because I was voted to be put here for my leadership capabilities and my responsibility is to continue to build upon those leadership skills and participate and help others be as strong as I am in the voice.”

One of the key lessons in running for office is being prepared to take on the task of running alone, and then building that support. For First Selectman Smith, he saw a large campaign dwindle down to a much smaller group of people.

“Outside of your family and your own convictions in yourself, understand that you’re in this alone,” he said, “And the ones that do support you, you give them all the recognition and accolades you can.”

This is something that Councilmember Santiago echoed who argued that many times people will feel like “their people should be there,” as opposed to having a minority in those positions, or someone representing the homeless or drug-addicted, to maintain a status quo. “Everyone has a reason, everyone has a voice,” he said, “And it should be heard.”

Representation has the ability to change the way you view governance, as First Selectwoman Iino said: “One of the things you can do as a public official is see aspects of issues that might not seem like they are fundamentally about race or about status or about homelessness and see the implications of that other people might not pick up on. My daughter’s been working on homelessness in Rhode Island, and with the covid epidemic all of a sudden she realized there’s no public bathrooms. All the public spaces have been closed down, so there’s no bathrooms for the people to use. She’s been fighting that fight now for months because you might not think about that as a side effect of this pandemic.”

And as Councilmember Ed Ford Jr. noted, once you view things from that perspective, you can begin to operationalize change, “putting in reforms to achieve equity.”

Ed Ford Jr., Middletown City Councilmember

“We started holding community conversations with people of color, talking to them and just hearing a lot of feedback of what are barriers systemically that you still face in our town,” he said, “Yeah, we’re forward thinking, yeah, we are race conscious, but we still have inequities that exist within the system.

“So after getting an entire report of feedback, we came up with there’s a lack of affordable housing, we came up with that we need more minority black teachers and minority teachers, we came up with the fact that our City Hall workforce as long not reflected the community, people of color have had a lot of trouble getting in and then elevating once they actually do get in.

“It’s sad that it takes something like the death of a black man or woman or an event like Charlottesville for people to kind of wake up and recognize that all we have to do something, it’s sad that it takes that but if we can keep our foot on the pedal while the momentum is already here we can actually accomplish something instead of pausing and waiting for the next tragedy to happen.”

These words evoke the ultimate responsibility of representation. The idea that this work is important no matter what day or year it is. That it is the continued work of everyone to ask who are we not including when we talk about governance, and how work we do today to foster equity today can prevent tragedies tomorrow.

For all the panelists, they came back to one lesson: they were elected not to promote a self-serving agenda, but to represent the people who elected them. Each of them has taken an oath to serve for the greater good of their municipality. Their example as public servants inspired all of the Representation Matters participants who saw firsthand the power of representation from our panelists.

Gerard Smith, First Selectman of Beacon Falls