By LISA REISMAN | New Haven Independent
Fred Christmas bounded onto Winter Street in the biting January air, holding a manila envelope of campaign leaflets in his hand.
The Ward 21 alder hopeful had spent the morning talking with Dixwell voters, and was running late for a meetup with some neighborhood senior citizens. But there were still a few more doors to knock — and Christmas was on a mission.
That mission is to get elected as the next alder for Ward 21, which covers parts of Dixwell, Newhallville, and Prospect Hill.
Christmas, a 65-year-old Dixwell native and neighborhood organizer, is one of three Democrats running in the race to fill the open seat left earlier this year by Steve Winter after the latter took a new job as City Hall’s director of climate and sustainability.
The other candidates in the Ward 21 race are Maceo Troy Streater and Kendall Hurse. All three names will be on the ballot for a Ward 21 special election on Jan. 23. Christmas is the Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate, having prevailed with five ward committee votes over Streater’s four late last year.
Click here and here to read more about candidates in the Ward 21 special election.
“Let’s just do this side,” said Christmas as he hustled in the cold onto Winter Street from a stretch of row houses on Goffe Street.
Christmas spoke with pride about his years of dedication to making Dixwell a better place to live. “I have been working with the community for a long time,” he said.
He knocked on a door. The only answer was a yapping dog. Undeterred, he slid a flyer in the mail slot and moved on.
“I did the ‘Dixwell Strong’ celebration early on in the pandemic,” he said, referring to the June 2020 initiative that had local artists spreading the message about the importance of masking up through public banners on Dixwell Avenue, volunteers handing out 400 masks, and a pop-up testing site.