by Baala Shakya
Furlow with campaign volunteers.
“Education is everything, right? If we don’t invest in our education, where’s our future heading to?” Javier Cabrera, an Edgewood resident, asked the alder candidate vying for his vote.
Cabrera posed that question Saturday afternoon outside his dark-blue Maple Street home, where Ward 24 alder candidate Randall Furlow had stopped to introduce himself and ask about the issues facing the neighborhood.
Cabrera, who had just pulled into his driveway, had plenty to say.
The six-year Edgewood resident and father of four children who had attended New Haven Public Schools wanted to know why the city’s school buildings continue to deteriorate, where the money allocated for repairs is going, and what Furlow would do about it if elected.
Furlow shared many of those concerns, drawing on his own experiences as a father of four children who had attended New Haven Public Schools.
The exchange was one of several conversations Furlow had with Edgewood residents Saturday afternoon while doorknocking along Maple and Brownell streets, three days before the Nov. 10 special election for Ward 24’s seat on New Haven’s Board of Alders.
Furlow — a longtime Democratic ward co-chair, the endorsed candidate in the race, and cousin of Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow — faces Lindsey Eichler Tengatenga, a nonprofit leader and 12-year Edgewood resident. Both candidates are Democrats, and both are seeking to represent a neighborhood where residents have raised concerns about schools, traffic safety, and communication with city officials.
They are running to fill the seat recently vacated by longtime incumbent Evette Hamilton. The special election for Ward 24 alder is on Tuesday.
Click here to read an article about Tengatenga’s campaign canvassing the neighborhood on Saturday.
Furlow began his canvass near the intersection of Maple Street and Sherman Avenue, dressed in a black Nike sweatshirt, black sweatpants and a black baseball cap bearing the words “CT State Community College.”
“This neighborhood has the most beautiful areas in the city,” Furlow said, looking at the autumn foliage lining the street. “I love the fall colors.”
For Furlow, whose family has lived in New Haven for six generations, Saturday’s canvass was an opportunity to connect with residents ahead of the election. He has served as a Democratic ward co-chair for 12 years.
Using the MiniVAN canvassing app to track potential voters, Furlow walked from house to house, stopping to speak with residents or leave campaign flyers when nobody answered. On each of the flyers, he wrote his phone number in blue marker.
Some houses were already familiar. Passing a blue house with white shutters, Furlow pointed out that he had knocked on its door at least three times. At another home, he spotted one of his campaign signs in the yard. “Somebody here likes me,” he remarked.
At Cabrera’s home, the conversation quickly turned to the condition of New Haven’s schools.
“I think it’s very important to have somebody from our neighborhood that understands the neighborhood, working towards the future of our neighborhood,” Cabrera told Furlow.
Cabrera, who grew up in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood and now manages a trucking store in North Haven, said he had known Furlow’s family for years. But he also wanted to know how Furlow planned to address the problems facing New Haven’s schools.
“How would you approach the school structure situation within New Haven?” he asked.
Furlow told Cabrera that he understood the problem firsthand. His youngest son is currently a freshman at Hillhouse, where his three older children also graduated from.
Before reports about deteriorating conditions at Hillhouse became public, Furlow said, his son had already taken photographs and videos of the school’s interior and shown them to him.
“‘Look, this is the condition that we’re working in,’” Furlow recalled his son telling him and his wife.
“We need transparency. We need accountability,” Furlow continued. “We got to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do with the money that they’re getting.”
Cabrera questioned why the city had allowed its schools “to fall apart” to the point where repairs would cost millions of dollars. He recalled growing up in New Haven during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he remembered school buildings being better maintained.
“It’s alarming, right? And it’s disappointing because we’re part of that system,” Cabrera said. He also pointed to New Haven’s proximity to “internationally recognized” universities and colleges, contrasting their resources with the conditions of the city’s public schools.
Furlow said he shared Cabrera’s frustrations, recalling how his own daughter had struggled with the transition from Hillhouse to Temple University in Philadelphia.
“My daughter at Hillhouse was in AP classes the entire four years, but when she got to college at Temple, she was completely challenged,” Furlow told Cabrera.
The experience troubled Furlow, who said students could spend years excelling in New Haven classrooms, believing they were among the strongest in their classes, only to discover that their preparation fell short of what students from other school districts had received.
“We got our kids thinking, you know, oh, you’re at the top of your class, but it just doesn’t compare to kids that are coming from other states, other regions,” Furlow said.
“I think we need an overhaul,” he added.
Cabrera worries about families who lack the resources to supplement their children’s education. He described the frustration of working hard to provide a stable home, only to send his children to schools with broken doors, windows, and inadequate air conditioning.
“Wait a minute, where’s my tax money going?” he asked. “Where’s this federal money going?”
After their conversation, Cabrera told the Independent he would be voting for Furlow.
As Furlow continued along Maple Street, he passed several homes displaying campaign signs for his opponent, Tengatenga.
At one point, standing on a front porch, he spotted canvassers working for Tengatenga across the street. Furlow smiled, waved, and asked how they were doing before continuing to the next house.
Farther down Brownell Street, Furlow met with another resident who had a more specific request.
Shirl Wilkins wants a speed bump. Maybe two.
Wilkins, who has lived in her Brownell Street home since 2003, told Furlow that she is generally happy with the neighborhood.
“I love this street, this neighborhood,” Wilkins said. “I have not had any issues. The neighbors have been really good.” But she wants drivers to slow down.
Furlow told Wilkins that traffic safety was among the concerns he had heard most frequently from Ward 24 residents.
He asked whether she had known Yusuf Gürsey, a longtime New Haven resident and member of the city’s Peace Commission who was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver near Whalley Avenue and Brownell Street in April 2024.
Gürsey had lived in New Haven for nearly four decades, and Furlow remembered him as an active neighborhood resident who regularly attended community meetings.
At one of the last ward committee meetings Gürsey attended, Furlow said, he had raised concerns about traffic safety. “He was concerned about people that were getting hit by cars on Whalley Avenue,” Furlow told Wilkins.
Weeks later, Gürsey was struck while crossing the street near Brownell. He was transported to Yale New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The driver fled the scene.
“He was crossing the street right here at Brownell, and lost his life,” Furlow said to Wilkins.
Furlow also described plans to improve communication between Ward 24 residents and their alder through a ward website, quarterly newsletter, and regularly scheduled community meetings.
Before leaving, he asked whether Wilkins planned to vote Tuesday. She said she would.
Asked afterward whether she intended to vote for Furlow, Wilkins told the Independent, “Yes.”