HARTFORD – Candidates seeking to be Hartford’s mayor laid out different visions Thursday for how they would seek to improve overall health in the city.
The five candidates who attended the 90-minute forum hosted by the Charter Oak Health Center agreed that many Hartford residents have unequal access to healthcare thanks to systemic racism, a lack of resources and poverty.
“We’ve been talking about this for a very long time and now, I think, the hopelessness and the despair is coming from people who want to see action, who want to see change,” Charter Oak Health Center President and CEO Nichelle Mullins said while moderating the debate.
The candidates gave different views, though, on the mayor’s role in addressing the problem and what they would do if elected.
The forum included three of the four candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in a city dominated by the party: Sen. John Fonfara, Councilman Nick Lebron and former senator and retired judge Eric Coleman.
J. Stan McCauley and Giselle Jacobs, two petitioning candidates, were also on the stage Thursday.
Arunan Arulampalam, who secured the endorsement from the Democratic Town Committee last month, did not participate in the forum.
A spokesperson for Arulampalam’s campaign said he had a scheduling conflict.
Each of the five candidates at the forum gave similar definitions for inequities in the healthcare system — that people of color have reduced access to healthcare and a lower quality of care once they gain access.
They all also agreed they consider racism to be a public health crisis, saying the two problems are connected. They gave different views on how they would attack those problems as mayor, though.
“I’m not sure what can be done at the city level in order to address those concerns,” Coleman said, adding he sees the mayor’s primary role as an advocate pushing for policies at the state and federal level.
He later said during the forum that the mayor can use the city’s Health and Human Services Department to address certain issues locally. He said his top two priorities, if elected, would be to focus on substance abuse and justice around the environmental impacts on health in Hartford.
Fonfara, meanwhile, said access to healthcare is often connected with poverty, an issue he vowed to focus on if he becomes mayor.
He said he thinks mayors have spent too much time addressing the “symptoms” of poverty, including poor health and homelessness, instead of trying to improve Hartford’s economy.
“I think a mayor in Hartford can do so much more in addressing the underlying issues that our city suffers from and deals with every day,” Fonfara said.
Lebron regularly focused on his work as chairman of the council’s Health and Human Services Committee, a role he took on shortly before COVID.
Some examples included helping seniors by offering mobile testing and vaccine clinics and by providing information to those who didn’t have internet access. He also said his top priorities would be education and on encouraging providers to work together, not compete.
“In order to attack all of those public health issues, we have to attack it at where it currently exists,” Lebron said.
Jacobs said her focus would be around education and on stopping violence. She frequently stressed the importance of health education in school, teaching children healthier habits.
She also said she wants to make sure healthcare is within walking distance for all Hartford residents, regardless of their neighborhood.
“We can definitely make Hartford better and fair for everyone,” she said.
McCauley said his priorities would be education and working “outside silos.” He, like Lebron, said some of the service providers are often too focused on competing with each other instead of working together to fix the problem.
McCauly also said some of the city’s problems persist, including flooding and drug overdoses, because its leaders have been “intentional” about fixing the problems.
“We haven’t had a mayor who has put Hartford at the heart of what is important and until we do, Hartford’s not going to receive the attention that it needs,” McCauley also said.
Some of the candidates even disagreed on how they would solve flooding and sewage overflow issues in the North End.
Coleman said he would work to secure whatever funding is needed to separate the Metropolitan District Commission’s sewage and stormwater drainage systems.
Fonfara said that is a long term solution, and the mayor also needs to find a way to protect homes and businesses while a plan is worked out.
Lebron, Jacobs and McCauley, though, put the blame squarely on the MDC.
“We can fix this problem, but we first have to deal with the real problem,” Jacobs said.
Lebron even resigned from the MDC board earlier this year and said he’d be willing to file a lawsuit to force the state to address the problem.
Hartford Votes/Vota Coalition is hosting a forum on Aug. 23 for the four Democratic candidates ahead of the primary.
Coleman, Fonfara and Lebron have all submitted petitions to be on the ballot for the primary in the heavily Democratic city.
Coleman and Lebron also said Thursday they’ve gathered the signatures needed to appear on November’s general election ballot as petitioning candidates if they don’t secure the signatures for the Democratic primary or lose the primary, but Fonfara said he’s only seeking the party’s nomination.
