JAMEKA JEFFERIES LIVE In-Studio

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I expected Jamika Jeffries to be even better in person.
She's live in studio with us right now. Last time
we spoke, I did end it saying next time it's
in person and you're a man of your word.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's what I want out, That's that's the real takeaway.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yes, I want to go down this morning, although having
you on right now is key because man, the race,
hair and Hamden big changes over the last week or so.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Incredible, incredible. I mean, no one really saw that announcement.
I could. I'll speak for me. I did not see
that announced.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
You didn't either.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
I didn't because again, I'm not a part of this
whole poly tricky world, right, Yeah, I'm a civilian like
the rest of us, right, just going along. And she
did it. She made her announcement to you know, step
down the day that all the other candidates had to
present to the DTC committee saying, you know, answering questions
that they gave us Sunday at nine to twenty two pm.

(00:55):
We had to have all these really thought provoking questions
answered by Tuesday at right, So not a lot of
time to prepare. But of course, you know, I don't
I don't have to get ready because I stay ready.
So I showed up and I did what I had
to do in that meeting. And you know, there's just
so many twists and turns, Vinnie, It's it's incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
And of course we're talking about Mayor Garrett, I want
to say abruptly dropping out of the race.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
But there was something about the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
You know. I read the press release at the time
where the age old time, I've decided, I achieved what
I wanted to and now it's time for me to
spend some time with my kids.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
And I don't know the woman who I had.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
And here was somebody who was talking about and I
don't mean this in a wise skyway, was talking about
post divorce life and the struggle and raising and it's like,
doesn't seem like the greatest time to be out of
work and home with the kids.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well, listen, I mean that the townspeople rose up and
we put a lot of pressure on this current administration
to give us transparency, responsibility, and accountability. And when you
don't have answers, you know, sometimes the easiest thing to
do is retreat, right, Because we just kept coming at
her every legislative budget council meeting. I'm making public comments

(02:12):
and I want to say this. I was at the
head of that charge. You know, we had all these
people showing up really just expressing our disdain for what
was happening with the budget. How do you make a
fifteen million dollar mistake? Okay, three mills? It like, how
do you do that and still keep your job? Where's
the accountability? So when we started to question her and

(02:34):
her administration, the heat got turned up. People's eyes begin
open and just like I told you, the sleeping giant
woke up in this town and he's caffeinating and he
got he's listening, he's ready, and we're ready.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
He's caffeinated.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
So I'm on all of the I get tagged from,
and you know, this has been my second home since
nineteen ninety six. You know, I've worked in this in
this building. I get tagged from a lot of Hamden
resident It's on a lot of crazy pages on Facebook,
Hamden needs Solutions and you know you're from Hamden, Wan
and you know, and the people are really invested in

(03:11):
this race. Rightly, So, I've watched the decline of this
once great town. But it was right on that day
when you know, the people watching the race were like
and on the same day Josh Elliott announces he's going
to this is too slick, and they have these conspiracies
put together for lack of a better word, because a

(03:32):
lot of them hold water. Oh yeah, it's like, yeah,
this timing is creepy. It is, it is, and you
know it just or not creepy. But polla tricky pola tricky.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
You know, I got this phrase last night. It's like
tricky dick politics. You know, I can't tell a lie.
I won't tell a lie. And all they've been doing
is lying to us. All they've been doing is holding
and withholding information from the people. And we as shareholders
in this town, you know, we require some type of
financial account of Philly. We need the accounting and the

(04:01):
fact that you submit a budget, the fact that you
do all of these things and don't give us the
proper documentation. You know, there's something called for you freedom
of Information Act. Right, we need that where we're the
people of this town, you know, require that. It's part
of our rights. And what you were seeing with people
that was they were just abusing their power right and

(04:23):
even what they're doing now when you look at this
whole candidacy, when you look at everything as a whole,
I mean, yes, the gentleman announcing he's running from there,
it's all distractions. It's like, you know, P Diddy on
trial while you know laws are getting passed, right, is
to distract you from the real issues at hand. And
so what we're seeing is more sleight of hand, even

(04:44):
with Sean Grace, you know, which we hope he does
not disgrace us. Tomorrow at that DTC committee meeting when
they put they vote for the nom you know who's
going to be the nominee, and all of a sudden,
this new gentleman shows up out of nowhere from Nebraska.
He lived here, and this is all in the rumor,
mil But you pulled something up online about it.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, yeah, I was tagged. I mean, so.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
How and I asked this question, how how do you
throw somebody in a race where he has been nonexistent
for the past six months. Okay, he hasn't been around,
he hasn't made public comments. And the same thing with
a lot of the candidates that are that we have
now the other five people that are in the race,
you know, they're non events almost because Where were you
during the town hall forum where two hundred and fifty

(05:27):
people showed up asking for answers. They were in a
corner muted. Okay, and listen, let's say this again. There's
so much conflict of interest it is I mean, it
is just unfathomable.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Right, you got Sean Grace, who's the DTC chair and
also the chief of staff.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Now there's no way forgive the naivete of this question.
There's no way that this guy I got roped in
this morning, another twist in him. And this Brad McDowell,
remember him, he's going to.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Enter the race.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
He can't within twenty five four hours time make I
mean that you fundraise, You've made a lot of You've
got a lot of support behind you. I saw the
figures this weekend. Yeah, there were, and it's a crowded field.
I was actually very proud of you. I mean that's
a lot. I think you made the most or you
were right up at the top.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
That twenty five hundred dollars separated me from the other
fundraiser that you know, the person that was in.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Nobody can just pop in right now and within twenty
four hours because he's did some backscratch him back in
the day.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
You owe me a favor, can walk through that. That
would be.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Listen, what you will see if this happens is essentially
democracy hypocrisy. Yeah right, we're in a town where, right,
this is a democratic town. And by just definition of
that word, demos means people and Kratos with these are Greek.
You know, it's a Greek word. Krato's part of democrat
means rule. The people are supposed to rule, the people
are supposed to have a vote. And it's saying this

(06:54):
and from what I understand, if the share nominates this gentleman,
he could to submit his paperwork right away, and the
money that maybe Garrett raised that is unused, maybe they
siphon that over to him.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
That would be That would be some serious And this
is what I'm saying. That's how people get hot. That
is that's how And I've watched that play out in
New Haven. You'd like to think that the neighboring times
and don't don't play the city way. That would be
some real shady stuff and a lot of people would
be ticked. Speaking of the fundraising though, as I was
reading the newspaper article and I had glanced at the

(07:32):
names before, because there's about eight people going tomorrow like
looking for this nomination, seeking this nomination.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Well currently, let's see, we've got me. We've got Walter
Morton and Adam Sindroff, which are pretty much one of
the same person.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well, that's where I was headed to two of the
names I knew from Kurt Lanes administrator Lange's administration.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
And listen, I don't know the gentlemen. These are all
people that they seem very nice. I might have seen
them once or t but these are people who were
a part of failed administrations, people that are a part
of incomplicit with the issues and the problems we have currently.
So what do we do? Give them a second chance
to bury us all the way? Oh, we didn't put
all the dirt on the coffin. Let's get a couple
of more shovels and finish this off. Absolutely not. The

(08:17):
people in this town deserve change, right, they deserve new blood.
And a good friend of mine has a son that's
a surgeon, and right now this town is hemorrhaging. It's hemorrhaging. Money,
is hemorrhaging everything that's good. Right, The first thing a
surgeon does when he goes in as a skillful surgeon,
is that he goes in and he clamps off where
the bleeding's happening to stop it. And then he starts

(08:38):
an infusion in a transfusion of new blood. And I
come to tell you that I'm the new blood. I'm
the new thought. You know, other radio stations have called
me a breath of fresh air because it doesn't think
of the good old boys club with their cigars and
their back deal you know, back door deals and back
alley alliances. I don't owe anybody anything, you understand, people

(09:00):
of this town, all right, my service, and trying to
turn this place back to what it used to be
and also give it a vision for the future where
I know it can go.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
I love it, And again wrong with the Jamika Jeffrey
smallest big day here as far as see him. To
raise his concern November being the biggest day of them
all November four I did when I looked at those names,
and newspaper article went so far as to say, who
you know? Both served in the Lang administration. Look, I
go back a long way around here. I knew Kurt

(09:30):
back when I first started in radio. He was like
an older man around when his political career, was a
nice guy, yeah, ready to go when anyway it was
time for him to go. When that time came, he
had Scott Jackson before him, who bailed on the I
mean that was already a bad state of affairs. It
wasn't a great time for him to abandon the town

(09:53):
that had had elected him.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
But Malloy, if you may not know, you may know,
off him a pretty sweet gig.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Oh I did hear about that?

Speaker 1 (10:02):
So Hamden loses a mayor, there's got to be a
special election. Whatn't surprised me that languid eke out a
victory there, because you know, he was a favorite son
there and he stayed in for a little while. But
these when I saw these names, I just thought, well,
these are guys just like you said from They're stale,
they've been here too long. One of them is involved
in the Board of Ed for a long time. And

(10:24):
Hamden schools are in dire streets and have been for
ten years now.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Absolutely, and if I could give you some stats on that,
I'd been happy to do it. Listen, Hamden right now
is what's considered to be an Alliance school, which means
they rank in the lower fifty percentile of schools. They
rank eighty fourth out of one hundred and twenty schools. Okay, Math, reading,
science all below the state averages okay, thirty three percent,

(10:49):
forty five percent. And then the graduation rates. This is
what got me when I began to research this eighty
five percent graduation rate. The state minimum is eighty nine percent.
So again, you know, nice people, I'm sure, but when
it comes to evolving a town, taking it from the gutternmost,
if you will, to the uttermost. These are people that
had their chance to do it, And like, what what

(11:11):
are you going to do differently now that you when
you had the opportunity, you're sitting in those seats. You
know you haven't done it as of yet. And I'm
just simply saying, you know, I'm a woman that has
no political aspirations. Right, My neighbors came to my house
asked me to run. So I'm not looking to go
to Hartford. I'm not looking to go to Washington. What
I'm looking to do is to economically enhance and empower

(11:33):
the town through economic development. Right, we have to incentivize
and attract viable lucrative businesses into the town. And that
bears repeating because people need to know that someone's showing
up that has no allegiances or alliances. I'm just one
woman on a mission with a vision, all right, to
turn this town around. And unfortunately the playing field people say, oh,

(11:55):
it's crowded, but it's crowded with what right, it's crowded
with sea level. Well, you know, you know, I'm sorry
to say it, but when you look at them, right,
the registrar of voters is running okay, how like conflict
of interesting? Is that? For lack of atter? Like she's
gonna be over the vote. I'm like she should have

(12:15):
been requested to.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
Like this is like a.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
That's crazy, right she has she's still performing her duties
right now.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's insane. Come on, and I didn't even know that.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
The only day she's not supposed to be there the
day of the election. But guess what she had six
seven bucks.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
What we watched as Connecticut residents happen in Bridgeport. That's
that's crazy that someone's even able to do that. And
you the your fundraising dollars from fundraising events from from
the townsfolk. Yes, you know, I saw you know, I
have it on good authority. I mean one you know,

(12:56):
one guy an the money he raises all from lobbyists.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
It was all back. It was just I make goodness more.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
I actually counted it. It was only two from Hamden
and one from New Haven. The rest were like Hartford,
New London, Fairfield County. I mean, when you like enlist
lobbyists to give you money, guess what you owe them.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Favors, that's it. And they don't care what happens in
the town. That because as you just said, they're lobbyists
from exactly, you know, forty five minutes away who don't
really care what happens exactly.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
And I live here, I have a home here, at
a business here, right, I'm invested in this town. Me
and my husband. We put our dollars back into the town,
you know. And that speaks volumes, and that's what we
have to start doing.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
And I stud it.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Hamden has to start taking care of Hamden even in
terms of how we hire you know, we hire consultants
from you know, Texas Tyler Technologies. The people that were
responsible for the reval had a horrible track record, like
who's backing these people?

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Right?

Speaker 2 (13:52):
And most of those.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
I mean, it depends on who you ask, but the
revals were off. They didn't even come into your house.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Ariel Yeah, yeah, yeah, the drones. Yeah, watching like that.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
You know. I loved what you said too. And again
roun with Jamika Jeffries. Jamika Jefferies for Mayor Hampden, Connecticut.
She's got an eight point plan. Uh, it's all out
there to be found. Website, Facebook, et cetera, et cetera.
But I love what you said off the air before
when I asked you if you were you know, I
couldn't recall if you were born and raised in Hampden
and you said no, born and raised east Rock, which

(14:28):
I had a lot of east Rock friends, Morris Cove,
New Yeah. And you know when east Rock Am I
remembering it correctly? There's when it turns into Hamden. There's
that one street with like mansions onime.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
You know the what I mean.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, as a little girl, you must have walked by,
because you said exactly what I remember being the case
too in new Haven. When you lived in those parts
of new Haven it was like Hamden was, you know,
with Steria Lane and you had a rye. You made
it and it lost a lot of that luster. But
I you've made me think of that street because I

(15:02):
believe it's in East Rock, but it's when it becomes Hamden. Yeah,
there was that row of beautiful, beautiful homes.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Oh absolutely, you know. And now you can't even differentiate
from when Hamden starts and when New Haven ends, you know.
I mean it's like if the line is blurred, you know.
And there's some great businesses down in South Hampton, and
those are the people, some of the people that I'm
going to help day one because we got funds to
actually help them with their facades and rebuilding. And we're

(15:29):
asking right now, where is the money?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
So how does a candidate that's not chosen by the
Democratic Town Committee qualify for a primary?

Speaker 3 (15:38):
So good question. What's going to happen, guys, is that
when if the person doesn't get the nomination, now they
have to get signatures, right, I believe it's about eleven
hundred and twelve hundred or so signatures from people that
are registered to vote, people that live in the town
of Hamden, no exceptions. You can't have a business here
and live in East Haven, right, you got to be

(15:58):
here all the way investing and so in our case,
we're gonna get double that. Okay, I'm looking to pull
out twenty five hundred signatures because I don't know the
poly tricky people and the register of voted at the
last minute, so we have to go above and be on.
So we have to get to work. Now, what's gonna
happen is I have different satellite offices set up, and

(16:20):
one is Bob Thomas Ford, So I'm gonna have a
representative in there. You go into his showroom if you
need to get registered. The registration for us will be
right there and the signature paperwork will be right there
for you, Okay, and I will probably come in there
and greet you personally, all right, because that's what it's
going to take. It's going to be the people that

(16:40):
are gonna put the right person in office. You know,
and when you hear the truth and you know the truth,
you can't do anything against the truth. You know, You've
got a lot of counterfeits showing up, But that's what
has to happen. Guys. You've got to get out and vote,
and we got to prove them wrong. We're gonna shock
the world with this election.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Hopefully the signature thing does come to pass if if
it does so, I hate to put it out there,
but I feel like you could do that in the
day too. I feel like you get that amount of signatures,
but you hate to put that because this is this
is shady business, this is politics, this is the nature
of the beast. Where can people what's the website? Where
can people go and donate before we wrap things up?

Speaker 3 (17:18):
So they can go to Jamiica Jeffries. Go Jamiica Jeffries
dot com. That's g O J A M E K
A two S E R J E F F E
R I E S dot com. All right, go there.
You can call the number on that. I will pick
the phone up. Guys, Like if I don't pick it up,
I'm calling you right back. That's one of my claims

(17:38):
to fame is that I get it done all right,
and I want to talk to you. I want to
hear your ideas. This is not the team of me,
This is the team of we, and together we're going
to turn this town around. Guys, I promise you