Thomas MacMillan Photos.
Ella Wood and her former Ward 2 home.
Josh Erlanger’s tenants at 215 Dwight St. called him to ask, apologetically, to break a lease just two months after moving in. A couple days later, he found out why: So that one of them, Ella Wood, could move to a different ward to run for office.
Erlanger’s property is in New Haven’s Ward 2. Wood, a 19-year-old Yale junior affiliated with Yale’s unions, started renting the property two months ago.
Then Wood suddenly broke her one-year lease last week just two days before filing petitions to appear on the Democratic primary ballot for alderman in downtown’s Ward 7. She moved to take on incumbent Alderman Doug Hausladen, who has sought to organize a fledgling coalition of candidates critical of Yale’s unions.
Erlanger happens to live in Ward 7. He donated to the Hausladen campaign on Aug. 8, and said he plans to vote for Hausladen, not his former renter.
Caroline Berson Photo
“One of the first things she did,” Erlanger (pictured) said of Wood, “was screw over a constituent.”
Wood countered that she has fulfilled all her obligations to Erlanger and is now focused the needs of her new neighbors in Ward 7 as she seeks their votes.
Wood and two other women had signed a lease agreement with Erlanger on April 14. They agreed to a one-year lease, commencing on June 1, for a second-floor apartment at 215 Dwight St., a building Erlanger owns.
Erlanger said he had no problem with the three tenants for the first two months. They paid their rent on time.
They had already paid for the month of August as well when one of Wood’s two roommates called Erlanger up on Aug. 5 and said they had to break the lease. Erlanger said he didn’t ask why. He said the roommate spoke in a “sad tone of voice”; he assumed it was some sort of family emergency.
At first, Erlanger said, he took it in stride: “People have to break leases. It’s not the end of the world.”
Then he read in the Independent that Wood had moved so that she could run against Alderman Hausladen in Ward 7. That’s not a legitimate reason to break a lease, he said.
“When I read in the paper that it was so she could primary Doug, I was definitely furious,” he said. “It’s clear that someone put her up to this.”
Wood said she moved to 294 Humphrey St. (pictured) on Aug. 5.
Erlanger said he’s scrambling to find a new tenant. If he doesn’t, he’ll charge Wood and her two friends for each month that the apartment is vacant.
It doesn’t seem to be vacant yet, he said. “They all seem to still have stuff there.” He said he visited there over the weekend and found at least one of Wood’s roommates still there.
A Monday morning visit found no one home; furniture could be seen in the second floor apartment. No one was home at Wood’s new address — 294 Humphrey St. — either.
“It brings up the question: What is residency?,” Erlanger said. “If you’re paying rent does that mean you live there?”
Contacted Monday, Wood said that she has already moved to Humphrey Street, but that her roommates, who are moving with her, are on a different moving schedule and have not yet fully transitioned to the new place.
Wood said the breaking of the lease is a matter between only her and Erlanger. “That’s not what the question in this race is,” she said. “I’m interested in starting a conversation about the real issues in Ward 7.”
“I’ve fulfilled my obligation to my landlord,” Wood said. “I’ve moved into Ward 7 as a commitment to the people that live in that ward.” She said she plans to “figure out what are the concerns that the ward has.”
Records in the office of the registrar of voters show that Wood changed her voter registration from Ward 2 to Ward 7 on Aug. 5. She had registered as a Democratic voter in Ward 2 in July in order to be a petition circulator for other candidates.
Wood later circulated petitions for her own candidacy in Ward 7. Former UNITE HERE organizer Hugh Baran was one of her circulators as well, and signed off as the official witness on all of her petitions.
Wood told the Independent last week that she had been looking for an opportunity to move into Ward 7 so she could run. She has been involved in union-affiliated groups on campus. She said she is inspired by the agenda that Yale union-affiliated aldermen have been working on. She said she’s also been inspired to see grassroots leaders step forward and to have Toni Harp — whom she supports — seeking to be the city’s first female mayor.
Landlord Erlanger, meanwhile, said he plans to vote for Hausladen, not his former renter.
“It’s got nothing to do with the lease,” he claimed. “She’s not involved in this community. This isn’t a ward where our problems are potholes. … She has no familiarization with any of this. She spent no time with the management team. It’s crazy to me that she could think she could just hop in having lived in New Haven for two years. There’s just no way I could vote for her. She’s just completely unqualified.”
“I’ve lived in the downtown area for a couple of years,” Wood replied. “I’m not going into the race to impose a vision.” Wood said she wants to “start a conversation. That’s the kind of leadership the ward needs, to give a voice to the people in the ward.”