Stratton Lights A Fire In Ward 19 Race

One candidate wants to cut the number of firefighters in half. The other wants to keep them.

That’s one debate fueling a hotly contested aldermanic race in East Rock and Newhallville.

The debate over what to do with the fire department — and what that means about public service jobs, the city budget, and the strength of unions — has emerged as a key issue in a race for the open seat in Ward 19, which covers parts of East Rock and Newhallville.

Mike Stratton, a 47-year-old personal injury lawyer, and Maureen Gardner, a 48-year-old Yale union steward and administrative support staffer for the Yale Alumni Fund, face off Tuesday in a Democratic primary for alderman, one of 10 contested races citywide. They’re running in a diverse ward that spans some of the poorest and richest streets in the city.

Stratton’s uncensored remarks — especially about firefighters and Yale’s unions — have made waves in the 3 1/2 months since he announced his candidacy. The firefighter debate reflects a difference in how the two candidates are framing their campaigns: Stratton as an independent voice unafraid to make unpopular decisions to save the city money; and Gardner as a protector of unionized public jobs.

The two are running for the seat left open by Alderwoman Alfreda Edwards, who’s retiring after seven terms in office. Her departure represents a shift of power in the ward: Edwards, who’s African-American, lives in Newhallville. Both candidates, who are white, hail from the wealthier part of the ward, which was just redrawn to include more of East Rock. Stratton lives in a million-dollar home on Huntington Street; Gardner lives in a portion of Livingston Street that used to be part of East Rock’s Ward 10.

Gardner is running as the union-backed candidate: She has the official endorsement from her union, Yale’s UNITE HERE Local 34; and AFSCME Council 4, which represents city employees, donated $375 towards her campaign. Stratton has Alderwoman Edwards’ support. He is running a self-financed campaign with $9,500 from his pocketbook, putting him far ahead of Gardner’s $1,525, according to campaign finance filings.

Their contest is shaping up to be a proxy battle between mayoral candidates: Gardner supports Toni Harp, who has union support; Stratton is supported by East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker, who’s running a mayoral campaign without special-interest money or union support. (The two mayoral campaigns, incidentally, have also been sparring about fire-department staffing.)

Fire Fight

Perhaps Stratton’s most controversial proposal is his call to slash the fire department. He contends that the city has ​“far too many fire personnel.” He called for cutting the firefighting force in half, and modernizing the department with advanced life-support vehicles to respond to medical calls. The city currently has 270 firefighters and is looking to hire 80 to 120 more in the next two years; Stratton calls for cutting the force to 150.

“Two-hundred fifty firefighters is too many,” he said in an interview Monday.

He spoke in the backyard of his home at 162 Huntington St. (pictured), where he was hosting a large fundraising party for Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS). The clam bake came on the heels of the city’s Stratton Faxon Road Race, which Stratton’s law firm sponsors every year. As he spoke, kids jumped on a water-soaked moon bounce and sailed through the yard on a zip-line.

He said his stance is based on the city’s small size — just 18 square miles — and on staffing ratios recommended by the National Fire Protection Association. ​“There is no expert in the country who would suggest we need more than 150 firemen,” he claimed.

Stratton said he doesn’t advocate laying off firefighters en masse. He called on the city to ​“stop hiring more firefighters” and instead modernize the department to rely on fewer firefighters.

“We shouldn’t have hook and ladder trucks” going to medical calls for people with chest pains, he argued. The city should ​“get rid of the antiquated fire houses and purchase high tech advanced life-support vehicles that are manned at spots around the city,” as the American Medical Response company (AMR) does. ​“This will save millions in unnecessary manning of station houses,” he wrote in an email.

He proposed reallocating the money from the fire department to police, to beef up the police department to 650 or 700 cops. ​“If we had 100 to 200 more cops our poorer neighborhoods would be transformed.”

His stance on the fire department, which he made public in a May interview with the Independent, met blowback.

After his remarks, firefighters from the Whitney Avenue station mobilized to help Gardner gather petitions to get on the ballot.

“Firefighters have been the strongest supporters of my opponent,” Stratton said.

Gardner said she disagrees with Stratton’s proposal.

“Cutting the fire department in half feels a little draconian,” she said. ​“That could be an issue with public safety.” She said if anything, the fire department is ​“understaffed.”

“We should sustain it at the level that we have now.”

Gardner (pictured) spoke during a morning walk from her home at 112 Livingston St. to her workplace at the Connecticut Financial Center right next to City Hall.

“We are all looking for ways to get our budget in line, but I just don’t think a 50 percent cut” to the fire department is the answer, she said. She turned down Edwards to catch Orange Street — slightly out of the way, but a more pleasant walk, she said.

Gardner said she is opposed to privatization of public jobs in general. Stratton countered that he’s not calling for privatizing firefighters’ jobs: ​“Privatization is not the answer. Consolidation is.”

Gardner declined to identify any cuts she would make to the city budget. She said she would ​“review the budget closely and work as diligently as I could to keep expenses in line. But I can’t say I’m enlightened enough to say what those cuts would be.”

“The way to deal with our budget is not necessarily by cutting things,” she said, but by economic development and ​“helping people get good jobs.” She said she would support programs like New Haven Works, which aims to help New Haveners land jobs.

Union ​“Soldier”? Or ​“Worst Enemy?”

The candidates fall on two sides of Yale’s unions, which have emerged as the most powerful political organizing force in local electoral politics.

Stratton began his campaign by declaring war on Yale’s unions. He said the sweep of aldermanic seats by Yale-union-backed candidates in 2011 was ​“a wake-up call” that inspired him to run for office.

He joined a slate of ​“Take Back New Haven” candidates united by their opposition to a ​“new machine” run by the unions. Stratton lambasted the unions as ​“special interest” groups that have been ​“abusing their authority.” Stratton even quit Take Back New Haven because he thought the group was too connected to unions.

In the wake of Stratton’s comments, Gardner, a union steward in Local 34, jumped in the race at the last minute before the Aug. 8 deadline.

“After reading [Stratton’s] remarks, I talked to a lot of people” and decided to run, she said.

Stratton and Gardner both sought the endorsement of Yale’s UNITE HERE Local 34 and 35. In remarks before the unions, Stratton repented and said he was ​“embarrassed” by his anti-union statements. He offered to ​“be a soldier” for the unions.

Local 34 President Laurie Kennington said Thursday that her union executive board voted two to three weeks ago to endorse Gardner.

“We thought Maureen is really a great advocate for the neighborhood,” Kennington said. ​“We have members on both sides of Prospect Hill and she seems like the person who could bring the ward together. She has a lot of the skills for advocating for her coworkers” on the job, ​“advocating for her daughter in the public school system, and she seems like she would advocate for Ward 19.”

Kennington said the unions was not ready to publicly announce which other aldermanic candidates they have endorsed.

Stratton said the union never had the ​“courtesy” to let him know he didn’t get the endorsement. Instead, he figured it out when he saw teams of Local 34 members, including secretary/treasurer Ken Suzuki, canvassing his neighborhood for Gardner.

Stratton regained a skeptical outlook about the Yale unions in an interview Monday.

“It’s very clear that Local 34 and 35 wants complete and total control of the Board of Aldermen,” he said. For example, he cited the emergence of candidate Ella Wood, a 19-year-old Yale student who started running in downtown’s Ward 7 just days after moving there; and Gardner.

Gardner ​“just appeared out of the ether on the last possible day,” he said.

Gardner denied being recruited by the unions. Kennington said Gardner came up with the idea on her own, then spoke with Kennington, who encouraged her to run.

Stratton said he never pulled a 180 in his position on the unions. He said he made them this offer: ​“If you are going to be true to your progressive roots, I am one of your soldiers. However, if you’re going to support the entrenched status quo, I’m your worst enemy.”

He said he’s now leaning towards the latter scenario. He’s very concerned that the unions would continue the status quo, especially with public employee pensions. The city has a $505 million unfunded pension liability that is imperiling the budget and sinking bond ratings.

Stratton called for city employees to switch from a defined-benefit to a defined-contribution pension plan, which operates like a 401(k). He said the new plan should be ​“as generous as Local 34 and 35’s defined-contribution plan.”

He called the unions’ dominance of the Board of Aldermen dangerous.

“I don’t understand why they need to co-opt all the Board of Aldermen seats,” he said. ​“We’re down to just a few independents.” (By ​“independent,” he means independent of the unions.)

“We need someone like me to really keep an eye on things,” he said, ​“and make sure that 34/35 doesn’t use [its power] for private benefit.” He blamed aldermen’s affiliation with Yale, for example, for their decision to sell portions of two streets to Yale for $3.5 million —a decision that sparked public outcry, and which Stratton opposes.

“We need somebody independent in there to make sure their control isn’t used in the wrong way,” he said.

Kennington denied trying to ​“dominate” the Board of Aldermen. Local 34’s goal, she said, is to ​“continue encouraging as many people as possible to join the political process.”

“To say that the unions are co-opting the Board of Aldermen — I don’t know about that,” Gardner opined.

Asked how she would have voted on the Yale streets sale, Gardner defended the board’s actions. ​“The original contract” governing the lease of the streets to Yale ​“was not very well-written or thought out,” she said. ​“The board tried to leverage what they could.”

Not knowing all the details of the contract, she said, she doesn’t know if she would have voted yes or no. ​“But I like to believe the board acted in the best interest of the city.”

Gardner showed up after Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting and met with several members of the labor-backed supermajority.

She downplayed her affiliation with the union and that coalition. She said she’s a mom, a homeowner, ​“and a member of a union.” Those are all ​“part of who I am.”

“I see my primary responsibility” as alderman ​“as representing the people of my ward and advocating for them at City Hall.”

Proxy Fight

The two candidates bring different approaches, and different networks of support, that reflect the larger battle in the ward between the two leading candidates in the mayor’s race, Harp and Elicker.

Stratton has been relying on two main allies: Alderwoman Edwards, who has accompanied him at voters’ doors in Newhallville; and two-term East Rock Alderman Elicker, whose mayoral campaign has a strong base of support in East Rock. Stratton has used his $9,500 campaign treasure chest to send colorful mailings publicizing Elicker’s endorsement.

Luckily for Stratton, the two will appear side by side on the ballot on Tuesday, on Line D. Stratton said he plans to hand out literature urging a joint Line D vote. Gardner’s name will appear on the ballot on Line C, along with mayoral candidate Kermit Carolina.

Stratton has used his well-stocked campaign coffers to send out mailings, buy lawn signs, and pay for campaign staff. He has hired a field coordinator, Kanisha Crenshaw, and 10 paid door-knockers, who have made between $80 and $520 each.

Gardner, meanwhile, has relied on neighbors and colleagues from Local 34 to knock on doors. She received $375 from AFSCME Council 4 and $1,150 in individual donations. She paid Local 34 $50.83 to print literature. She said she supports Harp for mayor, but has not coordinated any campaign activity with her.

A Local 34 colleague knocking on doors for Gardner last weekend said their team is up against a tough challenge in the East Rock portion of the ward, because Elicker is giving Stratton a hefty boost.

“Mike has been a strong supporter of Common Ground High School, a volunteer for New Haven Reads, the lead backer of the Stratton Faxon Road Race, an active advocate for IRIS, and an advocate for neighborhood concerns such as high property taxes,” Elicker wrote in an email blast to East Rockers.

“We need people on the Board of Aldermen who are independent-minded, advocate for their constituents and are dedicated to making the right decisions for all of us,” Elicker continued. ​“Mike has shown through his actions that he is prepared to take on both the small details of improving a neighborhood to the big challenges that face our city.”

Neighborhood Cred

“I know Maureen, and I think she’s a good person,” Elicker said by phone this week. ​“She just hasn’t been at all engaged in any neighborhood meetings or efforts.”

Stratton said Gardner’s supporters have unfairly painted him as a ​“1‑percenter” who is ​“anti-jobs.” Her campaign has taken on a ​“populist sentiment,” he said, ​“when in reality she’s done nothing for our community.”

“I’ve never seen her at New Haven Reads,” or at IRIS. ​“She didn’t step forward” to save the New Haven Road Race seven years ago when banks could no longer support it, he said. Stratton is partner in a four-person personal injury law firm that spends $90,000 annually to support the road race. His firm also donates 10 percent of its earnings to local charities, he said.

“Maureen spends her days raising more money for an institution with a 50 billion dollar endowment and then heads home,” he wrote in a follow-up email. ​“I spend my days fighting against insurance companies and corporate America for people catastrophically injured. Then when I finish I make sure to support New Haven with my time and money through more than a dozen non profits for kids and families in our city. I know this city and its people from the vantage point of 48 years of living here from my time here as a cabbie paying my way through school to running a downtown law firm.”

Gardner later replied that she has been involved in the neighborhood — in events at Wilbur Cross High School, where her daughter goes to school. ​“I never saw Mike at those events,” she said.

She said she has been involved at Cross and Education Center for the Arts at parent-teacher events and PTO meetings.

“That has been somewhat of the extent of my involvement” in the neighborhood, she admitted. ​“I’m a mom. I have a kid in school.”

Stratton has three kids. He sent them to Cold Spring School, a private school on James Street in Fair Haven.

Gardner, of Meriden, moved to New Haven and to Livingston Street, where she owns her home, nine years ago. A graduate of UConn, she also lived in New Haven when she was in her 20s; she managed a Waldenbooks store at the Chapel Square Mall.

“I moved here nine years ago very intentionally because I love New Haven. I live here, I work here, I have a daughter who goes to public school here. I want to be part of making New Haven an even better place,” she said.

Gardner presented herself as the candidate who will listen and bring people together — not divide them with incendiary remarks.

She vowed to ​“work hard” and ​“listen to the concerns of my neighbors and advocate for them.”

One of her supporters on a door-knocking team described the difference this way: Stratton wants to hire an assistant to do constituent services, while Gardner would do the work herself.

Stratton called that characterization unfair. He said he has proposed hiring a part-time person to put together a newsletter for Wards 10 and 19.

“It’s amazing” how someone could take ​“the seriousness with which I would approach the job and turn it against me,” he said. He said his aim is to hire a staff person ​“so we can professionalize the job.” That would enable him to do more constituent services, not less, he said.

Polls open Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Ward 19 votes at the Celentano School at 400 Canner St. Click here to figure out which ward you’re in, as the boundaries have changed.