Pro-Biz Morris Cover Lands A Tweed View

John Cirello has been around the runway and back on one of New Haven’s longer-running conflicts: Whether Tweed-New Haven should become a bigger, busier commercial airport.

As a volunteer with the Chamber of Commerce, Cirello has advocated for expanding the airport to include more commercial flights. He also likes the convenience of catching a flight in Morris Cove, where he lives and where the airport is located. The quest to bring in a lot more commercial service than the two current daily flights to Philly has become a religious mission for the local business community.

As a good-government Republican who has occasionally run for public office, Cirello has discovered that no one can expect to win many votes in Morris Cove without adopting neighbors’ own fight-to-death quest to prevent expanding Tweed’s runway and enabling more noisy jets to fly into the neighborhood.

Cirello — a private attorney and model New Haven citizen who volunteers (and asks tough questions) on civic boards and commissions (currently the Civil Service Commission), helps to organize kids’ Halloween parades and soap-box derbies in Morris Cove, oversees election-day vote-counting, takes on public-defender cases — discussed how the two opposed camps have influenced his own evolving position on the airport, during an appearance on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. The discussion touched on the definition of leadership: what it means to seek to ​“represent” a community, how to balance the need to address issues honestly with the need to listen and respond to the public will.

Excerpts from the conversation follow:

WNHH: In 2007, you represented [the Chamber of Commerce] at a city hearing, a budget hearing, asking for more support for Tweed-New Haven Airport. You live in Morris Cove where Tweed-New Haven Airport is about as popular as Donald Trump is in Brooklyn. People hate that airport. And the business community has this religious belief that we can have huge jets coming here all day, we’d have a great economy, everybody would fly, these planes would be commercially viable — if just those neighbors in Morris Cove would stop fighting this airport that they knew was there when they bought their homes, so what the hell are they fighting about? Then we end up fighting about 20 feet of runway after five years.

What’s it like to come home to Morris Cove when you’ve advocated for Tweed to expand? Did they pelt your house with eggs?

Cirello: I had a lot of pushback when I ran the last time [for state representative in 2014].

But you kind of weaseled that one, didn’t you?

I did.

You said, ​“I’m not really going to say what my position is.” I love that you admit it!

This is the beauty of being a Republican in New Haven. Who’s going to give me a call and say, ​“You shouldn’t have said that on the radio!”?

Why did you weasel on it? Why didn’t you come out and say, ​“Yeah, I’m a Republican. Yeah, I’m a conservative. Yeah, I live in Morris Cove. But I think we need that airport expanded”?

So one of the things we were talking about before with Donald Trump — there are things you say to get elected. And how does that relate to governing?

But you weren’t going to get elected. You were running against someone who hadn’t shown up for years and was still going to get elected, because he’s a Democrat. So why couldn’t you at least tell the truth?

Well, this is the way I framed it. I said, ​“I am not running because I can promote my views. I am running so I can promote my community’s views.”

But shouldn’t a candidate tell us where a candidate stands? Even if that’s unpopular?

Absolutely. And initially I came out in favor of the airport. And then I had a very good friend, a professor at Southern Connecticut State University, who teaches politics there…. His name is Kevin Butterbaugh. He came up to me. Our kids go to school together. A great friend of mine.

And I asked him for his support. And he gave me this look. And I’m like, ​“You’re kidding me!” And he’s like, ​“Nope. We don’t know where you stand on the airport.”

I was like, ​“But my daughter and your daughter are best friends. You know me. And you hate the person that’s there.” I said, ​“You’re looking for a Superman candidate. Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative. I’m so much better than the guy I’m running against.”

And he said, ​“No. Considering your stance on the airport, we can’t support you.” He was one of about two dozen people …

So I said, ​“Well, personally in the past I’ve been in favor expanding the airport. But as your state representative, I can assure you that I’ll represent your views.”

By the way. I’m an agnostic on the airport.

I think the Chamber of Commerce in this community has never shown real data that [more air service is commercially viable]. They always release fake studies. But every time we get an airline in there, they don’t succeed. So I don’t know that the market will support it. I’d love to have a Tweed-New Haven Airport, for selfish reasons, have a lot of commercial flights, because I’d love not to have to go to Bradley, or LaGuardia. But I don’t think this business community has ever made its case that its corporate welfare is justified by the data that it’s commercially viable. 

But I also think the neighborhood is full of it, because they bought their houses knowing there are airplanes there. And there is a larger public interest. So I’ve always been agnostic on this one.

I don’t think my personal views are so strong on the airport.

I would argue that that reason [Donald] Trump and [Bernie Sanders] did so well in the last election is that people would rather that politicians say what they really believe and mean it, rather than say, ​“If I can’t get elected according to the conventional wisdom with this position, I won’t take it.” Although you can make the argument here, John, that because you didn’t feel strongly — like me, you seem to think there are shadings on both sides of this issue — it’s OK to say on some issues, ​“Because I don’t feel strongly, I will listen to the will of the people and make sure [their] concerns are addressed and I won’t … go to the the mat and lose votes on [every issue].

Right.

But that can be a slippery slope. Because then you justify being a weasel.

Are you calling me a weasel?

Not you. I’m saying, ​“One can …”

I think that that’s true. People want authenticity.

You don’t have to fake authenticity by pretending you know everything about every issue.

That’s true. A lot of people make decisions that are uninformed [in an] initial position. You get into something. We’ve learned that with Trump, when he said, ​“I didn’t realize health care was so complicated.”

But John, did you genuinely have a new take on the airport? Or was that just a convenient new position so you wouldn’t have to have zero support when you ran for state rep?

So I think a lot of your perspective has to do with people you’re exposed to. And being around other business leaders and the Chamber of Commerce and people from economic development, they were …

It’s a jihad in economic development and business circles in this city.

… all I heard were the benefits of the airport. And I found it very convenient. I used to walk to the airport with my carry-on. Those were the people I was exposed to. That was the side of the issue I was exposed to.

I go run for office, and I’m now exposed to this whole group of people who said, ​“No, no, no. Not so fast. They promised they wouldn’t expand the airport, and this is why.” I realized that people I am going to be representing are these people. Let’s give their arguments some value.

How do you feel today about Tweed-New Haven Airport? Expand it, or not?

I don’t think it needs to be expanded. They want to pave over the runaway crash zones. I don’t perceive that as a problem.

The neighbors say that’s a broken promise from our city.

So a politician broke a promise…

John, you’re not running for office now.

No.

So this is your honest position. You didn’t sell out. That campaign actually changed your mind by hearing from a different group of people.

Yeah, and I think we need more of that. Expose yourself to other side’s view. Listen to it with an open heart and an open mind. And see if you change your mind.

Click on or download the above audio file to listen to the full interview with John Cirello on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven,” which includes discussion about his civic activism and the role of ​“captive” Republicans in New Haven.