Paul Bass Photo
Cove candidate and mixed-martial arts master Orosco with clerk candidate Acri at Thursday evening’s event.
Steve Orosco welcomed Anthony Acri at New Haven Republicans’ 2021 campaign headquarters by locking his fellow candidate in a rear naked choke hold.
Acri added the punchline: Orosco was repaying him for “getting him involved in this: I said, ‘Why don’t you run for alder?’”
Orosco perfected the choke hold as a professional mixed-martial arts fighter. He still operates an MMA outfit called SMASH Global Sports and Entertainment.
Now Orosco is working on a new competitive skill: Chatting up voters in an effort to win elected office.
Orosco is one of eight Republicans who have agreed to hit the streets seeking votes this fall in order to bring two-party democracy to one-party-ruled Democratic New Haven — by offering voters a choice in the Nov. 2 general election. (Democrats hold all contested municipal and state offices in New Haven. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 14 – 1.)
The Republican candidates and their supporters regrouped Thursday evening for an official opening of the party’s campaign headquarters at the southeast corner of Elm and Orange streets.
John Carlson (pictured above), a schoolteacher who lives in City Point, heads the ticket as the party’s mayoral candidate. (Click here, here and here to read previous stories about his campaign.) He’s the party’s first New Haven mayoral candidate since Rick Elser ran in 2007.
Pins on a wall-mounted ward map at Republican HQ indicated the streets Carlson has hit so far on the campaign trail.
He said that when he knocks on doors, he hears most often about voters’ concerns about the spike in crime.
His response: “More cops. More patrols. More accountability.”
On that third score, he speaks of citizens being held accountable for breaking the law, including nuisance offenses like drag-racing and illegal dumping; officers being held accountable for doing their job; supervisors being held accountable for officers doing their job.
“We don’t want cops at Dunkin Donuts or behind the school,” Carlson said. “We want them visible on patrol.”
He argued that in addition to pandemic-era trends fueling nationwide increases in violent crime, New Haven is plagued by a shortage of officers and lack of support for the police.
Acri (pictured) is the other citywide candidate. He vows to use his skills as a business owner to improve systems to enable more people to vote more easily. (Read more about that in this article.) Schoolteacher James O’Connell, a veteran of Republican campaigns, is challenging incumbent Democrat Edward Joyner for one of the city’s two elected Board of Education seats.
Four of the five Republican alder candidates are running in east-side wards bordering East Haven. Gail Roundtree (pictured above), for instance, is focusing on quality-of-life concerns like potholes in Quinnipiac Meadows’ Ward 11. (You can watch Acri, O’Connell, and Roundtree discuss their campaigns with fellow Republicans on this episode of WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”)
Deborah Reyes (pictured above), who works for the state Department of Social Services, is one of three candidates in Fair Haven Heights’ Ward 13. She, too, hears about crime while speaking with voters, she said. She said she switched from the Democratic Party to the Republicans out of concern over homeowners’ tax burdens and the state of public education. She said she has seen the system up close as a social worker, as a city health worker, as a substitute teacher. She faces Green candidate Patricia Kane and incumbent Democrat Rosa Santana. “I’m staying away from the negative,” Reyes said Thursday night. “My goal is to build relationships. I’m a people person.”
AnneMarie Rivera-Berrios, a member of the Civilian Review Board, is the Republicans’ candidate in Ward 17 in the Annex. She has been an advocate against neighborhood dumping and for restoration of parks and playgrounds for kids in the past. Last year, as a member of the East Shore CMT, she pushed to get $1,000 from the CMT to restore the children’s playground at Peat Meadow Park. The Ward 17 seat is open; Rivera-Berrios faces Democrat Salvatore Punzo, a retired New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) principal and teacher.
At the opposite end of town, Joshua Van Hoesen is taking on incumbent Democrat Darryl Brackeen in Upper Westville/Amity/Beverly Hills’ Ward 26.
Orosco has so far focused on contacting Republican and Independent voters in his quest for Morris Cove’s Ward 18 seat. “Embrace the struggle, man,” he responded when asked what lessons he can apply to his political campaign from his mixed martial arts training. “It’s the grind. It’s hard work. I love it!”
He said he is campaigning first and foremost on the recent decision to expand Tweed New Haven Airport. His opponent, incumbent Democrat Sal DeCola, voted for the expansion. Orosco opposes it. DeCola stated that a majority of his constituents support the deal to expand the airport. Orosco argued Thursday night that the voters of Morris Cove support his position, not DeCola’s. The Nov. 2 election will test that proposition. That’s the point of an election — when more than one party takes the time to field candidates.
The spread at Thursday evening’s event.