Sam Gurwitt Photo
Jim Pascarella entered Hamden politics because of a school construction project. Then, when he served a six-week stint as mayor, he dealt with a crisis in relations with Quinnipiac University.
Now, as Pasacrella (pictured above) steps aside from town politics, both of those are again hot topics.
Pascarella has held political office in Hamden since 2005. He was on the town’s Legislative Council for many years, including serving multiple terms as council president. He also served one term on the Board of Education (BOE), and six weeks as interim mayor after Scott Jackson resigned to take a job with the state and before Curt Leng won a special election. This year, Pascarelle decided not to run for reelection to the council.
He reflected on his career in Hamden politics and issues facing in the town in an appearance on WNHH Radio’s “Dateline Hamden” program.
Pascarella had just joined the newly-formed Hamden Education Foundation when the town discovered that it could not renovate the old middle school because of soil contamination.
The town had discovered the contamination in a 2000 soil study that was part of preparations for a renovation. Over the course of the next few years, it became clear that the town would have to relocate the school.
The Meadowbrook Golf Course was a promising site, said Pascarella. It was a nine-hole town-owned golf course near Town hall.
KBE Building Corporation
Hamden Middle School as it is today.
But there was stark opposition. People had become accustomed to its being a golf course. Veterans said it would undermine the memorial that was already on the site. Residents of the Meadowbrook Coop condos nearby didn’t want the noise or the commotion.
“Myself and a few others … essentially started a political campaign” to convince people that it was the best place for the new school, said Pascarella. Though the decision was ultimately up to elected officials, he said, he and the other members of the “campaign” needed to ensure “that the decision-makers knew that the public was behind them.”
The campaign worked, and the middle school now sits where the golf holes used to be. Out of the rest of the golf course, the town created Town Center Park, which hosts many of Hamden’s most popular events, including its summer concert series.
After seeing the work that Pascarella had done, then-Mayor Carl Amento asked him to run for council in 2005. The election went well for Pascarella. Not so much for Amento.
“Carl paid a tough price for that,” Pascarella said, adding that “he deserves the credit in the long run.”
That year, Craig Henrici challenged Amento in a primary and won. Pascarella, who had campaigned for Amento, won his first term on the council.
A decade later, in 2015, Pascarella was council president when Mayor Scott Jackson resigned to take a job with the state. In the interim, before the town held a special election to choose a new mayor, Pascarella filled the mayor’s position.
About two weeks into the job, he was at his office in Orange (he runs an insurance business) when he got a text telling him to “return to Hamden at once,” he recalled.
It was the Monday after then-Quinnipiac President John Lahey showed up to a rowdy off-campus party that prompted multiple calls to cops by the neighbors and egged on his drunken students, saying he should buy up the whole block. A student caught his speech on video, and it went viral. Neighbors and town officials were not happy, said Pascarella.
“Given the issues we had with the university and the house parties, having now this viral video of the president himself, you know… encouraging it — it wasn’t what we were looking for, let’s put it that way,” Pascarella said. As interim mayor, he had to respond.
“I thought it was easy for us just to pounce,” he said. But he had heard that people were considering protesting the university’s graduation, which was to take place in a few weeks, and he said he didn’t think that was in anyone’s best interest.
He issued a statement that began by saying that “the video speaks for itself.” It was critical of the president’s actions, and then included language “to provide him an out, thinking he’ll grab it, apologize, and we’ll be done.”
As the New Haven Register’s Kate Ramunni reported, that language read: “I am hopeful that President Lahey will be reaching out to us in the very near future to review these matters and proceed on a productive course.”
“Let’s use this as a turning point, was the objective,” Pascarella said.
It took Lahey a few days. But he did issue an apology.
Now, four and a half years later, relations between Quinnipiac and Hamden have improved. Quinnipiac Vice President and Chief of Staff Bethany Zemba spoke to the Hamden Planning and Zoning Commission in October about how the town and university can work together. After that meeting, many town officials said they were very optimistic about the direction that town/gown relations seem to be headed.
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Quinnipiac’s Mt. Carmel Campus.
Pascarella said that a positive relationship will be crucial for the town. “It doesn’t help either institution to be at odds,” he said. “If we work together, both institutions are going to improve.”
Town-gown relations are not the only recurring theme in Hamden politics. School construction is also a hot topic in 2019. Last year, the BOE approved a districtwide restructuring plan that involves major renovations or construction projects at many schools, including the addition of an entire wing at the middle school. It has not been an entirely smooth process. Last month, the state notified the town that it was pulling a $15 million grant for a new West Woods School.
And the toughest challenge may still lie ahead. Pascarella said that once the board has to do the actual redistricting, that’s when “you’re going to see a lot of the passion.”
His advice for the officials who have to carry out the project: be transparent. And never do a construction job where the town is at risk.
Click on the video to watch the full interview with Jim Pascarella on WNHH FM’s “Dateline Hamden.”