Breen File Photo
Ron Hurt.
Apologizing for “disappointing” the community, Hill Alder Ron Hurt has stepped down from his elected post — as well as his visible community organizing role — in the wake of a controversy involving his former job at a drug rehabilitation facility.
Hurt wrote his resignation letter Thursday evening to Mayor Justin Elicker and Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers. He is in his fourth term as alder. He also plays a prominent role in the UNITE HERE-affiliated New Haven Rising activist group.
“It has become clear to me that I can no longer be the effective leader that my neighbors or my city need me to be,” Hurt wrote.
“It has also become clear to me that I must take more time to focus on the challenges in my own life, and to focus on providing the support that my family needs in this moment.
“I understand that I have disappointed many people in my community. I apologize.”
Hurt wrote that he “will cease my efforts in community organizing immediately” in addition to resigning as alder.
Board Majority Leader Richard Furlow informed the full board of the news in an email message sent Friday around 9 a.m.
“Alder Ron Hurt (W3) has resigned from the Board of Alders effective immediately. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors,” Furlow wrote.
Under the charter, the city is to hold a special election within 45 days for Ward 3 voters to choose Hurt’s replacement.
Hurt resigned three days after the Independent reported about his firing from a therapist position at the now-shuttered drug rehab center, Retreat Behavioral health, after a months-long sexual and romantic relationship between him and a patient came to light. (Read more about that here.)
Hurt did not return a call Friday seeking comment about his decision to resign.
Board of Alders President Walker-Myers told the Independent that she’s thankful to Hurt for his years of service. “We wish him well in his future endeavors,” Walker-Myers said.
Mayor Elicker said Hurt made the “right decision” to resign. He said he found details in the Independent story about Hurt’s relationship at Retreat “concerning.”
Hurt, who’s 52, also serves as an elder at Pentecostal Deliverance Temple Church, which is in Ward 3.
He identified himself as a “clinical team lead” at Retreat, a for-profit rehab center on the Boulevard. Retreat, which operated in three states, abruptly closed all its facilities in June amid a train wreck of executive suicides, corporate debt, mass layoffs, and the sudden discharge of all patients.
Hurt had had a relationship with a patient who had checked into Retreat for one month for opioid addiction treatment. Hurt exchanged numbers with the patient inside Retreat’s facility. The pair entered a sexual relationship within weeks of the patient’s discharge from the inpatient program, while the patient was still enrolled in outpatient treatment at Retreat, according to the patient.
The relationship lasted over six months, according to the patient, who was 25 years old at the time. The relationship violated core ethical and professional norms in the addiction treatment field, according to former Retreat employees, a representative of the Connecticut Association for Addiction Professionals, and the Association for Addiction Professionals’ national code of ethics.
After the relationship came to administrators’ attention, Retreat fired Hurt in October 2023, according to two employees with knowledge of the situation.
“There’s really nothing to talk about. It was a matter that happened with me personally,” Hurt said when previously asked by the Independent about the incident. “I don’t think that was a power dynamic.”
Tom Breen contributed reporting.