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Hamden Democratic mayoral candidate Lauren Garrett at WNHH FM.
Lauren Garrett is not scared. She recognizes that some people are.
That has presented her with a challenge as she enters the final stretch of campaigning to become Hamden’s next mayor: Some voters say they fear going shopping in town because of a perception of rising crime. Meanwhile, her opponents have made crime a central campaign issue.
“Crime is trending down. I’m not afraid to shop in Hamden Plaza,” Garrett said Thursday during an appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline Hamden” program.
Some “people are scared” nonetheless, she noted. “I hear it on the doors as well.” She attributes the increased fear to “people being at home, going on Facebook listening to 911 calls” on the radio, and “people who trying to benefit off scare tactics.”
Garrett is the endorsed candidate for mayor in the Nov. 2 general election. She is running with a slate of 19 other clerk, Board of Education, and Legislative Council candidates. She and her allies won a resounding upset victory in a Sept. 14 Democratic primary over incumbent Mayor Curt Leng and his slate of candidates. Now Garrett faces Republican Ron Gambardella in the general election. Leng and Al Lotto have also registered as write-in candidates, though their names won’t be on the ballot.
“I want to make people safe. That’s my job” if elected, Garrett said.
She cited “how we talk about crime” as part of that job. She said she supports filling the 20 vacant positions on the police force, which the town must do according to its union contract. “We need police to respond to crime.”
But keeping people safe also involves preventing crime, which isn’t just or always primarily the job of police, she said. She supports a crisis response team approach used in other cities to send social workers or mental health professional on some emergency calls for which they’re better trained, for instance. She supports the partnership with street outreach workers to seek to lessen tensions on the street and solve emerging problems.
Economic development, too, is an important party of a public safety strategy, in terms of creating opportunities for people, Garrett said.
Garrett said she does not agree with opponent Gambardella’s proposal to hire retired cops back in order to reduce overtime. She said she prefers to focus on new blood to fill the vacant officer spots. (Click here to read and watch an interview with Gambardella, in which he presents the idea.)
“We need to have newer police officers” in order to build “a police department that is interested in community policing” instead of continuing “old-school practices,” Garrett argued.
Police Chief John Sullivan told the Independent Thursday that the incidence of some categories of crimes has risen slightly in recent years, while others have fallen.
From January through September in 2021, Hamden has seen 43 robberies, compared to 41 in the same period in 2020, and 39 in 2019. Over the same nine-month period, aggravated assaulted gravitated from 102 in 2018, down to 83 in 2019, 71 in 2020, 91 in 2021. Burglaries in the period rose from 82 to 89 from 2019 to 2020, then back down to 79 so far in 2021. Thefts from motor vehicles rose in that period from 111 to 163 from 2019 to 2020, then down to 152 so far this year. Shooting incidents rose from 22 in 2019 to 32 in 2020 to 47 so far this year. Three homicides have occurred so far this year, compared to one last year.
“I don’t think we have an outrageous amount of crimes in our plaza area” or “exponential” crime increases as seen in some other communities, Sullivan said. “With social media, some of the crimes have been highlighted a little more than normal.”
Meanwhile, asked about the town’s financial challenges Thursday on “Dateline,” Garrett spoke of revisiting town contracts, including those pertaining to the ice rink and golf course, to get a better deal. She also spoke of presenting a “five-year plan to stabilize the mill rate” and offer taxpayers and businesses more predictability and consistency on town finances.
She also predicted that she and her slate will return more civility to public meetings.
In response to a listener’s question, she declined to identify any town department heads she might replace if elected.
Click on the above video to watch the full interview with Democratic mayoral candidate Lauren Garrett on WNHH FM’s “Dateline Hamden.”