Union Rep Takes On Board President

Denouncing a ​“lack of leadership,” a custodian-turned-union official announced he’s running against city government’s number-two top elected official.

Brian Wingate (pictured), a 40-year-old member of the executive board of Yale’s blue-collar union, launched a campaign Tuesday for the Democratic nomination for the Ward 29 aldermanic seat.

That seat has been held for the greater part of two decades by Carl Goldfield, who’s now the president of the Board of Aldermen. Goldfield, who’s 60, was first appointed to the seat by former Mayor John Daniels in September of 1992. He said Tuesday that he plans to run for reelection to a 10th full term in office. That means the two are set to face off in a Sept. 13 Democratic primary.

Wingate becomes the third union-affiliated candidate to mount a campaign this year, at a time when labor and City Hall are engaged in a bitter, public fight over municipal contracts. His announcement was part a gradual roll-out of union-backed challengers to aldermen who are seen as close to Mayor John DeStefano. Incumbent Alderwomen Dolores Colon and Claudette Robinson-Thorpe also recently launched reelection campaigns with support from labor advocates.

Wingate greeted neighbors and friends with a booming voice and a crushing handshake late Tuesday afternoon in the backyard of his home at 1500 Ella Grasso Blvd. in Beaver Hills.

In a brief speech before about 30 supporters, he said he and his wife have spent time observing the ward in the four and a half years since they bought their home.

“Since the time that we’ve been over here, we’ve seen some changes, like heightened violence and stuff like that,” he said. ​“We’ve seen layoffs in the city. We’ve seen some different things to be concerned about in Ward 29.

“But what we saw most was a lack of leadership in Ward 29,” he charged. So, he explained, ​“I thought I would run for the board, to represent us.”

Click on the play arrow to hear his comments.

His remarks met with applause from neighbors, family members, coworkers and union representatives gathered during a sunny late afternoon in Wingate’s backyard.

Wingate, who spent part of his childhood in Virginia, has lived in New Haven since 1985, and in Ward 29 since 2007, he said. He makes his debut into politics after rising through the ranks to union leadership.

Wingate started out as a part-time custodian at Yale when he was 22 years old. He stripped and waxed floors in the Yale Medical School, and sometimes cleaned a room where cadavers were kept, he said. In 1997, he began getting involved with the union. In 2007, he was promoted to leave custodial work and become a full-time ​“facilitator” between labor and management. The job is part of a ​“best practices” effort that came about in the last contract negotiations.

Wingate insisted his candidacy is ​“not about the union.” He did say he will be seeking endorsements from Locals 34 and 35, among other groups.

Members of Yale labor affiliates came out to support the announcement in his backyard.

Michael Boyd (at left in photo), an employee at Yale’s physical plant, serves on the 13-member union executive board of Local 35 along with Wingate. He called Wingate a ​“great listener.”

“He has a lot of character,” added Cliff Wentworth (at right in photo), a fellow member of Local 35.

Frank Douglass, Jr., who’s eyeing Dwight’s Ward 2 seat again after coming close to winning it in 2007, is also on the executive board of Local 35. He shook Wingate’s hand and announced there is brewing ambition among several union members to become aldermen this year.

Douglass grabbed some cheese and crackers from a food spread, which was complete with lemonade and three tiers of red velvet cupcakes baked by Wingate’s wife, Kiamesha Robinson.

Behind the food table stood Shirley Lawrence, an organizer for Connecticut Center for a New Economy (CCNE), a union-affiliated advocacy group, members of which are active in local and state elections.

Wingate’s campaign is being run by Ricardo Henriquez, another CCNE organizer. Henriquez said he has been door-knocking with Wingate since February. He said he’s supporting the campaign out of friendship, not in his official role at CCNE. He said CCNE is a not-for-profit, and as an organization does not work for candidates or campaigns.

In an interview after his two-minute speech, Wingate said he isn’t coming to the campaign with an issue-driven agenda. He said he’s running to ​“give back to the community,” by pushing policies for job creation and getting neighbors new sidewalks.

He said he aims to help other people get the opportunities he had.

“This is my dream,” he said, looking up at his three-story home (pictured), where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He said he worked hard and saved money as a custodian. He lived in the Church Street South projects for over six years, he said, before moving to Beaver Hills as a first-time homeowner. He landed the deal through an initiative by Neighborhood Housing Services and the city, with help from the Yale homebuyer’s program.

Wingate was asked to address his comment that there’s been a ​“lack of leadership” in the ward he now calls home. He declined to cite any specifics examples where Goldfield had erred.

The candidate was asked to give an example of an issue on which he disagrees with Goldfield.

“The board needs change,” came his reply. Goldfield ​“has been there for a long time — that’s why I think we need change.”

Wingate was asked again if there’s any issue where he disagrees with the incumbent.

“I can think of an issue,” jumped in his campaign manager, Henriquez. ​“Stormwater.”

He was referring to the city’s quest, which Goldfield supported, to create a stormwater authority that would start charging homeowners, businesses and not-for-profits for the cost of treating the water that runs off their properties. The controversial proposal was not included in the budget that passed on Monday, and has been effectively killed.

Wingate said he shook Goldfield’s hand and told him that, as a homeowner, ​“I disagree with the whole process.” He said taxpayers are already struggling enough and they can’t accept another bill.

“We’ve got no time to beat up on the little people,” he said.

Reached later Monday, Goldfield (pictured) defended his stance. He said he supported a stormwater authority for two reasons: First, it would have provided a way to make non-profits like Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital pay for a service that the city provides. Right now, the cost is borne entirely by taxpayers through property tax bills, which non-profits are exempt from paying.

“We could have hit up Yale and Yale-New Haven Hospital, which everyone says they want to do,” Goldfield noted.

Second, Goldfield argued, the bill is environmentally friendly: It would have encouraged big businesses to create alternatives to large impervious parking lots.

Goldfield was asked to respond to Wingate’s charge that the ward has declined in the last four to five years.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Goldfield said.

The house Wingate is living in, Goldfield said, was part of a revitalization effort that came about ​“through my efforts.” Goldfield said he pressured former Livable City Initiative chief Henry Fernandez to team up with Neighborhood Housing Services and renovate houses on the Boulevard and on Blake Street, turning them into rentals and owner-occupied homes.

“The very house he’s living in was a total wreck. That end of Ella Grasso was just devastated,” Goldfield said. Wingate ​“is the beneficiary of the kind of work that we’ve done to turn to the ward around.”

Goldfield said today, instead of seeing the ward going downhill, he’s noticing the opposite. On Royden Road, where he’s lived since 1985, young couples are moving in with kids, choosing to raise their kids in New Haven, he said.

As he launches his 10th reelection campaign, he said his message will be ​“what my message has always been: We want to keep taxes stable so people can afford to live here” and offer good public schools where kids can send their kids. He said the city is succeeding on both accounts, as evidenced by the young couples moving onto his street.

Goldfield characterized Wingate’s criticisms as ​“classic campaign stuff.”

“You’re always going to say the ward is going downhill and there’s no leadership,” Goldfield said. ​“Otherwise you have no rationale for running. Objectively, the facts say otherwise.”

Goldfield was asked about the campaign by labor affiliates to unseat him.

“I don’t really understand it,” he said. ​“I think I’ve been a pretty progressive alder. The problem is, what’s on the table from a budget standpoint: We don’t have a lot of discretion in our budget except for our labor costs.”

Aldermen drew outcry from some labor activists when they approved a budget Monday that calls for millions of dollars in labor concessions from municipal unions.

Goldfield said the board was just doing what Gov. Dannel Malloy did when he proposed a budget with a $2 billion in expected labor concessions. Aldermen went to the unions and laid out the choices, Goldfield said: Either we raise taxes, lay people off, or ​“we have to adjust our compensation package.”

“What the unions are doing is looking for a much more compliant board,” one that would not apply such pressure to the municipal unions, Goldfield opined. ​“That’s what I think this [challenge] is about.”