Ethan Wolin, Contributing Photographer

Voters in eastern New Haven will cast ballots tomorrow to decide three competitive races for seats on the city’s Board of Alders.

At issue in the elections, according to residents and candidates who spoke with the News, are the contested expansion of Tweed New Haven Airport, rampant speeding and whether to break Democrats’ unanimous hold on the 30-member legislative body.

“Without a minority opposition, to me, the thing is completely handicapped, because everybody who’s there is on the same team,” Paul Garlinghouse, a Ward 13 alder candidate on the Green Party line, said in an interview.

Fair Haven Heights, the Annex and East Shore — neighborhoods across the Quinnipiac River and Long Island Sound from downtown New Haven — roughly correspond to Wards 13, 17 and 18. The area has historically contained more political variety than most parts of the overwhelmingly Democratic city.

Ward 17 resident Charles Tirrell told the News that the city has a “long history” of being a one-party town, aside from its easternmost neighborhoods, which he said includes more Italian Americans, conservatives and elderly voters than the rest of the city.

Despite that history, a Republican has not served on the Board of Alders since 2011, when the departure of Ward 18’s Arlene DePino left the body without a minority party.

Ward 13 Green knocks Democratic dominance, incumbent’s engagement

Ward 13 Alder Rosa Ferraro-Santana, a loan administrator, has represented Fair Haven Heights for close to 16 years in two separate stints on the Board of Alders. Her accomplishments as an alder include supporting the recent upgrades to the Grand Avenue Bridge, Ferraro-Santana said. She is currently working to renovate Fairmont Park and Quarry Park.

Deborah Reyes, a Republican who previously ran in 2021, and Garlinghouse, the Green candidate, are opposing Ferraro-Santana’s reelection.

During a canvassing walk on Lenox Street, Garlinghouse, an attorney, told the News that as an alder he would focus on reducing speeding, increasing voters’ say in the Board of Education and pushing for affordable housing in the neighborhood.

He criticized Ferraro-Santana as insufficiently attentive to projects such as new speed bumps and absent, noting that she attended fewer than three-quarters of full Board of Alders meetings in 2022.

“What I do know is people around here have not seen Rosa, except in the last couple of weeks when she’s had a competition,” Garlinghouse said.

Ferraro-Santana said that she stays connected with constituents through email updates, door-knocking and phone calls. Her attendance rate dipped in 2022 because she had “back issues” that are now resolved, she said.

She cited her experience as what separates her from her challengers and said she feels confident she will win.

Ward 13 voter Maureen Thomas said that, after receiving a call from a Ferraro-Santana supporter and meeting Garlinghouse at her front door, she was leaning toward supporting the Green candidate. Thomas, who has supported Democratic and Green candidates before, said she shared Garlinghouse’s urgent desire for more speed bumps, after having lost multiple cats to fast cars.

Justin Paglino, a co-chair of the Connecticut Green Party, said he has hope that Ward 13 voters will send Garlinghouse to City Hall. He noted that the Green Party’s 2021 candidate in Ward 13 won 28 percent of the vote without canvassing door to door.

Ferraro-Santana won 55 percent, and Reyes, the Republican, won 17 percent in the 2021 election.

John Carlson, chair of the New Haven Republican Town Committee, said that the Republican alder candidates are focused on reining in the Democratic majority, cutting municipal taxes and investing in the police department.

Reyes was “busy campaigning” and uninterested in speaking with the News, Carlson wrote in a text.

Punzo, Rivera-Berrios rematch in Ward 17

AnneMarie Rivera-Berrios, a member of the Republican Town Committee and a commissioner on the city’s Civilian Review Board, is challenging Ward 17 Alder Sal Punzo, the Democrat who has represented the Annex since 2021 and worked in New Haven Public Schools for nearly 50 years.

Punzo won the Democratic primary in September, beating challenger Camille Ansley, a project manager who is now running as an unaffiliated candidate in the general election. 

Illa Hiller, who lives with Tirrell and their children in Ward 17, said she met Punzo at an event to clean up Fort Wooster Park and plans to vote to reelect him. “He was actively helping,” Hiller said.

Punzo ran previously against Rivera-Berrios in 2021. He won with 81 percent of the vote. Rivera Berrios netted 19 percent. 

Neither Punzo nor Rivera-Berrios responded to multiple requests for comment.

Tweed Airport expansion hounds Ward 18 race

East Shore Alder Sal DeCola, a twelve-year incumbent Democrat, faces a three-way race against Lisa Milone, treasurer of the Republican Town Committee, and fellow Democrat Susan Campion, a community advocate and addiction specialist who serves as president of the Connecticut Association of Addiction Professionals.

After losing the Democratic primary in a 364-330 vote, Campion decided to continue her campaign as a write-in candidate.

“I saw my face on a banner and it said, ‘Run Susan Run,’” Campion said. “I said, ‘Holy guacamole.’ It was a group of individuals from all professions, old, young, in between, who wanted me to continue the momentum that we had built in the primary campaign.”

Campion has advocated since 2015 against expanding Tweed New Haven Airport and has organized with 10,000 Hawks, a group seeking to draw attention to the airport’s negative environmental impact.

DeCola was involved in negotiating Tweed’s 43-year lease with the city in 2021. That lease paved the way for a concurrent lease between Tweed and AvPorts, a private company that plans to expand the airport’s runway.

“Frankly, the plan, the lease, is an atrocious and unfettered document that did not even see the light of day in terms of public transparency,” Campion said. “There was no vetting of the community. It was sort of shoved through quickly.”

Campion also said that Tweed has damaged the health of Ward 18 residents, citing concerns about the increased level of air pollution due to the airport, as discussed in a November News investigation.

Milone, the Republican contender, agreed that the Tweed expansion was top of mind for voters, but noted that their opinions vary. Milone said she would support what “most residents” want.

DeCola, who beat his Republican challenger with 61 percent of the vote in 2021, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Milone emphasized the importance of having more than one political party represented on the Board of Alders. She said she believes that other cities with minority representation on their municipal legislative bodies “do better” than New Haven.

Ward 18 resident Michael Argento, a former alder who knows Milone and placed a sign for her campaign on his lawn, said he agreed with Milone’s assessment.

“I think it’s important that on the Board there be at least one — I wish there were more — Republican voices to give a different perspective on issues,” Argento said.

Polls are open in New Haven from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 7.