Ximena Solorzano, Staff Photographer

A former high-ranking New Haven firefighter will return to the Elm City to take up a top City Hall position overseeing public safety agencies and a range of other municipal operations.

Mayor Justin Elicker announced last Monday that he was nominating Justin McCarthy to be the next chief administrative officer, a mayoral appointment that requires approval by the Board of Alders. McCarthy spent 15 years in the New Haven Fire Department, culminating in a two-year stint as assistant fire chief of administration, before he moved in 2023 to the same role in Greenwich.

A press release from the mayor’s office praised McCarthy for a “proven track record of administrative leadership and emergency incident command experience.” He has also taught as an adjunct professor in the fire science program at the University of New Haven, his alma mater.

If confirmed, McCarthy would succeed Regina Rush-Kittle — who previously had long careers in Connecticut law enforcement and the military and stepped down in November. The position’s bailiwick encompasses the police and fire departments, the 911 call center, the city engineer, human resources and the recently reseparated parks and public works departments.

“The chief administrative officer is one of the most important positions in city government, charged with overseeing several departments and hundreds of government employees dedicated to keeping our residents safe, our streets clean, our parks well-maintained, our infrastructure strong, and the nuts and bolts of government operating smoothly,” Elicker said in the press release.

“Justin McCarthy has served on the front lines of city government and in senior municipal leadership positions with excellence and distinction,” the mayor added.

McCarthy’s nomination comes after New Haven saw a decrease in gun violence and auto thefts in 2024, although residents have persistently complained about crime while the New Haven Police Department suffers from significant understaffing. Police Chief Karl Jacobson recently called filling the ranks his “No. 1 focus,” as officials hope a more generous police contract approved in the fall will help.

Five months earlier, the Board of Alders had granted Rush-Kittle an exemption from the typical requirement that city officials live in New Haven so that she could rejoin her family in Rocky Hill, near Hartford. The exemption followed an ordinance enacted last March permitting alder-sanctioned flexibility for top mayoral lieutenants in “exceptional circumstances.”

McCarthy told the News he currently resides in Branford, saying that “personal reasons” led him to leave New Haven a couple of years ago. But he plans to move back to the city soon as he enters one of its highest unelected offices.

“When I found out that Regina Rush-Kittle was going to be leaving her post, I thought about the work that I had done with her, and thought that that could be a unique challenge,” McCarthy said. “And it gave me the opportunity to return to a city that I’m very passionate about.”

McCarthy first came to live in New Haven as an undergraduate at UNH after growing up in Norwalk and Westport, he said. He said he comes from a “family of firefighters” and joined the New Haven Fire Department in 2008, initially focusing on Dixwell and ultimately rising to the rank of assistant chief in 2021. He earned a law degree from Quinnipiac University in 2020.

McCarthy said his work in the fire department put him in contact with some of the other city agencies he will likely soon supervise, but the new role will give him a different vantage point and require some learning on the job.

“Many people that I’ll be working with, I’ve worked with already,” McCarthy said. Pointing to the 911 call center, he said, “I understand their workings operationally, but I’ve never delved into their personnel matters, I’ve never delved into their budgetary requests or understanding the back end of it. So that’s something that’s going to require, you know, my attention.”

McCarthy is set to begin work on Tuesday, Jan. 21. He will then need to be confirmed by the Board of Alders within 180 days — the same window in which, without an approved exception to the residency mandate, he must move back to New Haven, according to the mayor’s spokesperson.

Correction (1/20): A previous version of this story misspelled the name of New Haven’s police chief. He is Karl Jacobson, not Carl.

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ETHAN WOLIN
Ethan Wolin covers City Hall and local politics. He is a sophomore in Silliman College from Washington, D.C.