Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch, Staff Photographer

Fair Haven Heights is getting a new representative on the Board of Alders this January.

Incumbent Alder Rosa Ferraro-Santana is stepping down after serving a cumulative 18 years on the legislative body. Vying to replace her as the alder for Ward 13 — which also includes part of the Annex — are Democratic candidate Mildred Melendez, Green candidate Paul Garlinghouse and Independent candidate Luis Jimenez. The contest is one of the two three-way races this cycle, along with Morris Cove’s Ward 18 race.

Ferraro-Santana told the News in a phone interview that she was not running for reelection because the demands of caring for a sick younger sister would have prevented her from “sufficiently” running a campaign.

“I have done the best that I could do over the period of time that I was in office,” she said, but warned that Ward 13 is “probably going to go downhill.” Ferraro-Santana said she is not endorsing any of the candidates, whom she said are all “doing it just for the title.” 

There are 2,085 registered active voters in Ward 13, just over half of whom are Democrats, according to data from the city’s Registrar of Voters office.

Democrat runs on neighborhood connection, local growth

Mildred Melendez does not like talking about herself.

“I’m a busy bee, a worker bee,” she said in a phone interview. “I’m not somebody who likes to be in the spotlight.”

The Democrat, who moved to New Haven from the Bronx at age 13 and has lived in Fair Haven Heights for the past decade, is currently a Ward 13 co-chair on New Haven’s Democratic Town Committee and the chair of the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals, as well as a paralegal for the state government.

She said that she is running for alder because “right now, where the country stands, it’s very important that our grassroots work grow and continue.” National politics are a large part of why she decided to run, although she is primarily motivated by her devotion to her neighborhood, she said.

Melendez said she wants to focus on revitalizing local businesses, holding landlords accountable and increasing the neighborhood’s connection to Fair Haven proper through revived bus routes.

The aldermanic hopeful is confident that her 10 years as a ward co-chair make her the right person for the job.

“I’ve walked up and down these streets for the last 10 years,” Melendez said, canvassing for Ferraro-Santana, meeting neighborhood residents and listening to their concerns.

Green runs as political outsider 

Paul Garlinghouse said he is a “fighter.” Running as a third-party candidate, he hopes to shake up the composition of the Board of Alders, which has been composed exclusively of Democrats since 2011.

“I’m willing to call out things that I think are wrong,” he said in a phone interview, and that “go against the interests of the party bosses.”

A handful of Greens have held seats on the Board of Alders in the past: John Halle from 2001 to 2003, Joyce Chen ’01, who began her tenure in 2002 but registered as a Democrat during her first term and Allan Brison from 2008 to 2009.

“I don’t dislike Democrats in general or particular Democrats, but anytime you have one party handing out everything and running everything, it’s a problem,” Garlinghouse said. “The Republicans will tell you, ‘Oh, we’ll be the opposition party,’ but they won’t be in New Haven. I don’t think they’re going to be in New Haven anytime in the near future.”

Garlinghouse, an attorney, said he has lived in Fair Haven Heights for around two decades.

This election marks Garlinghouse’s second bid for the Ward 13 seat: he challenged Ferraro-Santana in 2023 and received just over a quarter of the vote. He also ran unsuccessfully for state representative in 2018 and for registrar of voters in 2020 and 2024.

As Garlinghouse sees it, the greatest issues facing Ward 13 are crime — especially car theft — affordable housing and a suspended Grand Avenue bus route that connected Fair Haven Heights with the rest of New Haven.

He hopes to spur greater investment in Fair Haven Heights’ waterfront and ensure its green spaces are preserved.

Independent hopeful focuses on ward’s next generation 

Luis Jimenez, a lifelong Fair Havener, is running for alder because of his own experience growing up in the Elm City.

“The first time I saw someone become a victim of gun violence was when I was 12. I watched a group of men rob another gentleman at gunpoint, and when they were done robbing him, they shot him,” he said in a phone interview. “That’s the domino that sent all of this into effect for me.”

Jimenez, a human resources specialist at a roofing contractor, is backed by New Haven’s fledgling Independent Party. He said he pledged to bring fresh energy to Ward 13.

The 23-year-old said that his competitors “are generations older than me, which does not mean that they’re not smarter or wittier, but I think that a young mind like mine that has new ideas and has multiple things that I want to present to the city if I win — I personally think that the ward would be better.”

“I can bring a different perspective to the board and shed light on issues that others might have overlooked or may have not even known about,” Jimenez added.

The biggest issues facing Ward 13, he said, are gun violence and drug addiction.

If elected, Jimenez said that he would prioritize “helping the members of the community who struggle with drug addiction,” including by informing them about available resources, getting teenaged Fair Haveners more involved in the community “to get them off off of the streets” and pushing for increased police presence in the neighborhood.

Both Melendez and Garlinghouse said that they had not seen much of Jimenez’s campaign. He did not attend a Ward 13 alder candidate forum last Saturday. He told the News that he was out of town because of a death in the family. 

516 people voted in the Ward 13 alder race last cycle, not including those who wrote in candidates, according to data from the Registrar of Voters.