New Haven Independent

His campaign kick-off at Lighthouse Point Park Wednesday was the first fundraiser in the first city to pilot the state’s new publicly financed election system.

That meant the City Hall department heads, union members and loyal Dems who filed through the gates of the pavillion Wednesday evening would not be cutting thousand dollar checks. Their max is $300 for the whole primary cycle.

Most gave $25 before sitting down with a hot dog for a few remarks from the man seeking to tie a record as the longest-serving mayor in modern political history.

If DeStefano wins reelection this term — which seems to be no difficult feat at this point — he’ll tie former Mayor Dick Lee at serving 16 years in office. That’s the longest anyone’s served in the time of modern elections. (Elizur Goodrich, a Yale law professor, served 18 years from 1804 to 1822, at a time when mayors were elected once and remained in office indefinitely by appointment by the General Assembly.)

“Some folks believe, ‘I hope this is the last time he’ll run,’” said City/Town Clerk Ron Smith, DeStefano’s running mate, introducing the mayor. “I truly hope” it isn’t.

In brief remarks, DeStefano retold how the city’s grown since 1994, when the parks went unmowed, the schools looked shabby and downtown was abandoned. By next year, he aims to have cut the number of vacant lots from 1,400 to 200 over the course of his tenure.

“It doesn’t feel like 14 years, it really doesn’t — it flew by,” reflected the mayor as the crowd chatted over bottles of Bud. (And guests departed, shuttled by the parks department’s Sabrina Bruno, pictured, to and from the pavillion.)

DeStefano said he’d keep running “for a while.” ‘There’re still things that interest and excite me,” he said, citing the street outreach program, municipal IDs, a growing downtown and working on Rt. 34 to “knit” Church Street South housing project into downtown.

What does he hope to have accomplished by the end of all his terms? “The thing I feel strongly about is not feeling like the city is a zero sum game” in politics, said the mayor, harkening back to this weekend speech. By “zero sum” he meant a type of city politics where when something good happens on one side of the city, its seen as detracting from another group on another side of the city. “That is the cost of divisive politics,” he said. “If anything, I hope not to have the zero sum” politics.

This time around, DeStefano’s fighting a top-level corruption scandal in his police department, citizen outrage over taxes, and the feeling that he abandoned the city while running for governor. How will the three hamper his campaign?

On Billy White: “The police scandal is two officers” who got arrested. “It will only be a scandal if we don’t emerge as a stronger department.”

On taxes: “Taxes aren’t going up for everybody,” he said, mentioning the elderly tax freeze. Recent revals showed housing values are going up — that’s a good sign.

On the governor’s race: The issues he ran on — property tax reform, universal health care, smart growth — “are very much New Haven issues.” “For me, it was very much an extension of those values.”

He also learned one campaign lesson from getting slammed in the governor’s race by a popular incumbent. Asked about the his most formidable current contender, Democrat Jim Newton, DeStefano responded: “When you’re an incumbent, you’ve got to talk about your accomplishments, and it really doesn’t matter who your opponent is.”

Green Party Ralph Ferrucci has also thrown his hat in the race, as well as Democrat Willie Greene, who has not made any public appearances on the campaign trail lately.

Clean Elections

DeStefano said he’s disappointed that more of the candidates aren’t taking advantage of the public financing system. Ferrucci is drumming up support to qualify; Newton hasn’t made a commitment either way. Though the race likely won’t be tough enough for the spending caps to thwart him, the mayor said the green election rules will change the way he campaigns.

“This is a downshift of campaigning,” the mayor said to a supporter. “This is a very different type of campaign kickoff than we’ve had.” The event was informal, with guests lining up for burgers flipped by mayoral spokesman Jessica Mayorga, at left in this picture, and new campaign manager Adriana Arreola, at right.

New rules curtail the mayor from making the most use of his contractor buddies and his new network of statewide contacts developed through the governor’s race.

“Frankly, for people like me, it’s easier to get big checks,” he said. By opting to enter the public finance system, DeStefano will have to reject any check that exceeds the limits: $300 per person in the primary cycle, $300 in the general.

To qualify for public funds, a candidate needs contributions of at least $25 from 200 supporters, who must be New Haven voters, not out-of-town lobbyists. Reaching that benchmark grants the campaign a $15,000 lump sum. In addition, the first $25 of each qualifying contribution gets matched by $50. The campaign can accept money from non-New Haveners, but it won’t qualify for matching funds.

As a publicly funded candidate, the mayor must agree to a spending limit of $300,000 for the cycle. That’s a far cry from the money that he and state Sen. Martin Looney spent battling out the 2001 race, when total expenditures topped $1 million.

This time around, the mayor said, “I don’t think I’m going to raise the maximum, and I don’t need to raise the maximum.”