Turkey Tiff Spurs Bella Vista Battle

by Melissa Bailey | February 25, 2008 1:00 PM | | Comments (10)

IMG_0986.JPGIt started with a disagreement over some turkeys and Cornish hens. Now Rose Sorrentino, 86, is in the toughest fight of her political life.

Sorrentino (pictured) has run get-out-the-vote operations as a Democratic Ward 11 co-chair for 28 years. A gatekeeper in the vote-rich Bella Vista elderly housing complex, where access is everything during political campaigns, she’s built a network of support over three decades of electioneering and volunteer work. She was thinking of resigning from her Democratic Party duties this year.

Then she found out who was challenging her co-chair seat in a March 4 primary— Alderman Robert Lee.

“I’m so angry, I’m going to do everything in my power to beat him,” swore Sorrentino.

Why? A botched meal.

Sitting at her living room table one recent afternoon, Sorrentino told how a Thanksgiving dinner incident turned her from a staunch Lee supporter to one who can’t wait to beat him at the polls.

“You can only crap on me once,” she explained.

Sorrentino, who’ll be 87 in March, lives in a 16th-story apartment at the elderly complex on the city’s eastern skyline. She answered the door in a sweatshirt that read, “Let the good times roll.” Applications for absentee ballots poked out of a folding compartment in her walker as she rolled across the carpet to find a seat. Beyond the buzz of a TV, a window looked out to a sweeping view of Sleeping Giant and Fair Haven Heights.

Her long life of political activity stems from an early loss.

Sorrentino and her husband, Ernest, used to run a restaurant, bustling with pizza on one side and a grille on the other, on Whalley Avenue. Earnest died young of cancer, leaving her a widow at 42 with four daughters 9 through 17.

“After he passed away, I had to find something interesting to do.” She didn’t give up. The week after her husband died, she dove back into work.

“I’m a fighter,” she said in a voice that left no doubt.

Sorrentino served long hours as a waitress (“nice places, no dumps”) to support her kids. She never remarried. Instead, after her kids left home, she found a new devotion, to politics and volunteering. Arthur Barbieri — aka “The Mustache,” the late legendary Democratic Party boss — tutored her in the art of elections.

“He was a good boss,” Sorrentino recalled.

Sorrentino got an early start at Bella Vista, which houses mostly elderly folks. A knee injury landed her in the complex 34 years ago, giving her a jump-start on a long tenure of social organizing at the complex. She rose to be her building president and a devoted Bingo host. As Democratic Ward 11 co-chair, she said she’s ruled the roost — hiring poll workers on Election Day and making sure people get absentee ballots — with fairness.

Sorrentino proved a key ally to Robert Lee when the young politician made his first go at a seat on the Board of Aldermen in 2003.

“I worked very hard to get him in there,” Sorrentino said. “Now I’m sorry I did it. He pulled a dirty stunt.”

Turkey Tiff

The time was Thanksgiving 2007. Alderman Lee had arranged, as he had in prior years, to donate holiday dinners to the needy in Bella Vista. Lee sat down with Sorrentino to talk about the food. She gave him a list of 25 people who could really use the gift.

“I told him to get a nice dinner downstairs,” she recalled, referring to a Bella Vista food shop. She suggested a pre-cooked meal, with a nice hunk of turkey, some potatoes and a little pie.

When the day of giving came, Lee changed the donations. Instead of pre-cooked meals, he passed out 150 to 200 bags of Turkey-day food, including starch and pie. Some bags came with ham, some came with turkey, and some came with little Cornish hens.

Sorrentino found out about the change-up when a few people called her in dismay: Some didn’t get a dinner. Some couldn’t eat the meat, because they were disabled and couldn’t cook.

“I was really teed off,” said Sorrentino, who considered herself responsible for getting those 25 people their meals. She regretted that her alderman didn’t heed her advice: “He has a concrete wall for a head.”

The ire brought Sorrentino back from the brink of retiring from her Democratic duties.

“I was going to quit, but when I see who’s going to run - I changed my mind quick,” she said. Lee asked her to share the co-chair ticket, but she refused.

“Will I support Robert Lee again? Never!” fumed Sorrentino, vowing to oppose him in aldermanic bouts as well. “You can only crap on me once. And that’s what he did.”

IMG_9766.JPGIn an interview, Lee (pictured on Election Day) countered that he was only trying to help.

“First of all, it’s not her Thanksgiving dinner to do,” he said. Second, “if someone’s going to give you something, you shouldn’t be so inappreciative of it.”

Lee said he opted for “something different this year” because the mayor had planned a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner right around the same time.

Did he botch the delivery?

“I didn’t hear any complaints,” Lee said. And anyway, “you can’t please everybody.”

Path To Nomination

Without his former ally, Lee’s now zeroing in on the co-chair seat as a way to secure his future on the aldermanic board.

Lee, who’s 50, has been an outspoken mayoral opponent, even getting into a yelling fight with the man on Election Day. In his first two terms in office, he has proved a fiery and sometimes unpredictable legislator, often breaking out into populist speeches on the aldermanic floor, aiming his words at TV cameras before being put into check by fellow aldermen for getting the facts wrong or not sticking to the issue at hand.

Lee beat back a primary battle from a mayor-supported candidate in a heated Nov 2007 race. (Sorrentino had fallen ill at that time and didn’t play an active role in the race.)

Lee won a third two-year term on the board, but he’s concerned about the future. Having an ally in a co-chair seat is key to getting the party nomination: The ward’s two co-chairs get to hand-pick a room of 40 people who decide which aldermanic candidate gets a party endorsement. That endorsement often holds a lot of weight. Lee said he looked around for allies willing to do the job, but found only one volunteer. So he’s running for the position with his friend Patricia L. DePalma.

Being ward co-chair would “help to lessen the drama of when I run for alderman, and I get challenged by the mayor, which I usually get,” Lee said.

Sorrentino called grabbing for a second seat on the Democratic Party a power-hungry move. Lee countered he was just trying to defend himself from a mayor-backed affront against his re-nomination: “It doesn’t make sense having the mayor harassing you because you don’t bow down to his tactics.”

Lee’s slate faces off against Sorrentino and her neighbor, Adelaide DelFranco, on a March 4 primary.

Read about other co-chair races:

A New Election Battle In East Rock
Westville Has A Race







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Comments

Posted by: PowertothePeople | February 25, 2008 3:35 PM

See... this is EXACTLY why I don't think it is right for an elected official to be the co-chair of the group that endorses the candidate. How do we get that changed?

On another note:

I have never had a personal conversation with Ald. Lee but I've seen him at the meetings. I've never seen him come up with an idea. His method appears to be to oppose ANYTHING the Mayor puts forth. Even the few good things. I've also talked to several folks in ward 11 who are active in the community but have only met/seen Mr. Lee right before the election. He could have avoided all of this with a simple phone call. But that's not how he operates.

I put Mr. Lee right near the top of Alds who need to go! Maybe next year he'll pay his taxes on time and not worry about his car getting towed (or worse in his mind, having his name in the paper. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/08/the_boot_is_bac_1.php) He complained about that in at least 3 BOA meetings - always at inappropriate times. The meeting was about Shartenberg and he complained about his name on the list. A meeting about union contracts with school bus workers and he complained about his name on the list.

Like I said, I don't know him personally but he seems like he is only driven by self interest and anger. Maybe he just needs a hug.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | February 25, 2008 5:07 PM

What a profile of politics in New Haven - Another dependency dictator, consumed by pettiness is angry because free food she ordered, paid for and delivered with somebody else's money, wasn't prepared for her friends in the manner she demanded. So she's going to run to hang on to a political position just to make the donor of this largess pay. Talk about crap...

This same Bella Vista crowd also demanded that taxpayers keep the fake trolley alive at a cost of $380,000 and additional capital costs in the future, just in case they decide to ride it. They don't ride it now and may well never ride it. Perhaps next time, Ms. Sorrentino should pay for those turkey dinners herself, or call on one of her children to pay for them if she doesn't like the food that was offered.

We don't need more pettiness and more demands from the dependency class in New Haven. We need less - we need people in politics who can think beyond their dinner plate and the welfare of their close friends to the greater welfare and future of the entire city. We need the Sorrentinos of the New Haven to have more on their minds than a hot turkey dinner vs. a bag of free food. Perhaps this coming Thanksgiving, Ms. Sorrentino can organize the able bodied folks at Bella Vista into a cooking cooperative that provides homecooked turkey dinners for those without instead of bitching about a gift and demonizing the person who offered it. If you can run your mouth, you can run a stove or organize those who can.

We are breeding poverty and dependency in New Haven and passing the expense of doing so to a shrinking middle class who are told to just suck it up and pay it out. It's a sad day when even "free" isn't appreciated.

Posted by: bugupit | February 25, 2008 7:04 PM

I agree with the above, they are both in the wrong, Turkeys, so to speak.

It is past time for the Democratic Town Committee to revise its rules, in the name of small d democracy, so that members of the same household may not hold office as Ward CoChair and Alderman. Period. (perhaps to be enforced two months after the second takes office)

Town Chair Susan Voigt may say once again that people do not step up to volunteer, but is the inherent conflict of interest and suppression of multicandidate elections worth gaining a warm body?

Ms. Sorrentino, Sweetie, what are you trying to do --- stay in office longer than Fidel Castro? Time to move on, again, in the name of small d democracy, AND facilitating new leadership for the future of the party.

Posted by: jt | February 26, 2008 9:01 AM

Okay, I really have just one comment to add. His quote "if someone's going to give you something, you shouldn't be so inappreciative of it." is insensitive and self-righteous, if you "give" someone food that requires cooking, and they are disabled and can't cook the food, then you did not "give" them anything.

Posted by: bugupit | February 26, 2008 10:46 PM

JT, do you live in this Ward? They need your sense and sensitivity in leadership!

Posted by: Chris Gray | February 27, 2008 3:51 AM

Hey, Gary, I'm part of that "dependency class" you so despise and you may notice (if you check my posts over just the last few days) I have a lot more on my mind than just my next meal and benefits to my close friends.

Over the years I have butted heads with Rose Sorrentino and her "good boss," "The Mustache," but it would be a serious mistake to believe she has only such petty concerns though, at 87, such matters as considerate treatment of the disabled in her community over special holiday meals really isn't such a petty matter. Ask my 92-year old mom.

Mrs. Sorrentino has done a tremendous amount of work for her community and, thus, for the entire city over her lifetime and, even if I did not always agree with her politics, you won't catch me dismissing it just because I believe some of it to be wrong-headed.

Barbieri certainly taught her one very important lesson, details matter. Lee, on the other hand, has clearly not learned that lesson and will probably now suffer on account of it. He depended on her to get in office and she found out that he could not be depended upon to do a much smaller favor properly.

By the way, are you under the impression that Bella Vista is a HANH facility? It is not. It is private and has over 1600 apartments. So Rose has thousands of other middle-class, tax paying, close friends to depend upon!

Not every elder is destitute.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | February 27, 2008 5:28 AM

Bug and JT: There are plenty of people who would help cook the food. In more than 30 years of making donations of food, Christmas gifts and much more throughout the year, I've never seen anybody incapable of making good use of free food and other commodities regardless of disability. If one or more of these people could not cook, Sorrentino should have helped find a solution. This idea that the less fortunate have no responsibility except to sit and take and demand to be spoon fed with no personal responsibility is neither sense or sensitivity.

Posted by: Chris Gray | February 28, 2008 1:15 AM

Judging from the time stamps on our posts, I'll guess that you hadn't read mine, yet. Yet, it is well over 12 hours, now.

Still, I don't get why, first, you assume these are "less fortunate" people (aside from their age and disabilities) and, second, that you also assume that Mrs. Sorrentino did not organize some way for them to utilize the food stuffs.

Her complaint is with what she perceives as Mr. Lee's thoughtlessness in fulfilling what she saw as his responsibility to people she encouraged to vote for him. As a ward heeler of 87, she expects constituent services to be provided by those she backed, not to have to do it all herself.

I'm not saying that patronage politics leads to good government. On that proverbial other hand, though, you don't live in Ayn Rand's America but, rather, the Compassionate Conservative's. (I am in Bill Buckley overload.)

Posted by: Gary Doyens | February 28, 2008 10:47 AM

Chris: I don't despise those needing help. I get upset when they demand it or when those who are brokering that help, dictate how it will be delivered.

I get even crankier when those who run for public office do so because of a turkey dinner slight or some other equally implausible rationale. This kind of patronage may win votes at Bella Vista, but it can translate into poor public policy. And poor public policy affects us all and more than likely, the generations that follows. If only Barbieri had taught Rose that politics is a noble calling and a worthwhile endeavor, only in as much as those in power do so with humility, with honor, and with the best interests for all at the forefront of every decision they make.

Posted by: Chris Gray | February 29, 2008 2:33 PM

O.K., Gary and I see by the article on non-profit housing being taxed that there are a fair amount of Section-8 housing units up at Bella Vista.

There are many things you write with which I quite agree. I do tend to cut ancient elders a little more slack, when they get cranky, than you may.

Sorry, Comments are closed for this entry

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