Lee Throws Down An Anti-Labor Gauntlet

A police substation is expected to open soon at the Bella Vista senior housing complex — and, Barbara Constantinople hopes, pave the way for her reelection as a Fair Haven Heights alder.

Meanwhile, Robert Lee, the man trying to unseat her, said he’s running not against her, but against a union that he believes has too much influence on city government.

The two candidates delivered those messages during separate campaign swings through Bella Vista this week.

Constantinpole and Lee, a former alder, face each other in Ward 11 in a Sept. 16 Democratic Party primary. It is one of eight alder primaries scheduled that day.

Here Come The Cops

Constantinople said she initiated the adding of the substation and has lobbied officials about ​“the crime, prostitution, dope” at Bella Vista.

“This is my biggest achievement,” Constantinople said as she passed out flyers announcing a Thursday ceremonial opening ceremony of the facility on the ground floor of Bella Vista’s Building A, the site of a former bank.

“People are not safe,” she said as she circulated around the benches near Building A’s deli, where people were chatting, basking in the sun, and, in the case of Margaret Fernandez, orienting themselves after moving in.

Constantinople’s pitch resonated with her.

“I’ll feel a lot safer” with a substation, Fernandez said. She had been a resident for a decade, moved away, and now was re-aacclimating herself to Building A and the development.

Police ​“will be here in a minute,” Constantinople promised.

Fernandez (pictured with the candidate) said she’d like to know that as she walks her dog, a chihuahua mix, often at night.

Constantinople said that the precise hours when officers will be in the substation has not yet been determined. (Officers do not generally spend much of their shifts at substations.) That will be announced either at a ceremonial opening for the substation on Thursday or after the expected formal approval of the substation lease by the Board of Alders this coming Tuesday.

Union Label

Constantinople won her seat in 2011 as part of a slate backed by Yale’s UNITE HERE Locals 34 and 35 that won a majority on the Board of Alders.

As he stood in the shadow of Bella Vista, with its treasure trove of votes, Lee (pictured) said Constantinople has relied on door knockers and a sea of union helpers to secure her previous victories.

Yet after that, he asserted, the union has absent from the affairs of the ward.

That’s in contrast, he went on, to how effective he was as alder. Lee asserted, for example, that the speed signs (pictured) on Eastern Street were brought in early in his tenure as alder in 2003 when he worked closely with city officials.

Lee, who lives on Eastern Street, but not in the Housing Authority of New Haven’s (HANH) Eastview Terrace complex, also said that during his tenure security at the sprawling, and attractively terraced community, was far better. There were cameras and actual security personnel cruising around on carts. Those are gone now, but Lee says he will bring them back because he will work pro-actively with HANH.

“If Local 34 wants to be alderman in the ward, come out and do something. We had a shooting [at Eastview Terrace] last month, where were they?” he declared.

He also faulted Constantinople for not being aggressive in how she secures the city’s services on behalf of the ward. As an example, he pointed to tall grass on city property opposite Bella Vista’s main entrance. All she has to do is call the city, and it would be cut, he said.

Lee, who is 59, has worked for 35 years at Sikorsky Aircraft. He is a member of Teamsters Union Local 1150.

About a year ago, Constantinople and the ward co-chairs called him and said she had decided not to run again, and would he consider running agian for his old seat, he said..

“Then eight months later Barbara changed her mind after she said she’d resign. I said to her, ​‘Barbara you can’t do this.”

Asked why he didn’t bow out after Constantinople rescinded her resignation, Lee said, ​“I’m running because she asked me to run, and then she changed her mind. So why should I change my mind? All you’ve got is your word. If you change that, as a politician, you got nothing,” Lee declared.

If Lee has another big issue, it also pertains, it seems, to Eastview Terrace. He said he’s been in touch with at least a dozen residents there who complained to him a rumor that HANH plans to build a new building on the empty space (pictured) right on Eastern Street and Jackson Lane at the entry point to the community.

The rumor, Lee said, is that ​“people from Franklin Street” (the Farnam Townhouses) are going to be brought over. If that’s the case, he said, and he admitted it’s pure rumor at this point, he would fight it.

“They’ve got enough drama going on here. I understand them [the residents he spoke with], they’re already congested.”

Lee said the consensus is that the community needs a playground for the kids on that site instead. ​“If the rumor is true, people are against it, and if I’m elected alder, I’ll fight it,” he added.

The rumor is not in fact rumor at all. HANH Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton confirmed to the Independent in an email Tuesday afternoon: ​“Yes, this project has been planned for a while. Eastview always anticipated the phase 2. We anticipate the financial closing for this and the Chatham St. parcel to occur in September 2015. Construction will begin shortly thereafter. Approximately an 18 month build. We recently held a meeting with residents on July 7th. ”

Lee said he has several seniors inside Bella Vista working on his behalf — outsiders are not permitted to door-knock on the apartments in the buildings — and he plans to work nights and weekends visiting as many voters in the ward as possible. Helping him is also a cadre of folks from a men’s group in the Hill neighborhood. Even though they’re not from Ward 11, they like his anti-violence position and will be door-knocking with him for that reason, he said.

Constantinople said she was so excited about the new substation that she was loath to talk about either other achievements or charges issued by her challenger Robert Lee.

“Last year I was not feeling well,” said Constaninople, an energetic 75, ​“and I spoke to [ward Co-Chair] Dottie Harperthat I might be stepping down for health reasons.”

Constantinople said she was not aware that the co-chair[s] had then recruited Lee.

It became moot, however, when Constantinople reversed herself. ​“I changed my mind,” she said.

As for Lee’s charge of labor influence on the Board of Alders, Constantinople referred the question to colleague Brian Wingate, a Beaver HIlls alder.

“Unions are people too,” said Wingate, the vice president of Yale’s UNITE HERE Local 35, as he accompanied Constantinople on the trail

Constantinople said she has no union-organized events or a cadre of union helpers pitching in on her reelection campaign. ​“My campaign is chatting one on one,” she said.

On Sep. 14, Mayor Toni Harp, who has announced her support for all the aldermanic incumbents, plans to visit Bella Vista’s Victoria Room to lend her support in person.

Connecticut State Senate President Martin Looney plans to do the same on Sept. 15, Constantinople added.

Then she went back to passing out flyers about the new police substation.

Previous coverage of the Sept. 16 Democratic alder primaries:
• Hines To Ward 20: Your Voice Matters
• Marks Promises New Leadership
• Local 34 Endorses 6 For Alder
• Berrios-Bones: Stay The Course
• Burwell Confronts Language Barrier
• Robinson-Thorpe Ready For Primary Fight
• 8 Primaries On Tap
• Newhallville Gets A Primary
• Clyburn: ​“A Voice At The Table”