Mayor John DeStefano, who has been monitoring New Haven’s worst blizzard in a century from Ireland, expects to be on his way home Sunday.
Reached by phone in Dublin, where he has been attending a Council of Europe meeting on immigration, DeStefano said he has a flight booked early in the morning (U.S. time) to JFK International Airport.
“I wish I was there” now, he said, but 3,500 flights to JFK had been canceled.
DeStefano is usually the omnipresent face of New Haven during major storms. He did record a robo-call to citizens from Dublin Saturday morning, and has stayed in touch by phone with officials overseeing the handling of the storm. But he said there’s no substitute for seeing developments firsthand on the ground.
In his absence Board of Aldermen Jorge Perez (who’s weighing a possible mayoral run of his own this year, as DeStefano finishes his final term in office) has served as acting mayor. He signed a declaration sharing emergency powers with city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts during the storm.
John No rush nice not to have you in town.