When a mayoral candidate crashed City Hall to campaign among harried taxpayers, he found some support —as well as resistance from city officials who ordered him not to collect their signatures.
The candidate, Jeffrey Kerekes, one of four men trying to get on the ballot to challenge Mayor John DeStefano in a Sept. 13 primary, took his campaign Friday to City Hall at 235 Church St., where a last-minute rush of taxpayers waited in line to pay their bills.
Taxpayers were facing a 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 1 deadline to pay their taxes or face penalties.
Kerekes is facing a deadline, too — Aug. 10, by which he needs 2,094 signatures from registered Democrats to have his name placed onthe Sept. 13 ballot.
His 1 p.m. Friday visit, which aimed to highlight the need for property tax relief, raised the question about what rights a candidate has to campaign inside City Hall.
DeStefano administration officials blocked Kerekes and his fellow campaigners from gathering signatures for his campaign. They allowed the campaigners to speak to taxpayers and hand out flyers.
Kerekes came with a question — Do you know how many hours you have to work to pay that bill? — and a chart to provide the answer.
He also carried a clipboard with his petition to get on the primary ballot.
Shortly after the candidate showed up to the tax office on the first floor of City Hall, his campaign hit a bump in the road. Richard Bayer (pictured), the city’s chief investigator, showed up with a golden badge gleaming on his belt. He beckoned Kerekes over to talk.
Bayer asked Kerekes what he was doing.
“I’m here to pay my tax bill,” Kerekes said. He held a tax bill amounting to $7,776.32 for half a year’s payment on his car and two Lyon Street homes.
Bayer told him that he can pay his bill, but he’s not allowed to collect signatures for his primary ballot petition.
“There’s no soliciting in this building,” Bayer informed him.
Kerekes tried to make a case that his petition drive might be an exception to that policy.
“You can’t solicit in a public building?” Kerekes asked. “Not even when you’re running for office, and it’s a public office?”
“That doesn’t make any difference,” Bayer replied. “You can do it out front if you want, but you can’t do it here.”
“Did you know that [I] have to gather 2,000 signatures in two weeks?” Kerekes countered.
Bayer said yes — there’s someone outside City Hall doing that right now.
Kerekes asked if Bayer was invoking a city ordinance.
Bayer didn’t answer directly. “There’s no soliciting in this building,” he maintained. “Salesmen can’t come in through the area.”
“But, if you’re running for elective office and you want to talk to the public?” Kerekes asked. “I’m just trying to understand.”
Kerekes pointed out that the First Amendment allows citizens to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
That’s fine, Bayer replied. But you can’t gather signatures inside City Hall or the Hall of Records: “That’s the rule. No matter if you’re running for mayor or if you’re running for president of the United States, you can’t solicit here.”
“I’m not soliciting right now,” Kerekes said. “I’m paying my taxes, and I’m talking to people in line.”
Bayer let Kerekes return to the line with the understanding that he would not collect signatures.
Back in line, the candidate struck up conversation with Fernando Marquez (second from right in photo), who works for Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Did you ever figure out how long you have to work to pay your taxes?” Kerekes asked.
Marquez said he gets paid $9.50 per hour. He doesn’t own a home; he said his car tax bill is about $400 for two Ford Explorers and a Honda Accord. Kerekes calculated that Marquez would have to work about a week to pay that tab.
“One week out of the year ain’t that bad,” Marquez replied. He listened to Kerekes’ campaign pitch about lowering taxes. He subsequently said he is “willing to give him a chance.”
Kerekes’ message had more resonance for another woman, a Cedar Hill homeowner who declined to give her name. She came with a check for a $3,000 tax bill on her home.
“I’m so pissed you can’t print it,” she said. Her complaints include inadequate snow removal and “potholes that’ll knock your car out of alignment.”
“DeStefano hasn’t done a damn thing in 20 years,” she said.
“I could do a lot of things with $3,000,” she said.
“It’s your penalty for living in New Haven,” piped up Gary Doyens, who has worked alongside Kerekes in a citizen budget watchdog group.
“You’re absolutely right.”
The woman declared she will “vote for anybody running against DeStefano.”
Doyens handed her a clipboard with a petition to get Kerekes on the ballot.
The woman and two others signed. Doyens was told about Bayer’s orders not to collect signatures inside the building.
“Nobody told me not to,” he said. Then he put the clipboard away.
The campaign message earned plaudits from Catherine Gootkin of West Hills, who was paying car tax bill, on top of the bill on her car on 51 Victory Dr.
“He wanted us to bring taxes more in line so the middle class can stay here, so it’s not a city of the rich and poor,” Gootkin reported of her talk with the candidate. “I agree.”
News of the candidate’s presence drew attention from several city officials Friday afternoon.
When he learned about Kerekes’ activity, mayoral spokesman Adam Joseph left his second-floor office, grabbed a digital camera, and went to the balcony that overlooks the line of taxpayers. He snapped a photo of Kerekes talking to taxpayers in the line.
Moments later, DeStefano campaign manager Danny Kedem (pictured) appeared.
Asked if Joseph had called him there, Kedem replied “I don’t know.” He said he was just there to see what was going on.
Joseph was later asked what law prohibits candidates from gathering petitions inside City Hall. (The Independent could not find any such rule in the city ordinances.)
Joseph replied that “soliciting” is in general not allowed as a matter of policy.
“The City of New Haven has an established procedure for use of the City Hall building. Persons interested in using the building should contact the Mayor’s Office in advance to seek permission,” Joseph said. “The city reviews such requests and, as a general matter, does not permit soliciting in the building.”
“There is no written policy,” Joseph acknowledge. “However as a rule the city does not allow for solicitation inside our inside either City Hall or 200 Orange without prior approval.”
Bayer said in his 30 years at City Hall, he has never seen a candidate permitted to collect signatures inside the building.
As onlookers came and went, Kerekes continued to talk to taxpayers in line and to hand out campaign flyers.
“Where do I sign?” asked one elderly man, who said he will vote for anyone — “I even voted for [Guilty Party candidate] Ralph Ferrucci, even though I didn’t know who he was” — to get rid of the mayor, who’s been in office since 1994.
“I can’t collect signatures in here,” Kerekes replied.
“I think it’s crazy,” he said of the prohibition. “I’m not trying to sell a product to people. It is a public space.”
“I’m not disrupting people” by talking to them in line, and “it wouldn’t be any more disruptive” to gather signatures as well, Kerekes argued.
Kerekes said his campaign manager, Harry David, was booted from City Hall earlier Friday for collecting signatures inside the building.
Kerekes pointed out that Mayor DeStefano — whose campaign is being bankrolled by a litany of mayoral appointees, city employees, and contractors who depend on city government for business — has used his seat in City Hall to conduct his own type of campaign.
He pointed to a city-fueled campaign last year, when school officials sent out flyers, letters, and emails urging parents and their children to turn out to protect education funding.
The rally came in response to a call from Kerekes’ budget watchdog group, New Haven Citizens Action Network, which had asked aldermen to cut spending in each city department by 10 percent. Kerekes said he was demonized as being against “against music and gym.”
DeStefano, who appoints the members of the school board and sits on the board himself, “used his office to thwart efforts of citizens to organize themselves to make change,” Kerekes charged.
At the time, Board of Ed staffer Laoise King said parents took their own initiative to defend budget cuts after Mayor DeStefano gave them a budget presentation. She said the district wasn’t trying to demonize anyone: “I wouldn’t say that we’re pitting parents against New Haven CAN,” she said. “We’re defending and standing up for our budget.”
I can't believe local politics is turning into gangsta-style old school Chicago politics.
Why the heck couldn't they leave these guys alone? That building is owned by the PEOPLE.
I probably won't vote for somebody whose candidacy is purely based on lowering taxes - but they should have the right to gather signatures (not money) in our local government building!!!