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Hamden mayoral candidates Lauren Garrett, Curt Leng at WNHH FM.
Should Hamden mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for town employees?
Was the 2020 property reassessment racist?
Would revisiting politically-connected town contracts save needed money?
Frontrunners diverged on those questions on the first official day of an historic mayoral primary campaign.
Lauren Garrett raised those questions — and answered yes — during an appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. Garrett is the Democratic Town Committee-endorsed candidate for mayor this year.
She appeared on the day that the incumbent she seeks to unseat in a rematch campaign, Curt Leng, officially qualified for a Sept. 14 Democratic primary election. Leng answered not sure, no and no to the questions.
Two other Democrats, Brad Macdowall and Peter Cyr, also submitted petitions to appear as mayoral candidates on the primary ballot. That sets up what is believed to be the first four-way Democratic mayoral primary in the town’s history.
On “Dateline,” Garrett sought to distinguish her positions from Leng’s polices. She’s in a different position this year than when she sought to unseat Leng in a 2019 primary. That year she was the challenger who petitioned her way onto the ballot; the town committee had endorsed Leng. A progressive faction affiliated with Garrett took control of the party in the intervening years. Now Garrett is the party-endorsed candidate, while Leng is the outsider petitioner. (Click on the full episode in the above audio file.)
The top issue remains the same as in 2019: the town’s perilous finances, with Garrett accusing Leng of favoritism and mismanagement and failure to control spending; and Leng asserting that Garrett has her facts wrong and that he has ably been catching up with historic pension underfunding.
Garrett Thursday specifically cited long-running no-bid contracts the town has with two politically connected insiders: With former Democratic Town Chair Lew Panzo to serve as the town’s health insurance agent of record; and Police Commission Chair Michael Iezzi’s company, United Office Furniture, to provide town government’s office furniture.
Garrett argued that those contracts should go out to bid, both to make transactions more tranparent and to seek potential savings. She acknowledged that the two changes would not in themselves save enough money to make much of a dent in the town’s fiscal problems. Instead, she called them examples of how a way of doing government business needs to change in order to get problems under control.
“A lot of frivolous spending that I see is through a lot of our contracts for services,” Garrett said. “There are connections throughout our budget. A lot of those contracts go to people who are well connected.”
Asked later for a response, Leng defended both contracts. He noted that the the health agent of record contract isn’t with Panzo, but with Brown & Brown, “an international professional consulting firm” that he asserted has saved Hamden “millions of dollars.” (The company’s website lists Panzo as an “employee benefits producer” on the sales force.) Iezzi’s company, he said, “won a public procurement process some eight years ago” “by offering the lowest price by far if memory serves, to the tune of several hundred thousand in savings.”
“We follow our town purchasing procedures very carefully, have minimal bid waivers and have a purchasing agent who is the regional head of the national purchasing agent association,” Leng added.
Contributed
The Garrett candidate slate for town-wide offices: Front Left to Right: Dominique Baez (Council At-Large), Lauren Garrett (Mayor), Karimah Mickens-Webber (Town Clerk), Laurie Sweet (Council At-Large). Back Left to Right: Cory O’Brien (Council At-Large), Mariam Khan (Board of Education), David Asbery (Board of Education), Melissa Kaplan (Board of Education), Siobhan Carter-David (Board of Education), Katie Kiely (Council At-Large), Reuel Parks (Board of Education)
Garrett, who works in real estate, also spoke at length on “Dateline” about the recently completed townwide property reassessment. She said that based on comparisons with actual asking prices on Zillow, property owners in lower-income portions of southern Hamden with more Black residents got disproportionately whacked.
Their higher new assessments comport with actual sales prices, she said; properties in whiter, wealthier areas of northern Hamden were valued 20 percent below actual prices.
“There’s racism at play,” she said.
“We can’t figure out why this reassessment hit so hard in southern Hamden.”
She was asked whether she believes the town deliberately treated the areas differently, or if unconscious or historic patterns were at play. She said it’s hard to tell. “When [the administration] is having phone conversations, we can’t FOIA that,” she said, referring to the Freedom of Information Act. (Click here to read comments from listeners diving more deeply into the issue.) She noted that two and three-family homes with renters had particularly large increases, and those homes tend to be more prevalent in southern Hamden.
“This is going to last until 2025 now,” until the next revaluation, she said. “What we can do is make sure that we’re spending wisely, that we’re reducing costs. The only way we can reduce people’s tax bill is with some strong budget management.”
“The State of Connecticut requires towns to conduct a revaluation of all property every five years. An independent, professional revaluation company completed ours. Why would Mrs. Garrett attempt to sully the name of a professional firm and attempt to make a racial issue or any other issue without having any facts,” Leng responded.
As for Covid-19 policy, Leng has recommended that people in Hamden wear masks indoors amid the resurgence of the pandemic due to the Delta variant. At this point he has not followed mayors in larger cities (like New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford) in issuing a mandate. He also at this point has not issued a vaccination mandate for town employees, which New York City’s mayor has done and New Haven’s mayor is preparing to do. Leng said he has been continually meeting with his health department to weigh the latest Covid information from the state and the federal Centers for Disease Control in order to reevaluate how best to respond. He said he has made a point of following the science throughout the pandemic, whether or not that was the most popular route.
Garrett argued that town offices and especially the library should have reopened sooner last year.
She also said she would institute an indoor mask mandate as well as require vaccination of town employees (with an option for weekly testing instead), while keeping offices open.
“We need to keep the wheels of government turning,” Garrett said; she said for now public meetings should remain on Zoom.
Come on Hamden. Lauren Garrett is well read and thoroughly researched. It's time for Curt Leng to step aside and for Peter Cyr to get some experience. Brad Macdowall is okay with plastic straws but not ready for prime time. Lauren is the future, she is no Curt Leng political hack. Has no ties to Iezzi and no ties to the old guard of crumb bum political hangers on. Lets get that breath of fresh air we need in Town Hall and vote in a 2021 style Mayor and her great slate of Hamden candidates. These folks are here to serve Hamden residents. The past administrations were scary grifters with a personal agenda of "me me me". Now we have an agenda of "you you you". Come on Hamden yer all adults and "you" know the right choice.