Hamden Mayoral Candidates Differ On Chief Process — But Not The Chief

As Hamden’s search for a police chief enters its second year, two mayoral candidates agree the acting one is doing a good job.

They won’t say if that means he should get the permanent slot.

The two candidates — first-term incumbent Lauren Garrett and Walter Morton IV, who’s challenging her for this year’s Democratic Party nomination — heaped praise on Acting Chief Tim Wydra in separate campaign interviews on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline Hamden” program.

They disagreed about the process.

The previous chief, John Sullivan, retired in May 2022, prompting the search for a replacement. Wydra has served as acting chief in the interim, and has put in his name for the permanent appointment. Meanwhile, members of the new Council majority came to office seeking a rethinking of the town’s approach to policing.

“I don’t think it should take a year to appoint a police chief, especially in the middle of a kind of a crime spike,” said Morton. 

Mayor Garrett formed a search committee in August. The committee interviewed 12 candidates; Wydra was the only one to make the cut to continue to be considered. But he didn’t get hired. Instead a second round of interviews took place. No one has yet been chosen. 

Wydra remained in the running, but his non-selection to date has been conspicuous. Garrett said some of the candidates would make good deputy chiefs (also an open position) once a permanent chief has been chosen.

In their separate interviews, Garrett and Morton made a point of listing Wydra’s attributes. 

Here’s Morton: ​“I think he’s great. I think he’s doing a good job. [He’s from a] Hamden family. He definitely seems like he’s next in line. Nothing against the other candidates, the few I’m familiar with who seem great and qualified — there’s something to be said to go with a hometown person who knows the department.”

Morton proceeded to speak about how in his capacity as Board of Education chair, he has worked alongside Wydra on school-based-cop policy. ​“Professional. Really genuine. I find him to be incredibly self-reflective and open to constructive criticisms about how people can be better in Hamden and areas of improvement.”

So does that mean, if elected, he would select Wydra as the chief?

“I don’t know yet,” he said. ​“No comment.”

Here’s Garrett on Chief Wydra: ​“I think that Chief Wydra is doing a really good job. I think that he’s very well known in the community. He is very honest and has really nice integrity that is refreshing to see.”

So does that mean she plans to choose him as permanent chief?

“I am in communication with the Legislative Council to bring consensus,” she said. ​“I haven’t proposed anything yet.”

She was asked if that means she’d like to see Wydra become the chief but needs to develop majority support on the council:

“I think Wydra is doing a very good job,” she said.

That communication is key to understanding the process, Garrett said: She’s proud that she and the Council majority elected along with her in 2021 have brought a collaborative spirit to government: ​“In anything that I do I brief the Legislative Council leadership to make sure we are all in agreement and are on the right track. I don’t make unilateral decisions. It’s very important that I have input.”

Wydra told the Independent he’s interested in the permanent job. ​“Picking a police chief nowadays is a very important hire,” said Wydra, who joined the force in 1993. ​“I get the process.”

Keefe Clash

More broadly, Garrett cited that rise in civility and civic cooperation as a reason she is seeking a second two-year term. She noted that independent agencies have upped the town’s credit rating. She said Hamden’s poised to take advantage of a flood of federal pandemic-relief and state grant money to improve the town.

Morton cited that same flood of money to make the case for his challenge candidacy. He argued that the town isn’t taking the right approach to spending it.

Most of the $18 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money will go toward building a new community center on the pollution-remediated former middle school property. ​“Given the town’s finances, I don’t think we should be in the business of spending bonded money or this one-time cash revenue we got form the feds and build a new facility and add a pretty significant operating cost,” he argued.

Morton said the town should instead build up the existing M.L. Keefe Community Center and should have spent the ARPA money promoting economic development and adopting a New Haven program sending outreach workers to track down chronically absent public-school students. Morton noted that the town’s chronic absenteeism rate has rocketed from 13 to 34 percent in recent years.

Garrett responded that a separate flow of federal ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) dollars flowed through the Board of Education, and no one on the Hamden board raised the chronic absenteeism idea.

Meanwhile, the town does need a new community center, she argued. The Keefe Center has suffered from decades of ​“neglected maintenance,” she said, and ​“we’ve really outgrown our footprint there.”

She cited the gymnasium: ​“It’s called the gym. It’s really just a meeting room. It’s a large meeting room. But it’s not a gymnasium.” The town’s youth services bureau is housed there, ​“without a fun place for our kids to meet. We can do so much more for our seniors, for youth, for the people of Hamden if we haven an adequate community center.” (Click here for another recent take on the Keefe issue, from Hamden Council member Justin Farmer.)