SCSU
Siobhan Carter-David: Had enough of the vitriol.
A lifelong Hamdenite and past mayoral candidate is joining the town Legislative Council, upping the number of Republicans on the 15-person body back up to three — while a Democratic Board of Education member has left what she described as a combative and tense atmosphere after less than year on the board.
Those changes to Hamden’s governmental bodies formally occurred within one week of one another.
On Monday, the Legislative Council voted in favor of appointing former Republican mayoral candidate and retired town firefighter Bob Anthony to fill the Ninth District seat vacated by Marjorie Bonadies, who left the job back in May. Bonadies said she was leaving to move to North Branford, where taxes are lower and politicians lean more conservative. (In North Branford, Bonadies told the Independent at the time of her departure, “My voice and my dynamism will be valued instead of vilified.”)
On Sunday, the Democratic Town Committee announced it will be searching for a candidate to replace Siobhan Carter-David on the BOE after the first-term representative resigned last week, citing disinterest in continuing to participate in what she described as a partisan and harsh environment.
Neither Anthony or Carter-David were immediately available for comment by Tuesday morning.
Andrew Tammaro, head of Hamden’s Republican Town Committee, celebrated Anthony’s appointment in a press release Monday.
“We trust that as a member of the Legislative Council, Bob will make it a priority to serve Hamden residents as a voice for fiscal responsibility, be an authority in labor discussion, an advocate for first responders, emergency workers and Town employees, and strongly committed to public safety,” Tammaro wrote.
In addition to running for mayor in 2013 and 2015, Anthony served as a Hamden firefighter for over 25 years. He is also recognized as a United States Army veteran.
“Bob has built a track record of bipartisan action in Hamden, serving for decades with the Registrar of Voters Office in administering Hamden’s municipal elections,” Tammaro added. “He has been integral in labor negotiations with multiple town administrations, prioritizing the needs of town employees and working for Hamden’s best interest.”
Tammaro said five Republicans in total applied to represent the Ninth, one of the town’s most conservative districts. The RTC ultimately voted in favor of pushing Anthony forward to the council, which unanimously supported his appointment Monday, with three voter abstentions from council members Justin Farmer, Abdul Osmanu and Laurie Sweet.
Anthony’s term will end on January 2024 following a general election in November 2023.
Bob Anthony campaigning for mayor back in 2015.
Meanwhile, Hamden Democrats are calling for someone to complete the next three years of Siobhan Carter-David’s term, which ends in 2025.
According to a letter Carter-David, a history professor at Southern Connecticut State University, sent to the Hamden Board of Education (and subsequently shared with the New Haven Independent), the representative chose to stop serving last week in response to consistent concerns about communication.
Carter-David ran for the seat last summer on a slate of largely progressive candidates for Hamden’s municipal elected offices, pushing for greater racial equity across the school district. During a town debate back in March, Carter-David was jeered at by attendees of one especially loud meeting when she complained of having received harassing messages after the board originally voted to keep a mask mandate intact across the district.
“As far as I can tell, the Board and larger political milieu in Hamden are spaces where people are far too often willfully misunderstood and then treated unkindly or unfairly according to those misunderstandings, the original context of their points and perspectives lost in the noise,” she wrote in a letter dated Aug. 8.
“Elected officials are expected to operate in shifting and confusing alliances, which makes heartfelt discourse and collaboration difficult.
“While I do understand that a certain amount of tension and combativeness is reasonable and should be expected in a climate where people representing various interests are forced to compete, not only for limited resources but also for control over the prevailing local culture, I do not have the energy or desire to participate in politics in this manner.”
She then thanked her colleagues and added: “This entire journey has been a life-altering experience that I do not regret.”
“Please reach out to me if you have any fun and progressive ideas for programming around local history, art, literature, fashion and material culture, or themes in Africana Studies. It is in those spaces that I am most impactful,” she concluded.
Meanwhile, the Hamden DTC has asked all interested Democrats to email them at [email protected] by 3 p.m. on Aug. 24 to be considered as Carter-David’s replacement.
Nora Grace-Flood’s reporting is supported in part by a grant from Report for America.
She resigned because of the "combative and tense atmosphere".
I have a feeling most of that came from her fellow democrats who make up a stout majority of the board.