Generational Change Afoot In Hamden Town Registrar’s Office

A generational changing of the guard is in process at Hamden Government Center, with new blood promising to uphold the belief that every voice and every vote matters.

The retirement of Democratic Registrar of Voters Rose Mentone, who has held the job at a time when the town’s voting population has rapidly diversified, is the latest familiar face to take leave during ongoing turnover in town hall. Mentone intends to step down at the end of her term this coming January.

The Democratic Party has nominated Lushonda Howard to replace her. No one has emerged to run against her. (State law guarantees that a Democrat and Republican serve as registrars, even if a third-party candidate wins more votes in an election. The deadline to primary is this Tuesday, and no one has yet to come forward as a challenger.) Howard would be the first African American registrar in Hamden if elected, and she would arrive with the intention of drawing more people into the town’s voting pool. 

Mentone’s retirement and Howard’s campaign are taking place against a governmental overhaul that has seen younger and more diverse candidates filling public service positions.

For example, last fall Town Clerk Vera Morrison retired after 26 years, creating space for Karimah Mickens to become the first African American person to take on that title in town. Candidates for municipal offices who aligned with the town’s old guard lost last year to a slate made up of many new candidates, more than 50 percent of whom were non-white.

Mentone, 74, has served as the town’s Democratic registrar of voters for the past 14 years. Before she took on the job of moderating elections and leading civic engagement in her hometown, she worked as a language teacher, assistant principal and tutor in New Haven, Hamden and Cheshire Public Schools; served as the clerk for Hamden’s Conservation Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals; and was chosen as the first female chair of the Hamden Democratic Committee. Mentone served briefly on Hamden’s Board of Education as well. She was named ​“Citizen of the Year” in 1990 by the Hamden Chamber of Commerce.

When Mentone was growing up, Hamden followed a representative town meeting form of government. Mentone described her mother as ​“one of the first women to prove that women can run for office and be elected. She was my role model.”

Newly nominated Howard, 46, moved to Hamden five years ago. She originally came to Connecticut from Jacksonville, Florida, when she was stationed in Groton while serving in the Navy. She later moved to New Haven where she received a degree in criminal justice from the University of New Haven and a masters in public policy and administration from Southern Connecticut State University. Howard recently left a 20-year career in the Connecticut Department of Correction and has worked as a therapeutic mentor for children with behavioral issues.

Since coming to Hamden, she has served as the treasurer of the DTC and the chair of the town’s arts commission.

“Running for registrar of voters seems like a great way to serve the town I live in,” Howard told the Independent. ​“I believe that you have to be the change that you wanna see. There are always people complaining about this and that going on in the town, but you’re not doing anything about it.

“Voting is the most powerful tool for change. Every vote counts,” she asserted.

For more than a decade, Registrar Mentone has been learning how to ensure that every vote is literally counted. During a time when partisan divides have deepened within the town and across the country, Mentone said, she is proud to have been able to maintain close relationships across party lines through her job.

“There’s no partisanship in this office!” she declared on a Wednesday morning when this reporter dropped by. Since she first took on the job, Mentone has worked with Republican Registrar Tony Esposito, now 84, who has stayed in the position for over 20 years and plans to run again this year for another four years.

But, Mentone said, while the registrars remain united, she has observed the town she loves becoming more polarized over time.

“When my husband was a councilman,” she said, ​“everybody got along.”

“They’d go get coffee together and get drinks together after meetings. I don’t think that camaraderie is still going around — I don’t know if that’s a national phenomenon, but it’s a shame. You lose that sense of working together, of having the common goal to improve your town. And if you’re a local public servant, that should be your goal.”

Two elections stand out in Mentone’s memory: The 2008 and 2016 presidential elections. Both of those years, Mentone registered unprecedented numbers of individuals to vote. In 2008, young voters went out of their way, Mentone remembered, to cast a vote for the country’s first Black president. In 2016, Mentone met new people who had never voted before as they registered with her office in order to support Donald Trump.

Though she didn’t support the latter candidate, Mentone said, to see anyone register to vote is a ​“net positive.”

During the pandemic, Mentone and Esposito implemented curbside voting while also creating secondary, isolated voting stations where individuals who refused to wear masks could cast a ballot.

“In here, we work for the voters,” Mentone said. ​“Every candidate who comes in here we treat fairly — all we do is follow the law.

Howard echoed Mentone’s philosophy, saying her primary goal if elected would be to bolster voter education.

“I want to make the position more visible in our community — at community events, there should be tables there to register voters and educate them,” she said. ​“We can collaborate with other organizations to make sure we’re reaching out to everyone.”

Howard said it is ​“exciting” to be the first Black person to potentially take on the job. ​“Representation does matter. I think it’s great for us to have a seat at the table because we understand the needs of our community. And if we don’t have a seat at the table, then how do we know our needs are being met?” she said.

Howard added that she will be mindful of attending and hosting events that are accessible and attractive to all residents, not just white and wealthy ones, in order to educate them on how and why to vote in municipal, state and federal elections.

“There’s also a level of, if I can see it then I can be it,” she asserted. She said she hopes youth of color could look up to her and imagine futures as civic leaders should she win the title.

“It’s great to be the first,” Howard said, but it’s more important to normalize putting people of color in leadership roles ​“so it’s not a big deal.”

If elected, she noted, ​“I’ll look forward to seeing who comes after me.”