3‑Way Alder Race Comes To The Cove

This November, Morris Cove residents will see two names on their ballots — and have the option of writing in a third — as they decide whom to support for Ward 18 alder.

Sal DeCola, who has represented Morris Cove’s Ward 18 on the Board of Alders for almost 12 years, is running for a seventh two-year term on the Democratic Party line.

DeCola faces a Republican challenger in Lisa Milone, a former Registrar of Voters clerk and child welfare advocate.

He also faces a surprise comeback from his competitor in the Democratic primary, Susan Campion.

When DeCola emerged narrowly victorious in the September primary race, he technically left Campion (who had not registered to run as an unaffiliated candidate) without a pathway to the Nov. 7 general election ballot.

That didn’t stop a group of Morris Cove neighbors from continuing to rally behind Campion as their candidate of choice.

Within days after the primary, on the social media platform NextDoor, Morris Cove resident Shane Sparks began urging fellow ward residents to vote for Campion as a write-in candidate.

When a neighbor asked if Campion was on board with the campaign, Sparks replied, ​“she doesn’t have to sanction a write in campaign. We can crowdsource her campaign.”

Soon, a petition titled ​“Run Susan Run!” began to circulate online.

Campion recounted that when she saw this petition, ​“I said, ​‘Holy guacamole, what the heck!’ ”

Campion, who called herself a ​“Democrat true and true,” said she could not initially imagine herself running as anything other than the Democratic Party candidate. But she saw that a ​“grassroots coalition was forming” in her support. After a few weeks, she decided to come on board.

“I really came to focus on the words that I heard from so many people: about how despondent they were, how neglected they felt,” she said. ​“I am so excited.”

“I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think I could be elected,” she said. ​“This is a grassroots campaign created by the people and for the people of Ward 18. That is a power old school politics can’t buy or manipulate. It has a heart: the heart is working neighbor with neighbor to make change.”

She’s continuing to run on a platform of holding Tweed Airport accountable for pollution and climate change concerns and supporting more of a police presence in the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, DeCola has highlighted his incremental advocacy for greater environmental protection by helping to steward the Water Pollution Control Authority and creating emergency and environmental advisory committees. He also pledged to support the housing-creation and preservation efforts underway at the historic Townshend Estate.

He voted for the city’s 43-year lease with the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority, an agreement paving the way for the airport authority’s expansion deal with Avports, a management company that plans to extend the airport’s runway. DeCola successfully added an amendment to the city’s agreement that would increase regulation of the airport’s future growth and mandate stormwater management measures.

In recent weeks, he has faced scrutiny for crashing into a neighbor’s parked car in late February and immediately driving away. The incident did not result in an arrest or a police report; it has prompted a lawsuit against DeCola and two police officers involved in responding to the incident, as well as an Internal Affairs investigation and a civilian complaint within the police department.

DeCola did not respond to requests for comment before the publication of this article. 

Read more about DeCola and Campion’s campaigns here.

Milone: "Transparency and Communication"

Having recently retired after seven years as a clerk for New Haven’s Republican Registrar of Voters, Lisa Milone is heading for a rematch — running against DeCola to become Ward 18’s alder after first challenging him in 2015.

Milone has lived in the East Shore for about 30 years. She used to lead the East Shore Management Team, has owned a Milford hair salon, and remains a partner of a West Haven Krauszer’s sandwich shop. She works as a guardian ad litum in the child welfare system, getting to know children, families, and foster parents so that she can ultimately advocate in court for what she determines to be the ideal outcome for the children.

“I think the number one thing in our district is transparency and communication,” she said. If elected, she pledged to stay in close touch with her constituents, attend management team meetings, and advocate for ​“concrete information.” 

One of Milone’s top priorities is increasing the police presence in the ward. Like Campion, she is calling for the police district encompassing her ward — which currently runs from Lighthouse Point Park to the North Haven border — to be split into two districts. 

“Unfortunately there is more crime on the other end of our district, so therefore policing in our neighborhood is a challenge. We are short officers,” Milone said. ​“I would like to advocate to work hard to split our district. Our district is very big. The officers are stretched.”

“Our officers are not paid like other cities,” she said. ​“I will stand behind our police officers. Nobody wants to be a police officer in today’s world.”

She is also running on a promise to ​“look for inefficiencies” in the city budget. ​“The budget is massive. We need to hold our employees of the city accountable… If our taxes have increased the way they have in the last seven years, our budget doesn’t seem to be efficient,” she said.

On the divisive topic of Tweed Airport, Milone said, ​“there’s gotta be somewhere in the middle.” She reiterated a commitment to ​“transparency and communication” on Tweed’s plans. 

“I don’t support it getting bigger than it is,” she said of the airport. ​“It’s got a lot of planes. What I am for is analyzing and really scrutinizing exactly what’s going on — and exactly how the community will get benefited.” She said that the ​“community benefits” promised to neighborhood residents by the airport, including sound and airproofing supplied to homes in the area, has either not gone far enough or ​“just didn’t pan out.”

She believes that the city’s Community Services Administration should provide more classes and programs on how parents can impart skills to their preschool-aged kids who aren’t enrolled in preschool. ​“A lot of this doesn’t cost money. Good, hard work and dedication goes so much farther,” she said. ​“There’s a lot of things we can do. Work through churches. Train parents to become peer parents.”

Though Milone has heard from constituents who have balked at her Republican affiliation, she argued that ​“back in the day, Republicans and Democrats sat in the same room, they discussed the problems in the city, and came up with great ideas.” She believes this collaboration is possible now, too. ​“I’m a unifier. I like to bring people together.”