Still no sign of AWOL “Alderman” Gabe Santiago. But his mom offered words of reassurance Friday to Fair Haveners upset they have no one representing these days: “He should have [resigned]. He didn’t. He will.”
“That’s all I can say,” she said.
Wearing a blue bathrobe and declining to give her name, Santiago’s mom opened a second-floor window of her home on Bright Street in Fair Haven and answered a few questions about her son, who has been missing in action for months from his post as Fair Haven’s Ward 14 aldermen.
After taking office a year ago, Santiago hasn’t been seen in City Hall since July 2 and his constituents have been unable to reach him. He hasn’t responded to repeated phone calls. (Click here for a story about his and his colleagues’ attendance records.)
At his Bright Street address Friday, Santiago’s mom said her son wasn’t home. She said Santiago hasn’t been spending much time at home for the past month or more.
Mom asked that Santiago’s employer not be named, but she said he is a “floater” and is sent all over the state. He’s been staying near Massachusetts to be closer to his current workplace, she said.
As for the fate of his fledgling aldermanic career, mom promised Santiago will step down. “It’s going to happen. He’s resigning. Everybody’s wish is going to come true.”
“People in November told him they’d help him resign,” she said. But it never happened. She declined to say who the people were or why it didn’t happen.
She said Santiago was out of work when he was elected. Then “he got a job which had him moving around.”
Asked why he didn’t simply resign, Santiago’s mom said, “I can’t answer that. I don’t know what to say about that.”
I wonder if the AFSCME is OK with mom's comments--for everyone's sake, I hope they are! They campaigned for and got Mr. Santiago (who btw, I believe to be a fine young man just in way over his head) elected with the idea that they could shape him into "their" puppet.