In a surprise announcement after three traffic-calming-filled years, Fair Haven Alderwoman Erin Sturgis-Pascale has decided not to run for reelection.
She’s leaving the post for two reasons, she said: She wants to be able to devote some meeting-free evenings to her young family. And much of what she has wanted to accomplish in advancing safe streets policies and traffic calming is complete, or in the process of coming to fruition.
“All of the Board of Aldermen meetings are at night, and I have no family time,” she said. “That’s very important to me.”
Brynia Sturgis-Pascale, who’s 4, is known around town for having been carried in snuggly, stroller, and also bicycle seat to numerous aldermanic events. Erin Sturgis-Pascale’s husband Jeff is a science teacher at East Haven High School.
“I have an amazing husband,” she said, “and I don’t want to take him for granted.” She pointed out that not many of her colleagues on the Board of Aldermen are parents of young children.
But Sturgis-Pascale is far from through with working on her signature issue.
“It’s important to me to protect the work I’ve done and the community,” she said in an interview Tuesday, one day before the 14th Ward Democratic Committee meets to endorse a successor.
To that end, Sturgis-Pascale said she will be supporting Stephanie Bauer, who is the manager of the NewAlliance Bank at Grand Avenue and Ferry Street. The ward committee meeting begins at Fair Haven’s branch library Wednesday at 5 p.m.
Sturgis-Pascale described Bauer as “someone I feel we can have confidence in to represent the best interests up at City Hall.” She will formally endorse Bauer on Wednesday.
Sturgis-Pascale said she was confident that Bauer would “carry forward much of the work that I have been doing for the ward, especially traffic-calming.”
Bauer (pictured), who lives on East Pearl Street, worked on Sturgis-Pascale’s two previous campaigns, first in the special election to fill Joe Jolly’s uncompleted term in 2006; and then in 2007.
In the past (except for 2007), 14th Ward elections have been contested, often with a Latino-versus-Anglo cast. In 2006, when Sturgis-Pascale was opposed by Evelyn DeJesus-Vargas, one of the issues was whether the area’s large Latino population needed to be represented by someone who at least spoke Spanish.
Interviewed on Tuesday, Bauer was asked how her Spanish is. Her reply: Est√° bi√©n. She said she wants to run because “I have a great concern for Fair Haven and the city.”
On Monday, Mario Forte, a ward committee member whose mother is Latino, had told people he planned to run. But he said Tuesday he decided to drop out because he and his wife, ward co-chair Joan Forte, support Bauer. Mario Forte said he had been concerned about other potential candidates whom he liked less than Bauer.
Not Calm About Calming
Over the past three years Sturgis-Pascale has emerged as a leader of a citywide “Safe Streets” traffic-calming movement.
She cited the passage of the Complete Streets Order in October 2008, as an example of her work in the city coming to a point of fruition. Its education component, the Street Smarts Campaign, is combined with the preparation of a design manual, policy recommendations, and increased enforcement.
The order mandates the committee of three aldermen (including Sturgis-Pascale), three city staff and three members of the public to write a report and recommendation to the city. The report and recommendations go to the Board of Aldermen for passage. “I’m hoping,” she said, “it’s complete so I can vote before I stand down.” That would be Dec. 31, 2009.
Sturgis-Pascale does not intend to be idle after that — although she hopes to have more opportunities to share a glass of wine with her husband, and to hang out with with Brynia on the verandah of her three-family that overlooks the still-too-fast and insufficiently calmed Front Street and the Quinnipiac River.
In April an out of control car turning on Front Street plowed through her fence and crashed into the corner of her house. No human damage was done, and the bricks have recently been replaced. But it was a moment of ironic poetic justice, as if to say while the solutions may be in Hartford and Washington, D.C., there is nothing more local than a car crashing into your living room.
She plans to work with T4A, Transportation for America. The group aims to influence the upcoming rewriting of the federal omnibus transportation bill to emphasize energy, climate, and pedestrian- and bike-oriented streets.
But first will come salsa classes, she said, at Rumberos on State Street, taking Brynia to language classes (Sturgis-Pascale speaks fluent French), and maybe even training for a triathlon.
Even before that, she added, to her list: “Helping my successor and also helping move the city forward.”
Stephanie has my vote she speaks spanish and that is a good start she is well known in the Fair Haven Community. And she will be a great Alder. You go girl.