Perez Works To Tighten Political Grip

Backs Loyalists For Spots On Democratic Town Committee

February 13, 2006
By OSHRAT CARMIEL, Courant Staff Writer

The shouting, coming one recent Friday from the Hartford Registrars of Voters office, was loud enough to clear the room.

State Rep. Minnie Gonzalez had just learned her loyal slate of 3rd District Democrats was facing a challenge at the polls - backed by Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez, a political rival. And she had heard the news from a city office staffed by the most loyal of Perez's allies.

"My question is why, why?" Gonzalez said later. "Why is he putting all these people against me? Why is he coming after me?"

Consider Gonzalez's shouting in the registrars' office as the opening bell for the season of town committee races in Hartford, a contest that this year has more plot twists than a soap opera when it comes to matters of grudge, betrayal and run-ins with the law.

The star of the story, as in just about everything to do with Hartford politics these days, is Perez.

Hartford's own rising star plans to run for re-election in 2007, and is salting the Democratic town committee - its endorsement is key to his success - with friends, co-workers and plain old loyalists.

It's simple political strategy. But Perez's supporting cast is a patchwork sideshow, an assortment of characters that includes his brother, a member of his press office, the mother of his secretary, and a political activist who lists his address as 47 Hamilton St. - where he's been ordered several times by city building inspectors to stop living in his basement.

Also in the March 7 race are many city hall employees, who are beholden to the mayor for a job, and a community activist facing bribery charges.

"This is just smart politics," said Matt Hennessy, Perez's chief of staff and political strategist. "It's looking down the road and saying, `These folks are going to be on the town committee in '07 and the mayor would like to enjoy the support of as many town committee members as possible.'"

In many towns, town committees are selected in relative peace and obscurity. Party insiders compile a list of members, and, short of a rare challenge at the polls, that list becomes official. The chosen from each party then endorse candidates for office.

In Hartford, however, a paucity of Republican voters means endorsed Democrats are all but assured success at the polls. And so the town committee is the de facto electorate, the board of directors that makes all management choices for Hartford Inc.

Competition to sit on that body has been fierce in recent years - and that was when the stakes were low. This year, the consequences are significant: The 70-member town committee that will take office next month will have a say over who is in power to shape the city's future through 2011.

That town committee, in office for a two-year term, not only will pick candidates for council and mayor in 2007, but also will pick the city's representatives to the General Assembly and play a role in endorsing a candidate for governor.

Even that could have personal meaning for Perez, who has been mentioned as a potential running mate for Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Dannel Malloy.

And so Perez is involved in many of the town committee's six districts.

"I'm being supportive of people who are being supportive of me," Perez said of his involvement. "I worked with every district to make sure that they support me and I asked them to put people on there that would be supportive."

In the North End, he's patched a bruised relationship with the neighborhood's longtime district boss, Abraham L. Giles, who still has pull in the North End's black community, a critical constituency that Perez has struggled to attract.

The truce has created an uneasy alliance between city hall and Giles' old guard of black political activists, one of whom, Mamie Bell, remains on the ballot for the 5th District town committee, even as she was arrested on bribery charges last week.

"Me, personally? " Giles said recently. "I'm with Eddie Perez."

Perez also negotiated a deal with the district covering the city's South End. Perez and his allies will get two seats on the 6th District town committee, and - in exchange - police officer Hector Robles, one of the two, has agreed not to challenge that district's assemblyman, state Rep. Art Feltman, this year.

But in Gonzalez's 3rd District, covering significantly Latino neighborhoods in Parkville and Frog Hollow, Perez is backing a slate of challengers to take on her incumbents.

Perez and Gonzalez have been famously at odds, the pinnacle of which was 2004, when Perez fired Gonzalez's husband, Ramon Arroyo - now a member of the town committee - from his city hall job.

Gonzalez and Arroyo are entrenched in their district, so much so that they are often recognized on the street. Challenging them is a formidable task, the mayor acknowledges, but "there's no reason to concede ground this early," he said.

So the mayor is backing a challenge slate there consisting of: William Perez, his brother; Ramon Espinoza, his media liaison; Ivette M. Gonzalez, the mother of a secretary in his office; and Elvis Tejada, whom city inspectors found living in a basement of a house he owns in Frog Hollow.

And so came Gonzalez's recent city hall battle cry.

The way she sees it, Perez's challenge slate is not a matter of strategy as much as a battle of ego. Her slate is not against or for the mayor, she said. They're simply "independent thinkers"- something that bothers Perez, she said, who likes firm control over all matters Latino and political.

"This," Gonzalez said, "is a power struggle for him."