Carfora wins mayor’s seat in East Haven

Joe Carfora, left, after being elected mayor of East Haven. Joe Carfora, left, after being elected mayor of East Haven. Photo: Mark Zaretsky / Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Mark Zaretsky / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Carfora wins mayor’s seat in East Haven 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

EAST HAVEN — Democrat Joe Carfora defeated Republican “Big Steve” Tracey by a convincing 3,865 to 3,169 margin Tuesday to win the first wide-open mayor’s race in many years.

Independent petition candidate Bonifacio “Oni” Sioson Jr., who also was on the ballot, received 292 votes.

Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., who served from 1997-2007 and again from 2011 to the present, opted not to run again. Carfora, and all the town’s new office holders, will be sworn in on Nov. 16.

Democrats, who have been in the minority since Maturo defeated Democratic former Mayor April Capone in 2011, also swept the six available Board of Education seats and won all four Board of Finance races — and 11 of the 15 Town Council seats.

Incumbent Town Councilman Nick Palladino, D-2, lost his seat to Republican former mayoral candidate Salvatore Maltese, while incumbent Town Clerk Stacy Gravino, a Republican, held off Democrat Tina Hedley to win 3,455-3,427 in a race that could end up going to a recount. The one other bright spot for Republicans was in the Fourth District, where Republican Town Council candidates Samantha Parlato, Linda Hennessey and Robert Ranfone all earned seats.

Turnout was 41 percent. East Haven has 17,818 registered voters, including 7,913 unaffiliated voters, 5,871 registered Democrats, 3,686 registered Republicans and 298 voters registered with minor parties.

“I need some oxygen,” Carfora said as he came out of the back room where the numbers were being crunched to address supporters in his headquarters on Foxon Road. “Thank you so much! Boy, it’s been a ride!

“You all know I got bashed and trashed” during the campaign, he said, referring to issues Republicans raised about tax problems he has had with his trucking business in North Haven. He said that when his late mother found in in 2010 that she had cancer and had just a few months to live, she told him “to be the good person that I am.

“I just want to say to my mother that the good person won 20 minutes ago,” he said.

Carfora said later, standing outside his headquarters, with his father, Al Carfora Jr., who has dementia, sitting in a wheelchair nearby, “I think a lot of people, they’re wanting change. Maybe they believed I’m the man for it. I know I’m the man for it.”

He said he promised himself “from Day One” that he would run a clean campaign, and he believed he had.

Tracey came by about 8:45 p.m. with state Senate Minority Leader Leonard Fasano, R-North Haven, to congratulate Carfora. Carfora and Tracey shook hands several times and spoke briefly.

Tracey said outside Carfora’s headquarters, “We worked hard. We did the best we could.”

Town Attorney and state Rep. Joseph Zullo, R-East Haven, who also stopped by, pointed out that Tracey won his home Fourth District. “He did a heck of a job and has a lot to be proud of,” Zullo said. “It wasn’t for lack of effort.”

Zullo said “everybody,” regardless of party affiliation, “wants East Haven to succeed.”

Sioson wished Carfora good luck and said, “I would like to, first of all, thank all those who shared my dreams and supported this noble endeavor. Continue on and persevere and don’t lose hope. My congratulations also to Mr. Carfora and (I) wish him all the best.”

Throughout the campaign, Tracey, 52, and Carfora, 57, both members of the Town Council, made economic development a big component of their campaigns while Sioson, 75, a retired small businessman, cited the need to improve East Haven’s reputation and image as a big part of his plan to move the town forward.

All three candidates said they supported education and opposed developer Mark DiLungo’s application for a zone change to build a 504-unit “affordable housing” development on Sperry Lane off Route 80.

Carfora is a lifelong East Haven resident and Southern Connecticut State University graduate who owns Carfora Carriers LLC, a North Haven trucking business, and represents the 3rd District on the Town Council.

During the campaign, Carfora called shoring-up East Haven’s infrastructure and beautifying the town key issues and said “that the hardworking people of East Haven deserve a better quality of leadership and a better quality of life here in our town.”

“There can’t be a person in this room or in any district who feels that the quality of life has changed for the better in East Haven, because it hasn’t,” Carfora said when he accepted the Democratic nomination. “This Republican group has run down this town over its terms to the point that people are almost numb to it and it has become the norm.”

He called Maturo’s claim that East Haven is in sound fiscal shape “a shell game” and said, “We need to invest in a reasonable and sensible capital plan.” He has criticized Tracey for being a late-coming with regard to opposing the Sperry Lane project.

Carfora promised to work more closely with the Board of Education, while recognizing that it is an independent entity.

He withstood criticism from Republican Town Chairman Bob Parente for an issue involving unpaid taxes, which Carfora first made public in what he described as “a pre-emptive strike” at the time of his initial candidacy announcement back in April.

Carfora has said he is in the process of making good on the debts.

Parente blasted Carfora for allegedly “misrepresenting the size and seriousness of the candidate’s personal and business tax debt,” saying that “according to official documents disseminated by a whistleblower” and recorded on land records in East Haven and North Haven, Carfora “owes a staggering $289,533.18 in back taxes to both the IRS and the Town of North Haven.”

Carfora made a number of pledges of things he would do if elected, including continuing to oppose development of the Sperry Lane property and the former D.C. Moore School; finding “the right commercial development,” revamping the town’s ethics ordinance and implemented a town-wide system to log citizens concerns.

He also pledged to improve meeting space and transportation for seniors, increase enforcement of the town’s anti-blight ordinance, establish a historic district in East Haven Center and designate a member of the mayor’s staff as a grant writer to secure grants that lessen the burden on taxpayers.

mark.zaretsky

@hearstmediact.com