State Rep. Charlie Stallworth, a city minister, has served in the State House for eight years with a record to run on, or against, depending on your point of view. State legislators have three primary roles: bringing home the bacon to their district, shepherding legislation to the betterment of residents they represent and being responsive to constituent requests.
CT Post reporter Brian Lockhart covered Stallworth’s Sunday formal announcement in the East End.
He pledged to focus on education–“Bridgeport will no longer give the very least to our students,” create opportunity for residents, improve public safety, tackle neighborhood flooding and other environmental issues, and to make Connecticut’s largest, and one of the state’s highest taxed, cities a more affordable one.
“Bridgeport will no longer give the very least to our students.”
What has Stallworth done to drive more state education dollars to Bridgeport?
Improve public safety?
What has Stallworth done to legislate public safety measures and law enforcement grants?
Tackle neighborhood flooding and environmental issues?
Has Stallworth taken the lead to address flooding and environmental issues in his district?
Make Bridgeport more affordable?
What’s his record leveraging more state dollars?
One thing is for certain, Stallworth’s constituency has been underwhelmed by his job performance given the two primary scares he had in 2016 from school board member Maria Pereira and in 2018 from former congressional staffer Shante Hanks.
Stallworth represents the 126th State House District that runs from portions of the North End to the Upper East Side covering six precincts: Wilbur Cross, Hallen, Park City Magnet, Read, Hooker and Beardsley.
An incumbent’s standing with voters can be gauged by analyzing common precincts with other office holders. Example, in 2016, State Senator Marilyn Moore, a 2019 mayoral candidate, received 311 votes in Park City Magnet to opponent Tom McCarthy’s 55. In that same precinct in 2016 Stallworth received 161 votes to Pereira’s 197. At Wilbur Cross it was Moore 417, McCarthy 128; Stallworth 362, Pereira 154. Overall, factoring in the rest of the district, Stallworth edged Pereira by 84 votes.
Fast forward to 2018, Moore did not have a primary. Stallworth faced another scare this time from Hanks. In Stallworth’s six common precincts shared with Mayor Joe Ganim (who primaried Ned Lamont for governor) Ganim had 1,359 votes to Stallworth’s 1,145.
Stallworth occupies the seat that was the domain of Chris Caruso for 20 years. When Caruso faced a primary he won handily. His district served as the base support for his two close mayoral primary runs in 2003 and 2007.
Bottom line for Stallworth: it’s hard to make a case for citywide election when you’re unpopular with your base support.
Chris Caruso was the best retail politician that Bridgeport has ever seen. Chris didn’t need the mayor, the chairman of the DTC and the members of the DTC to get elected and to stay in office because Chris knew his district and his district knew Chris. Bridgeport really lost out when Chris lost to Bill Finch for mayor by 280 votes, there were those who kept saying that Chris needed to stop talking about “corruption” in Bridgeport, well he didn’t stop and as we all unfortunately can still see that “corruption” in Bridgeport is alive and well. It was those in power like Paul Timpanelli head of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council wanted anyone but Chris Caruso so they drafted Bill Finch. Hopefully Shante Hanks will run again.
This was a great event. My colleagues from UB was there. Stallworth had a lot of good things to say for reforming Bridgeport. Too bad you weren’t there Ron. I did not see you. But other important people was there who voice actually matters.
Lennie,
Great analysis,great article. Thank you.
A great piece Lennie and every word of this literary masterpiece echoes my sentiments exactly. Posturing and Leveraging?
“…He pledged to focus on education — ‘Bridgeport will no longer give the very least to our students”, create opportunity for residents, improve public safety, tackle neighborhood flooding and other environmental issues, and to make Connecticut’s largest, and one of the state’s highest taxed, cities a more affordable one.’…”
Wow! It seems that all of the local and citywide candidates have exactly the same messages about the exact same concerns — for EVERY election… But never any actual, detailed solutions/plans… (And, most notable, never any real action in the indicated areas…)
Election season in Bridgeport — a Twilight Zone-Like time-warp, where time-travel (to the same point in time, every election!) is possible… (Maybe we can channel Rod Serling and he can moderate the mayoral debates in Bridgeport this year…)
I’m sure it was a heartwarming event.
I have no idea how Stallworth has the ball to speak about funding for our schools.
He has done absolutely nothing to fight for funding for our over 20,000 students. He has stood 100% with the Charter $school industry.
We have had major flooding issues in Thomas Hooker. The City Engineer gave me a bonding proposal he addressed to Stallworth when he was first elected in 2011. Stallworth has NEVER done one thing to fight for the bonding or to help his constituents with this matter. Absolutely nothing!
Last evening I volunteered to face current members of the BOE as part of a screening process to fill the vacancy that existed when Senator Bradley resigned. I faced seven fair questions from the seven members present. I hoped my answers might sway one or more to look outside their normal field of vision. Because Ganim2 has truly ignored our education budget by giving no priority to it. And that has left 21,000 youth in public schools without a champion leading the City charge.
If there are 70,000 thousand registered voters and if a non Presidential year might pull out as many as 30% of the privileged, it will mean that the parents and guardians of school age youth are not raising their hands to oppose the lack of respect in addressing one of their priority concerns, the education of their children, so as to take their rightful place in pursuing their family American dream. Why not? How do you begin to counter ‘hatred” and “ignorance” without voting? Where do you find support for growing resources for growing youth?? Whether generations reside together, or it’s a single parent home environment, the adults need to make their voices heard!!!!
As an observer of ‘things Bridgeport’ I countered with a question of my own that met bewilderment, I think. The 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report suggests that the City of Bridgeport has been spending $407 million in the past two years with a bar chart that has no references to specific data for further study but indicates a sum of this amount or very close has been expended. No chart to show where the revenue for these expenditures is derived. I am guessing that all funds of any kind, from any source, local, State or Federal may have been used. I have written Finance Officer Flatto for an explanation. Time will tell.