Hartford Mayor Ann Uccello: A Connecticut Trailblazer by Pirrotta Paul

Author:Pirrotta, Paul [Pirrotta, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

The 1967 Christmas card from John Barber to Mayor Ann Uccello. Ann Uccello’s collection .

Barber and the patrons were “bowled over” by the mayor’s visit. This anecdote says so much about Ann and her values—perhaps more effectively than this entire book.

THE JANUARY 1968 TO NOVEMBER 1969 timeframe could have very easily been one of the most productive in the history of Hartford government. It probably was the last real opportunity to make significant changes in policies that could have prevented the long slide into the city’s economic downturn.

No, Mayor Uccello was not perfect nor always right, but she was a common sense leader who did her homework and did not like to play political games. Unfortunately, she was confronting a group of council Democrats who would have done anything to stop her from becoming a successful mayor and of winning reelection should she run again. So the issues may have changed, but the story was the same.

The attempt to participate in a new federal program called the Model Cities program was a case in point. In February 1968, the council Democrats elected themselves to the City Demonstration Agency and appointed Deputy Mayor Kinsella as chair while also appointing a former Springfield, Massachusetts administrator to the interim executive director job. This was done without consulting Mayor Uccello, the business community or the neighborhood groups—and most likely in violation of the federal guidelines governing the program.

After many months of debate, the council finally agreed to create a twenty-three-member board made up of civic leaders and neighborhood representatives to be selected by the mayor and the council. In March 1969, the Democratic majority on the council, led by newly appointed council member Nick Carbone, rejected the final four nominees submitted by the mayor because they did not live in Hartford. The Democrats stated that suburban residents had not been involved in the war on poverty and were not qualified to comment on the issue. Mayor Uccello challenged the Democrats to ratify this policy and to pass a resolution stating their claim that you had to be a Hartford resident to be a member of the committee. They had put themselves in a corner.

Nick Carbone and Ann Uccello had only one thing in common: they are both Italian Americans. But their styles could not have been more different, and their politics even more so. Ann was conservative, always behaving in a proper manner, while Nick was liberal and did not mind throwing a political “bomb” to shake up the competition or the issues.

The real reason for the rejection of the four? One nominee, Greater Hartford Chamber past president Bob Mooney, had apparently dared criticize the Democratic council during his retirement speech. It would take another two months before the Democrats finally approved new appointees—including an out-of-towner—so that the commission could start working. Their deadline was October 1969, and at risk was some $200 million.

In a June 25, 1969 editorial, the Courant stated, “After a two-month-long demonstration of partisan spite, the Democratic majority of the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.