After sprinting to the finish line in an abbreviated election campaign, new Hamden Mayor Curt Balzano Leng is ready to hit the ground running on Friday morning.
Leng, who will be sworn in at 10 a.m. Friday, defeated Republican Bob Anthony and Independent George Levinson in Hamden’s special election to finish the term of former Mayor Scott Jackson, who resigned last month to accept a position in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration.
Leng received 3,612 total votes while Anthony had 2,509 and Levinson garnered 454, according to unofficial results.
Leng, who served as Jackson’s chief administrative officer for the last 5 1/2 years, said his top priority is to make sure the town stays on track, continuing the current financial efforts and closing the year with the town’s fourth straight budget surplus.
While there won’t be much time before the next election rolls around in November, Leng said that the time he does have provides the opportunity to show “what my administration would look like with some new ideas and innovative approaches, particularly in ways we could deliver constituent services better than we do now and make it easier for our residents to do different things and offer things to people that have struggled at times in the past.”
Leng said his administration has a good foundation to build off of and he looks forward to campaigning again.
“While it was a sprint instead of a marathon, I knocked on 1,500 doors and got wonderful feedback from people,” Leng said. “And 90 percent of the people were happy with the town of Hamden. I think we can build on that in six months and build on it to even a better victory in the fall if we do things right.
“I’m ready to get to work (Friday morning).”
Anthony, who also challenged Jackson in the last mayoral election two years ago, told Kate Ramunni of the New Haven Register that he was disappointed with Thursday’s results, along with the turnout in which only 22 percent of registered voters cast their ballots.
“We knew it was an uphill battle,” Anthony told Ramunni.
After thanking his supporters, which included former Mayors Jackson, John L. Carusone and Acting Mayor James Pascarella, at his campaign headquarters at 2600 Dixwell Avenue, Leng outlined his goals for the next few months before starting up the campaign all over again.
In addition to finishing with another budget surplus, Leng wants to “keep ourselves on track with pension reform, work to get another independent rating agency upgrade, again strengthening that financial foundation.”
“I want to work on our programs and our parks — things that bring us together,” Leng said to his supporters. “And I’m going to tell you that this mayor’s office is going to be bold with ideas in ways that we can better serve our town’s people, better serve our constituents, better serve our contractors who come in for a permit, better serve our seniors. We work on it every day, and we’re going to work on it even harder in the days to come.
“This is a team effort, this is a team sport that we’re playing here. It takes Council, it takes former mayors, it takes Board of Ed members, it takes administrators, and all of you are part of this and I’ll need you to be successful.”
New Hamden Mayor Curt Balzano Leng celebrates with his family after winning election Thursday night.
Photos by Vinnie Salzo
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