Weinstein announces mayoral candidacy

WEST HAVEN — A longtime local business owner and political newcomer Wednesday became the first person to announce their candidacy for mayor on a major party line.

Paige Weinstein, co-owner of Star Tires Plus Wheels on Boston Post Road for about 30 years and resident of the city since summer 2018, told members of the West Haven Republican Town Committee that she is seeking the party’s nomination for mayor. “Allingtown is responsible for the success my husband, my children and I have had,” she said. “We think the people of West Haven are fabulous. The administration? Not.”

Mayor Nancy Rossi, a Democrat, won a third term by 32 votes — a margin that was narrow enough to trigger a recount — in 2021. The administration has been plagued by various scandals, including the theft of more than $1 million by a former state representative who worked in City Hall.

Rossi has not responded to questions as to her intention to run in the 2023 mayoral election.

Despite the city’s financial issues, Weinstein primarily took aim at the city’s perceived lack of communication — both with residents and between city departments. “We should not look to our own Facebook pages for city communication,” she said. “The administration works for the people of this town, we do not work for the administration.”

Weinstein cited an example of a state Municipal Accountability Review Board meeting in which members of the state oversight board questioned why the city could not complete for several months a request to provide a list of names of city employees and contractors who had not completed comprehensive ethics forms; Rossi told the Register that department heads, such as the head of personnel, should be responsive to those requests. “If I was the mayor, it would be my responsibility,” Weinstein said.

The other two major planks of Weinstein’s platform are addressing the city’s aging, outdated infrastructure and economic development.

She cited the recent break in a sewer line on Chestnut Street and a broken boiler at Carrigan school — a replacement for which received funding through American Rescue Plan Act funds earlier this month — as examples of the former. “Infrastructure needs to be addressed,” she said.

To do so, she said the city must be proactive and not delay upgrades and repairs. She said residents would have been less surprised by the sewer line break with better communication and the city would have more funding to do it if it were able to grow the grand list and encourage economic development. “We need to stop and say, ‘Enough with apartments right now. Let’s focus on businesses,’ ” she said.

Weinstein said many residents of the city, including herself as someone who does not hold political office, are kept in the dark about issues. “The residents in this town should be treated like shareholders or stockholders,” she said. “As residents, we don’t know that things are broken” until it’s too late.

Weinstein said if she were to hire a mayoral cabinet it would be based on experience in those roles. She said the city must also cooperate more closely with the MARB in the future.

“The accusations are not true, the candidate needs to pay attention to what is (happening) in our city and not from social media,” Rossi said in a response to Weinstein’s criticisms of infrastructure, communication and economic development. “Obviously, the silly season has begun! Instead of criticizing others, I challenge her to put forward her plan and how she would execute it, but then again that may be too much effort, it’s easier for her to just criticize others.”