HAMDEN, CONN– On Nov. 7, Mayor Lauren Garrett officially won reelection. Garrett defeated her Republican challenger Crystal Dailey with 6,536 votes to 5,042. At around 9 p.m., Dailey conceded the election via a phone call with Garrett.
Democrats took nearly every seat in the Town of Hamden, now holding 17 out of 18 positions. Republican candidate James Anthony took that seat in District 8 as councilman.
During a post-election celebration with other Democrats which took place in Garretts backyard, she expressed her gratitude for her campaign and all the support she has received.
“I relied so much on all of your support and I’m so grateful for it you guys came through, thank you so much.”
During the phone call with Dailey, she congratulated Garrett, wishing the best for the town. Garrett told reporters, “So she congratulated me and conceded the election, which I appreciate. And she said, you know, just to keep Hamden in mind as I do my work, which I’m happy to do and get going off of that.”
During the Democratic Primaries in September, Garrett alluded to her plans to improve town security and modernize Hamden. Tuesday night, Garrett explained more about these plans and how she will work to resolve residents’ concerns, especially about safety throughout Hamden.
Prior to voting, a Hamden resident, Shaunna-Kay Japers, said that she hopes to see the police department continue to strengthen.
“I definitely wanna see more money being put in our police department to make our town safer for people like me, people like you, you should feel comfortable in the communities that you’re in so that’s what I think is important.”
On Oct. 3, Hamden inducted a new police chief, Edward Reynolds as the first step to rebuilding the police department. Garrett said she has plans to work closely with Reynolds, “To make sure he [Reynolods] is making all the connections and relationships as he is coming into Hamden.”
Garrett further explained her goals to mend the department, “And then making sure we have the resources the [Hamden] police department needs, and we’re close to full staffing, and there’s still a lot we have to do to make sure they have all the tools to do their job.”
In such a controversial world, political polarization is a large concern amongst citizens and politicians. When asked how she will work to prevent this issue, Garrett expressed her hope to preserve and create a more unified town.
“We’re all neighbors right so I think it’s important that we think of each other that way. That when we’re communicating with each other that we’re thinking of each other, you’re my neighbor.”
As discussed during the Democratic Primary in early September with her previous challenger Walter Morton, Garrett is aiming to modernize Hamden. Hamden has a diverse community with 21.7% of residents being under 18 years and 17.3% being over 65 years, according to the Hamden Census. It is vital to make this age gap seem minimal to further unify the town, Garrett believes this can be done by improving accessible and simple technology for residents.
Garrett explained that technical improvements are on-going projects for the town. She said this improvement is to better the community. In updating these systems it will be easier for the residents to interact with each other and the community.
“We made some updates to our website, those updates, we’re still working through them. Getting more forms online, fillable forms, making sure we can process credit card payments… So making sure that it’s easier for people to interact with the town.”
In her previous term, Mayor Garrett made changes to the town’s IT infrastructure, to begin improving technical security. This initiative began due to breach of the town’s systems a couple months into her first term as mayor.
“The breach was very difficult to work through. And a lot of what we had to do was rebuilding all of our systems and servers and firewalls,” said Garrett.
Mayor Garrett is ready to begin her second term with the numerous projects she has planned. Garrett said Hamden has received grants and funding from the state of Connecticut which leaves the town, “At that point where we have to get to work on all of these cool projects and I’m really excited to do that.”
In completing these goals, Garrett hopes Quinnipiac students become more involved with the community.
“We want Quinnipiac students to be involved in what we do in Hamden… We want to make sure you have fun at some of the events that we put on… We want you to feel like this is your town as well.”
