2023-2025 Bloomfield Town Council Members. Source: Town of Bloomfield Website

Overview

The Town of Bloomfield is solidly Democratic at the presidential level. In 2024, the town voted for Kamala Harris by an 84-15 margin, her largest margin of victory out of all 169 municipalities in the state. Though not competitive at the federal level, things change rapidly as we move downballot. The Bloomfield Town Council has found itself in a long series of infighting. Current Mayor Danielle Wong and her fellow town council members have found themselves facing bitter disputes. These disputes have been led by former Mayors Sydney Schulman and Suzette DeBeatham-Brown along with their allies.

On Monday’s article, I talked about the crowded Democratic primary taking place in Hamden. A competitive Democratic primary is expected. Continuing our recent discussion on local elections. Let’s get going about forty-five minutes to the north, we arrive in the town of Bloomfield.

Quick History on Bloomfield

Let’s start off with a quick history lesson on Bloomfield. Bloomfield is the town with the largest African-American population in the state. The only town where the majority of residents are Black at just over 53% as of the 2020 census. Interestingly, the town’s demographics shifted starting in the 60s.

The reason for this starts in neighboring West Hartford. West Hartford, a town with a rich, affluent, mostly White population participated in racially discriminatory housing practices starting way back in the early 1900s. As the town grew, local, federal, and real estate officials wanted to ensure that the town remained overwhelmingly White.

As the town grew, they were the first in 1924, to enact zoning regulations, which segregated citizens by socioeconomic class. They furthered housing segregation in the 1930s through redlining. Where loans were systematically only approved in certain areas, in reality areas that were overwhelmingly White. Black and other minority residents were essentially shut from West Hartford, and other neighboring suburbs.

In the 1940s, some covenants in town went as far as declaring that ” no persons of any race other than the White race…” shall be allowed in the building. Bloomfield on the other hand, much more welcoming to Black residents, real estate agents pushed all of those residents to live in Bloomfield. White residents were pushed to live in West Hartford and Avon.

This practice known as “block busting” was a devious practice using the arrival of Black residents to scare White residents away, and than selling their homes to Black buyers willing to pay.

As Black residents moved to Bloomfield from Hartford and other towns, the town transformed completely as White residents left for other towns. And the town went from 95% White to over 60% Black in a 30 year span.

Additional Resources on This History

For more information on this interesting, but contentious and difficult history. I highly recommend the open-access book by Trinity College professor Jack Dougherty. The book On The Line: How Schooling, Housing, and Civil Rights Shaped Hartford and its Suburbs, I’ve linked here.

I mention this because to understand the present-day battles on the Bloomfield Town Council, it’s important to understand the historical forces that shaped the town’s demographics and politics in the first place

The 2021 Democratic Primary

The conflict is long and ongoing, but let’s start off with the 2021 Democratic Primary.

2021 Democratic Primary Results in Bloomfield. Source: CT Secretary of State Website

This close and contentious primary ended with voters splitting their ballots between the endorsed and challenger candidates.

Then the incumbent mayor Suzette DeBeatham-Brown, made it into the top six candidates, despite not receiving the Democratic Town Committee’s endorsement, therefore having to gather signatures to make the primary.

During the first town council meeting of the 2021-23 legislative session, Danielle Wong was elected mayor by her fellow town council members in a unanimous vote. Though Wong was 4th in the primary, she received the most votes in the general election two months later. Councilors noted the importance of upholding the tradition of electing the mayor based on who receives the most votes.

It is important to note in Bloomfield, under a council-manager system, the mayor is mainly a figurehead of the town. But the mayor does not possess veto power or control over any specific committee.

Danielle Wong

Mayor Wong was first elected to the Bloomfield Town Council in 2019. She was originally slated to run for the Bloomfield Library of Directors, but was invited by the committee to run for council instead.

The single mother of two, and project process manager for Perrigo, decided to take an uphill challenge the following year. She decided to attempt a primary challenge against State Rep. Bobby Gibson in the 15th district.

Despite Rep. Gibson carrying endorsements from most of the area’s elected officials, Wong went ahead with the challenge. She felt she was qualified for the seat based on her past experiences.

Though she lost a 35-65 race against Gibson in August 2020, she continued her tenure as council member.

The 2023 Democratic Primary

During the endorsements by the Democratic Town Committee in 2023, only four of the six incumbent Democrats councilors were endorsed, including Mayor Danielle Wong. Wong led her slate of six candidates on Row A of the ballot.

Former Mayor and councilwoman Suzette DeBeatham Brown and Councilmen Rickford Kirton did not seek the party’s endorsement, but most delegates in the town favored Wong and her slate at the convention. On Row B of the ballot, the former Mayor led a slate of six other candidates to challenge Wong and her allies, after garnering enough signatures to force a primary.

Wong and her allies who were endorsed, opposed the recent tax increase that occurred due to a requested budget increased from the Board of Education. Brown and Kirton also had other disagreements during the session as they tried to remove Town Manager Stanley Hawthorne from his position. Brown argued that there are issues surrounding housing and economy development, where Hawthorne needed to improve on. Wong and her allies supported Hawthorne, though he ended up leaving his position. The council in previous years went through multiple town managers.

2023 Democratic Primary Results in Bloomfield. Source: CT Secretary of State Website

After a contentious primary, the slate of candidates led by Mayor Wong won by a 2 to 1 margin against DeBeatham-Brown’s slate of candidates. Though it was a convincing victory for Wong and her allies, it wouldn’t be the end of infighting between the two groups.

Library Dispute

During the current legislative session, both former mayor Suzette Debeatham-Brown and former councilor Rick Kirton continually raised questions about decisions that Wong and her Democratic council were making.

This included a proposal for renaming the town’s newly constructed library. Wong admitted the issue was mishandled and abandoned the idea due to widespread and angry public opposition. In addition, a Republican councilor lambasted Wong on social media, saying she “does not care about us”. After the incidents of lashing out online and during council meetings between members, she urged everyone involved to reduce to heat of the debate and be civil. There was also an incident where some information was leaked out by Republican town councilor Joe Merritt that led to a contentious argument during a meeting. The Town manager, Alvin Schwapp Jr. said the residents should not have to deal with this level of dysfunction. Though tension continued.

Budget Referendum

Other than a few small towns that hold municipal elections in May. Connecticut does not usually have regularly scheduled elections during the spring season, with one notable exception. Town budget referendums. The rules surrounding these referendums vary greatly by town. Some towns have a vote every year to pass the budget, and other towns have votes when the council can’t agree on a budget or if residents force a vote.

Former Mayor Debeatham-Brown and former Councilor Kirton continued their public opposition to the council. Kirkton gathered more than 1,000 signatures to put the budget to a vote for May 28th. Residents who signed the petition were concerned about a 4% tax increase due state mandated reevaluation. Some residents on community pages complained there was a pattern of high-handness at the town hall.

The council led by Wong decided to phase in the rate increase over four years. They supported their budget saying that a lower increase of tax will result in cuts of millions of dollars. Kirton felt that something more could be done, and that the increased tax rate could be much lower. Councilman Todd Cooper put confidence in the budget he and the council worked on.

The vote was interesting. Out of the voters who voted, a large majority voted “no” on the budget by a 4 to 1 margin (1934 “against”, 494 “for”). However, a charter requirement says that 15% of eligible voters must vote “no”. Since that threshold was not passed, the budget was approved.

Resulting Lawsuit

3 weeks after the vote, a lawsuit was filed against Danielle Wong and her administration, accusing them of conducting a “substantially false and misleading referendum”.

Who was the lawsuit led by, you might ask? Not only did it include former councilor Kirton, but another former Mayor of Bloomfield, Sydney Schulman. They argued that the referendum should have been phrased and presented differently to voters into two separate parts (113 million budget, 4 million economic development). Instead of how the budget was presented (117 million referendum as one question). Republican councilor Mahon frequently clashed with Mayor Wong during the meetings deciding how the referendum should be put on the ballot.

Wong Decides Not to Run

Wong announced in April that she would not run for another term as mayor or for council.

She wrote in an op-ed in the Hartford Courant last week about fighting misinformation. She discusses her accomplishments and improvements to the town infrastructure, investments, and expansion of a good AA+ credit rating.

She noted her disagreements with her fellow councilors about the 2021 tax increase, and how they were the same ones spreading distortion and chaos about what is happening in the city. She explained the importance of working together and how some of the loudest voices on social media are fighting for attention. She asks readers to have “hope rooted in the strength of our people…”.

With Wong not running, the council endorsed a slate of candidates on July 16th that includes many incumbents and a few newcomers. Incumbents on the endorsed slate are Deputy Mayor Anthony Harrington and Councilors Cindi Lloyd, Todd Cooper, and Mike Oliver. Newcomers are Ola Aina and Darrell Goodwin. They also gave endorsements for other local positions, which can be found here.

Likely Upcoming Primary

However, they will likely be challenged again by former Councilor Kirton. Former Mayor Debeatham-Brown will also join the slate, but who will challenge the endorsed candidates is unknown at the moment. Kirton and Debeathman-Brown will definitely get on the ballot, but we will have to see who joins them.

Kirton found himself in the hot water earlier this week after Bloomfield employee Annatoucher Kingland issued a statement saying that Councilor Kirton made her seriously uncomfortable in 2022 calling her “my secret crush”. Kingland felt that her sexual complaint was being downplayed before she made her statement.

Kirton, who denied Kingland’s account, spoke about the “false claims”. He said that years of silence were there, but now it comes out, on the same day he took out petitions to get his name on the primary ballot and back on the council. Debeathman-Brown said the issue was investigated and how she never saw any issues. Wong’s administration argues that it was not political and an attorney found the complaint to be substantiated. In addition, Kingland asked if Kirton had completed sexual harassment training earlier that month. The dispute is ongoing.

What to Expect?

I don’t see this conflict between the Council and Kirton/Debeatham-Brown ending soon. The conflict has grown by the day. Recent events surrounding the budget referendum will likely last past the primary.

For the primary, I expect Kirton and Debeatham-Brown to run a full slate of six Democratic candidates similar to 2023. I think they might fare a bit better this time around, as the tax increases and budget referendum showed that many people are not happy with the current councilors. However, they still have strong support among many voters and will still likely come out on top. In addition, they are supported by the town committee’s endorsement.

How long will this bitter conflict continue? I have no idea. I do know that with Mayor Wong stepping down, though, I don’t think it will end any time soon.

We will have more on the expected primary as we get closer to September.

Thanks for reading!