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Third Party Fields Council Slate

August 10, 2007
By NIRAJ CHOKSHI, Courant Staff Writer

The Connecticut Working Families Party announced Wednesday that it had collected the necessary signatures to secure its slate of Hartford city council candidates on the November ballot.

The signatures require certification by the registrar of voters. The party got 1,600 petition signatures, many more than the 112 required.

The party's three candidates are Luis Cotto, co-owner of La Paloma Sabanera coffeehouse and bookstore; Larry Deutsch, a pediatrician; and Urania Petit, a community activist.

The process let the candidates introduce the party to voters, Cotto said.

"It's interesting walking around and getting signatures and having that conversation about what Working Families is and what they represent," he said.

"It's about sending a statement and letting people know the time for the two-party system is over. Hartford needs a new voice."

In a prepared statement, Cotto and Petit said that voters responded positively and strongly to the party's key issues: jobs, education, housing, health care and the environment.

Their main competition for minority seats on the council, the city's Republicans, endorsed a slate of candidates two weeks ago.

On the GOP council slate are incumbent Veronica Airey-Wilson, who will seek her seventh term; Michael J. Lupo, a former member of the board of education; Michael McGarry, a former city councilman; Kevin Carroll, a local lawyer; former Deputy Police Chief Gerry Pleasent; and John Lupo Jr., a longtime city resident and former member of the Hartford Redevelopment Agency.