Chris Jones, Democratic candidate for Shelton mayor, sat down at his downtown headquarters with the Valley Indy and spread out dozens of pages of documents on a long table.
The documents — the city’s recent audit, grant applications, fire marshal reports concerning Shelton High School — were all obtained by the candidate from City Hall using Freedom of Information requests.
He’s been using the docs as a foundation to raise issues about leadership in Shelton under 10-term incumbent Mayor Mark Lauretti.
“I’ve done my homework these past two years. And I’m trying to get that out to the people now,” said Jones, 44, a life-time Shelton resident.
Jones is running against the mayor for the second election in a row. Lauretti has been mayor for the past 20 years.
Jones’ second campaign is decidedly different than 2009. He’s been talking about finances and public safety, especially public safety.
Jones, a Shelton volunteer firefighter, has made radio communications problems and alleged fire code violations at Shelton High School cornerstones of his campaign. He’s amassed a ton of coverage from local media outlets.
“This is my goal, to show people that Shelton’s situation is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Jones said. “Its financial stability — I’m going to show you that it’s not as stable as Lauretti says. Emergency services are not as good as they can be.”
In 2009, Jones focused more on an ongoing federal corruption investigation in Shelton.
Voters, however, elected the financially conservative Lauretti, despite the negative press.
“I’m not banking on this corruption thing any more,” Jones said. “I’m just showing you poor leadership.”
The Message
Jones’ campaign has homed in on several issues:
- The lack of sprinklers and history of fire inspections at Shelton High School
- The police department budget and number of police officers
- Grants that were never cashed in on by city government
- The city’s use of bonding (borrowing) to pay for expenses
- The city’s lack of a revised ethics code
- The ongoing fight over the next fire chief
He said each problem can be traced back to Lauretti’s poor leadership.
“A CEO of a company would not be allowing one of its departments to go without a department head for a year,” Jones said, referring to the empty fire chief’s position.
The city has been without a fire chief since November 2010. When the Board of Fire Commissioners recommended firefighter Mike Ullrich for the post, Lauretti twice rejected the recommendation without giving a specific reason why.
Federal Probe
And while Jones said he doesn’t want to use the federal corruption probe as a campaign point, he couldn’t help but refer back to it several times during an interview at his headquarters.
Federal agents have been investigating alleged improper gift giving and taking among developers and city officials in Shelton.
Federal prosecutors named Lauretti as the target of the probe — but never charged him with any crime.
“I understand It’s hard to defeat a political machine such as this, that’s been in power for 20 years,” Jones said. “But being in office for 20 years a lot of negativity comes out of that as well. As we’ve seen in the last six years.”
Jones listed the players in the corruption investigation as support for his argument:
“Our building inspector went to federal prison,” Jones said, referring to Elliot Wilson.
“Our number one tax payer is in prison right now,” Jones said, referring to developer Robert Scinto, “because of an investigation around Mark Lauretti.”
Lauretti has denied any wrongdoing, and has never been charged. Thomas Carson, a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s office, said Oct. 14 that the investigation is an “open matter” still. He declined to comment further.
Grassroots
Defeating an incumbent is never easy to do on the local level. Defeating an incumbent you lost to two years ago is that much tougher.
However, Lauretti’s lowest vote tally was in 2009 — against Jones.
Since 1991, when Lauretti was first elected, he has gained between 6,000 and 7,000 votes each time. In 2009 Lauretti received 6,105 votes.
Jones received 4,641. See the chart to track mayoral election tallies going back to the early 1980s.
To defeat Lauretti,Jones is banking on new media, grassroots campaigning. The Jones for Mayor message is spread through social media, in-person visits with groups and word of mouth. Read his Facebook page and you can tell he’s the guy doing the posts.
“Please view my newest video. Re-post so we can get the word out,” Jones wrote on Oct. 13, linking to a video he made about fire code violations at the high school.
The Facebook presence is one way Jones is getting younger people involved in the campaign, and in Shelton politics.
Bob Lally, a 76-year-old Democrat who ran against Lauretti in 2001, said Jones has invigorated Shelton politics with his energy and ideas.
Lally has known Jones since 2001, when Jones signed on to help out with his campaign.
“He brought something to the campaign that was needed: Youth,” Lally said. “He’s a great learner. He’s loaded with passion. And above all, he’s young.”
Lally said Jones has signed on a new fleet of volunteers.
Spend an hour with Jones, and you’ll see the volunteers constantly calling him on his cell phone, telling him about issues they’ve seen or heard about in the city that day.
“I have a new team with new ideas,” Jones said. “It’s just really about a grassroots campaign.”
One of those volunteers is Danielle Elwood, who is helping out with Jones’ website, Twitter and Facebook pages.
Elwood, 26, said she was attracted to Jones’ campaign because she was becoming disenfranchised with the political machine in Shelton.
“Shelton’s awesome, taxes are low, but there are a lot of things failing,” Elwood said.
Elwood said the campaign is attracting a lot of firemen, especially as the radio communications system sees problems.
“The younger guys who are getting involved are firemen who are at their wits end,” said Elwood, who’s husband is a volunteer firefighter.
Jones has used social media and his network of supporters to get the word out about the radio systems.
For example, he had a volunteer splice old news reports together with his narrative — and he posted it on his YouTube channel.
Article continues after video.
The goal is to get the video — and more importantly the message — to more voters.
“If I can get 300 people to watch it, that’s 300 people that maybe I couldn’t have reached out knocking on their door, or seeing them at a soccer game,” Jones said. “So the Internet has been a great tool for me.”
Fundraising
Jones’ campaign is grassroots in his fundraising tactics as well.
He said with the economy the way it is, he’s trying to attract smaller donations from a bigger pool of people.
As of July 7, Jones had raised $2,025. By Sept. 30, Jones had a total of $9,920 raised. That was about half what Lauretti had raised during the same time period.
Contributors to Jones’ campaign include one of the owners of Liquid Lunch, and Democratic candidates for the Board of Aldermen and tax board.
“I don’t like asking people for money,” Jones said. “I’ve reached out to my family and my close friends, and my other contributors who have given over the years. And I haven’t reached out much farther than that. Because times are tough.”
The Jones campaign has held fundraisers like a ladies night at a salon, where participants are asked to pay $20 to $25.
“The money hasn’t come in as much as it did two years ago,” Jones said. “I’ll probably have half the money I had last year. I’m not going to deny that.”
But using social media helps cut costs, and Jones said he’s saving money in other places, such as ordering cell phones on a family plan for volunteers to use, instead of installing a land-line phone at the headquarters.
Jonesey
Jones was born in Shelton, and went through the public schools here.
After graduating from Shelton High School in 1985, Jones enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving through 1990.
He worked at Guenster Rehabilitation in Bridgeport while working toward a substance abuse degree from Gateway Community College.
Then Jones switched to the hardwood floor industry, and eventually opened his own business in Shelton in 2004, All Premier Hardwood Flooring.
He has served on the Board of Aldermen, the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Americans With Disabilities board in Shelton.
Jones and his wife Joanne have two children — Gabriella, 3, and Brady, 1.
He’s well known in Shelton — and often called “Jonesey” by friends and acquaintances.
Lally said Jones is popular in the city.
“When you’re involved in politics, you need name recognition,” Lally said. “He has that. And he has a great deal of it throughout the city.”
Jones walked outside his campaign headquarters recently, and two people walking down the street greeted him, as well as a man driving by in his truck on Howe Avenue.
“The reason they greet him is because he has that kind of warmth and personality that people enjoy talking to him,” Lally said.
Lally said Jones would be a fair, honest and transparent mayor if elected.
“More than anything else, he’ll treat everyone equally,” Lally said.
