Democratic Mayoral candidate Alicia Hernandez Strong and Board of Education Member, Dr. Violet Jiménez Sims, have criticized a campaign flyer from Republican Mayor Erin Stewart.
The flyer features former Police Chief and current Board of Police Commissioners member, James Wardwell, apparently wearing an official city Police Chief uniform, complete with a badge, official insignia patch, firearm and police radio. Wardwell is currently listed as a Stewart appointee on the city Board of Police Commissioners.
“There’s so much to unpack here,” Dr. Sims said, “including the design of the flyer which looks like a nod to the ‘thin blue line’ symbolism.”
“This is unacceptable on many levels,” Strong said, continuing that,
- As a retired chief, James Wardwell continues to receive a pension from the taxpayers of New Britain;
- Erin Stewart has appointed him to the Police Commission for the city of New Britain;
- Erin Stewart and the Republicans killed the proposal for a police civilian review board in New Britain in the fall. Effectively giving the police commission (which Wardwell is a part of, completely appointed by the Mayor) and the current chief of police most of the power;
- Now Wardwell is fundraising for the current Mayor.
“This is how power circulates in this city,” Strong added.
“So, we couldn’t have a CRB,” Dr. Sims said, referring to a strong civilian police review board that was voted down by City Council Republicans in a Council committee in 2020, “and part of the argument was that we already have an ‘impartial’ Police Commission.” Dr. Sims added,
Y’all keep thinking New Britain Republicans aren’t “those” types of Republicans while the mayor and her team do exactly what Trumplicans do. They refused civilian oversight of police and gaslit the community about why they shouldn’t even want that, continue to defund education, removed checks and balances for an appointed (NOT elected) body that gets to spend 10s of millions of taxpayer dollars, vetoed taking down the Columbus statue citing ‘cancel culture’, endorsed a known racist for a state seat even though he had to previously drop out of a local race due to his inflammatory racist posts, cuss out constituents over virtual “tea”… too many things to list here. But yeah, not New Britain. We’re immune to the effects of far right ideology here, smiles act as shields.
“We need a government that’s accountable to the people in this city,” Strong added.
