• A 3rd option: Green candidates Paul Garlinghouse and Patricia Vener-Saavedra Tuesday at WNHH FM.

Paul Garlinghouse encountered speeding cars, an empty school building, and a home-needing puppy on his daily neighborhood walks. He ended up adopting the puppy — and running for office.

New Haven Independent
By Paul Bass
September 17, 2025

The two decisions are connected.

Garlinghouse is the only New Haven Green Party candidate running for office in New Haven’s municipal elections this year. He’s seeking the open 13th Ward alder seat in Fair Haven Heights, facing Democrat Mildred Melendez and Independent Luis Jimenez. On Tuesday he joined the Greens’ only Hamden candidate this year, mayoral hopeful Patricia Vener-Saavedrea, in a conversation about their campaigns on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

Garlinghouse, a 61-year-old family law attorney, talked about his daily walks on Quinnipiac Ave.

A month ago he was walking his partner’s dogs. He did own a dog himself. A driver stopped and approached him, showed him a small cage in the trunk with a Dachsund mix crammed inside. ​“Our daughter can’t take care of this dog,” the person told him. Would you take it?

So Garlinghouse, who grew up in a ​“big dog family,” placed the puppy on his lap in his car to drive to deliver her to the Cosgrove Animal Shelter in Branford.

He started wondering: ​“What if someone gets this dog and doesn’t have the patience or the knowledge to really train and be patient with the animal? A lot of people will get these dogs, and they’re not prepared to do what needs to be done.”

Garlinghouse got as far as Staples before turning back home to Ward 13. ​“I felt like: This is in front of me. So let’s do it.”

A month later, Garlinghouse is working with the puppy, now named Wednesday (“after the TV show”), on potty training and behavior modification.

Just as he’d like to work with the city, as an alder, on challenges like traffic calming, affordable housing, public education. He called for more well-designed speed bumps or redesigned streetscapes on hazardous roads. He’d like the city to reconsider the idea of selling the vacant former Jepson elementary building on Quinnipiac to a housing developer; he’d rather repurpose the building in line with its original educational function while creating new housing in abandoned or decrepit housing developments near Bella Vista. He also would push for an elected Board of Education focused on spending more in the classroom rather than executive suites and for the Democracy Fund to expand public financing to alder campaigns.

“I walk out in front of my house and I see obvious problems, whether it’s litter, whether it’s terrible speeding, whether it’s a car that’s plowed into two cars right in front of my house, dilapidated, neglected housing, homeless people pushing their shopping carts. I spend a lot of time walking around, trying not to drive or use gas and contribute to the global warming, because we’re Greens. And there’s just things that need doing. I don’t think they’re getting done with the current arrangements” under municipal Democratic Party rule.

Patricia Vener-Saavedra said she leans more on her identity as a Marxist rather than a Green in her quest to serve as Hamden’s next mayor. She faces Democrat Adam Sendroff and Republican Jonathan Katz.

That distinction is relevant to Vener-Saavedra’s position on eminent domain.

A key campaign plank concerns improving life for tenants at apartment complexes owned by big landlords. Vener-Saavedra said she would promote transitioning those developments to tenant-owned cooperatives (like New Haven’s Seabury Co-ops and Florence Virtue Homes).

She said she doesn’t yet have details of how to make that happen. She said she’d consult with tenant unions, then look for successful models in other U.S. and European communities to emulate.

How would she gain control of the properties to make the switch?

“I’d start fining them for not keeping up their buildings, and when they balk at it, I’d raise the fines more. And then when they say things like, ​‘Well, we’ll just leave,’ I’ll say, ​‘OK, bye, bye.’ ” She said she would ​“definitely use eminent if it was possible” to gain control of the complexes for conversion to co-ops.

The Green Party in Connecticut has been skeptical or outright opposed to eminent domain.

“I’m not actually a deep Green. I’m a Marxist,” said Vener-Saavedra

Vener-Saavedra, 72, said she has worked as an astrophysicist, artist, and caregiver. She served on the most recent town charter revision commission. That work convinced her, she said, that Hamden should hire a town manager or chief operating officer with credential and experience in municipal management, to replace the current mayoral chief of staff and assistant chief of staff. That person would be responsible for day-to-day implementation of the mayor’s vision.

She also vowed to work harder on a ​“plan of action” for remediation at homes of Newhall neighbors whose homes are on contaminated land.

Photo by Paul Bass

Click on the below video to watch the full conversation with Green Party candidates Paul Garlinghouse and Patricia Fener-Saavedra on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.” Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of ​“Dateline New Haven.”