Eddie Perez (politician)
| Eddie Pérez | |
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| Mayor of Hartford, Connecticut | |
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In office January 1, 2001 – June 25, 2010 |
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| Preceded by | Michael P. Peters |
| Succeeded by | Pedro Segarra |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1957 Corozal, Puerto Rico |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Maria Perez |
| Alma mater | Capital Community-Technical College, Trinity College |
Eduardo Alberto "Eddie" Perez (born 1957) is a politician of Puerto Rican origin and served as mayor of Hartford, Connecticut from 2001-2010. Prior to entering politics, Perez worked as a community organizer. Perez served as the first Mayor who was also the CEO of the city and was widely credited with reducing crime, reforming the school system and sparking economic revitalization in the city. Perez's investment in educational reform and appointment of new leadership at the Board of Education led to significant increases in high school graduation rates in the city.
On July 14th, 2016 The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the December 9, 2013 decision of the Connecticut Appellate Court overturning Perez's state court conviction on bribery, fabricating evidence, and conspiracy to fabricate evidence in connection with the failed development of a vacant site and improvements to his home by a city contractor, and vacated his sentence.
Eddie Alberto Pérez was born in 1957 in Corozal, Puerto Rico, where he spent most of his childhood. In 1969 the Pérez family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, which had a growing number of Puerto Rican immigrants already living there. Puerto Ricans had first come to central Connecticut in significant numbers in the 1940s to work in the region's tobacco fields. Beginning in 1979 as a Vista volunteer, Perez founded O.N.E./C.H.A.N.E., a grassroots neighborhood organization dedicated to improving the housing and economic conditions in North Hartford. He then joined Make Something Happen as its director, in order to help the public housing residents in Hartford’s Stowe Village. In 1990, Perez became Trinity’s director of community and government relations. In 1999, Perez became the President of the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance, an organization sponsored by Trinity College and Hartford Hospital. As SINA’s president, Perez was instrumental in the foundation and implementation of the $250 million Learning Corridor, as a national model for education and public/private cooperation.
In his first run for political office in 2001, Eddie Pérez made history as the first Hispanic–American to become mayor of a New England capital. A native of Puerto Rico,Pérez also broke new political ground by forging a bipartisan coalition of community activists and corporate leaders that contributed to his landslide victory. Elected on a platform of administrative reform, educational improvement, and housing development, Pérez received seventy-five percent of the vote on election day. Pérez credited grassroots support for giving him the victory. He also pointed to the reinvigorated sense of citizenship that his campaign had generated in Hartford's Hispanic community. "There was no sense of building social, economic, and cultural capital as Americans,"he told the New York Times shortly after his election, "We have to begin to rebuild that foundation.".
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