Republican Registrar Retires

This half of Cityline dropped into the registrar of voters’ office this morning to ask some questions for a story I’m writing, and came away with another tidbit. Turns out Salvatore Bramante, the city’s Republican registrar of voters, is retiring and today is his last day.

Sheila N. Hall, the Republican deputy registrar of voters, will replace him, he told me. He declined to discuss why he was retiring or why he ran for re-election this past November (he won) if he was planning to retire.

Bramante joined the registrar of voters’ office in February 1994 as a deputy Republican registrar. When Republican Registrar Joseph DeLorenzo retired in January 2008, Bramante was appointed to replace him. He went on to win his own term in November 2008, and he’s been registrar ever since.

Salvatore Bramante (File Photo by Rick Hartford)

Over the last year, Bramante has been caught up in some of the drama brewing between the registrars’ office, the city council and the mayor’s office over departmental funding. You can read about that here, here and here.

Mayor Pedro Segarra last week submitted a resolution to the city council that would transfer $66,000 from the city’s contingency fund to help offset budget overruns in the registrars’ office. The office is about $152,000 over budget this year. Segarra has asked that the registrars close the remaining $86,000 gap by “reducing other components in their budget.”

Check out the Hartford town page later today for more on this.