Paul Bass on DeStefano and the Ivory Tower

Paul Bass, JE '82, is the associate editor of the New Haven Advocate, a liberal weekly newspaper that offers local political commentary. Bass is arguably the loudest voice at the paper, writing the cover story and an editorial column for nearly every issue, as well as any number of side stories. He began writing for the Advocate in 1981 while an undergraduate at Yale, and has been on the staff since 1989. The Herald sat down with Bass in his Advocate office on Thurs., Oct. 28.

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH Paul Bass, associate editor of the New Haven Advocate, says that Mayor John DeStefano Jr. is unethical.

Yale Herald: Which mayoral candidate [John DeStefano or James Newton] would you, as a citizen, prefer to have in office?

Paul Bass: Neither.

YH: Which mayoral candidate would you, as a journalist, prefer to have in office?

PB: They're both funny. They both make life hilarious for me. But I was happy when [Mayor John] DeStefano [Jr.] was doing good things his first few years, and writing about it. I was very happy about that as a citizen and a journalist.

YH: This past fall, of course, he came under fire for allegedly approving an illegal loan of federal funds to an employee. Do you think there's any chance DeStefano will start doing those "good things" again?

PB: No. Very little. I think the lesson he's taken from that episode is no one was arrested, whereas from the beginning this wasn't about criminality, this was about ethics. This goes back to the eighties, when he wasn't the mayor, when he wrote a report saying it was okay for the administration to pay a $20,000 bribe to get a federal grant, and they had to pay back the grant. It was on the front page of the [New York] Times and there was a lot of embarrassment. To this day he's never seen anything wrong with that, because there wasn't anything illegal; it was just unethical. After all this he doesn't get the difference between ethics and criminality. DeStefano feels like if you can get away with it, fine. He's internalized that lesson; he laughs about how he can't have done anything wrong because no one has been arrested. That's very sad for me. We've been all around it, for hours talking about it, and he will never get that distinction. He never has for the thirteen years I've known him.

YH: DeStefano has an overabundance of sophistication. Does his opponent, James Newton, have anywhere near enough to be Mayor?

PB: He has a lot more than I gave him credit for when the campaign started. He could actually get done some of the things he has promised in his campaign.

YH: Is Yale the "Ivory Tower"?

PB: Yes. It's trying not to be. Yale is a lot better than when I went there, miles better—huge difference. I think there are certain ways it will never overcome its inherent elitism and stuffiness and condescension, but I think it's trying to do the right thing very hard in a lot of places. People sometimes can get misconceptions about how much a multibillion-dollar corporation is going to do if it's engrossed in its own self-interest. But I think Yale has moved the form of its self-interest to enlightened capitalism. And when I go back and talk to Yale now, I see a quarter to a half of the students involved, people ask great questions about the city, they follow it. And University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, understands he's engaged in the city. I agree with him about some things, disagree with him about other, but he sees himself as a citizen.

YH: How is Broadway doing these days?

PB: I think in all it's pretty good what [Yale is] doing there. I think they'll never overcome their highhandedness. They're convinced they can bring in these experts who know better than the people who took care of the stores for thirty years about what people would like. But maybe they'll prove right. Right now there are a lot of empty storefronts, but it's going to be a lot nicer. They should be more understanding about what happens to the businesses—the Quality Wine guy who caters Yale events does a lot for Yale and is important to that community, lost his business because of Yale's plan. They were just jerks to him.

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