He was the ultimate political survivor.

Kidney cancer finally claimed Charles H. “Chuck” Allen III Sunday evening at the age of 55, ending the life of a native New Havener who helped shape public policy — and just as often dissented from it — from the mid-1970s into the 1990s.

Allen represented Newhallville on the Board of Aldermen from 1976 to 1988. Sometimes he was an ally of City Hall in crafting legislation or deciding ward-level issues. Other times he was the board’s most outspoken and informed critic of City Hall’s complex downtown development deals or neighborhood housing plans. An accountant by training, he provided a level of independent scrutiny rare to this day on New Haven’s legislative body.

During that time Allen survived a series of controversies and primary challenges. Several times his career was declared dead, only to have him reemerge as a state senator in the early ’90s, then a mayoral aide to the DeStefano administration. He served on a myriad of volunteer boards.

“One of A Kind”

Former Alderman Willie Greene was Allen’s sometimes co-consipirator, sometimes sparring partner in Newhallville.

“No one will ever fill the shoes of Chuck Allen,” Greene said Monday.

The two joined forces in the early ’80s when Greene ran a community center in Newhallville. They organized protests against the administration of Mayor Biagio DiLieto, which was cutting funding. The belief was that the center was being punished for Allen’s independent politics.

Years later, the DiLieto administration helped Greene run against Allen in a campaign to unseat critics on the Board of Aldermen. (Greene would eventually disappoint City Hall; he won the race, then became just as outspoken a critic of the Democratic machine’s plantation politcs in the black community.)

“I remember when I decided I would run against Chuck,” Greene said. “I struggled with it. Vinnie Mauro [Mayor’s DiLieto’s Democratic town chairman and chief political enforcer) had asked me to run. Chuck and I met at the old Hattie’s when it was on Fitch Street, before it moved to Science Park.

“I’ll never forget it. Chuck reaches across the table. He sticks his finger in my face and says, ‘Willie you’ve been a good director. But you need to leave politics to the big boys. I’m gonna kick your ass on name recognition alone.’

“I had come to say I wasn’t running. Instead I said, ‘I’m gonna kick your ass.’ He walked out and slammed the door.

“My own mother was mad at me when I beat Chuck. She walked around for two days and wouldn’t say anything to me.

“Chuck didn’t speak to me for six months. Then he called me and said, ‘Willie, I’m really proud of you. I really thought that Ben DiLieto had bought you. But you went down there and did some things that even I wouldn’t do.’ Every two weeks Chuck and I were sitting down, and I was telling him what I was planning to do. It was like sitting down with an instructor. I’d write down my letter. He’d tear it up. He had his index cards. He’d say, ‘This is what I want to see when you come back to me.’ He was such a brilliant guy.”

Out Of The Closet

As a reporter, I always found Allen among the most informed, intelligent, unpredictable, interesting, and just plain fun public figures in town to interview and follow. It’s fair to say he served as one of my professors as well in that rarefied academy known as New Haven Politics.

Allen lived by a credo of New Haven’s political survivors: If you get slammed on Tuesday, Wednesday is another day. If he disliked an expose that named him in the newspaper one day, he was always ready to participate in discussion about a different story the next. He never ran from a fight.

He continued to surprise — and challenge — us after he moved to New York. In 2004, after surviving nine separate operations that could have claimed his life, Allen gave an interview about his upcoming marriage to Harlem gallery owner Tod Roulette. (Tod introduced Chuck to the beauty of Gregorian chants. Chuck turned Tod on to the Temptations and Diana Ross.)

In the interview, Allen spoke about the life of a gay black politician. He challenged New Haven’s black church to apply the same spirit of inclusiveness and compassion to the gay community’s struggle that it championed during the civil rights movement a generation earlier.

A memorial service for Chuck Allen will take place Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 7 p.m at St. Philips Church, 204 W. 134 St., between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and Frederick Douglass Blvd. in New York City.

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Obituary

Charles H. (Chuck) Allen, III, 55, born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 23, 1953 died after a long battle with kidney cancer. He was a leading political and community leader in New Haven for much of his life.

A lifelong resident of New Haven, Chuck attended New Haven public schools, and graduated from The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut and earned a BS in Accounting from the University of Connecticut, and an MPA from the Robert Wagner School of Public Administration at New York University.

Chuck served much of his life in public service part time while pursuing a career as Accountant with the former Touche Ross firm. He served as Alderman representing the 21st District in the Newhallville neighborhood of New Haven from 1976-1988, chairing the Municipal Services and serving as the Board's President Pro Tempore from 1984-1988. He also served at Connecticut State Senator from the 10th District representing parts of New Haven and West Haven from 1990-1992, and served as Special Assistant to the Mayor of the City of New Haven from 1994-2002.

Long active in community and civic affairs, Chuck served as a Board member of the Greater New Haven NAACP from 1977 to 1990, Executive Director of Newhallville Neighborhood Corporation (1974-1976), Executive Director of Heritage Hall Development Corporation, a Yale University-backed non profit community economic development corporation and minority enterprise small business development corporation (1982-1986), and incorporator and first Treasurer and a Board Member of the Newhallville Mental Health Corporation and Connecticut Fund for the Environment. Allen was also chairman of the Newhallville Enterprise Zone Planning Committee for several years in the early 2000's. Chuck lent his considerable energy and talents in service on the Board of Directors of numerous organizations in the community over the years, including Project MORE (an prisoner re-entry and alternative incarceration organization), the Quinnipiac Council, Boy Scouts of America's Central (New Haven) district, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church vestry and many others.

Allen was predeceased by predeceased by father Charles H. Allen II and sister Dawn. He is survived by his partner, Tod Roulette of New York City; mother Norma Jenkins and sister of New Haven; brother Tony of New York City; brother Mark of Enfield, Conn., and a host of relatives including several nieces and nephews, godchildren.

A memorial service will be Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 7p.m at St. Philips Church, 204 W. 134 St., between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and Frederick Douglas Blvd. in New York City. Memorial Gifts may be made to the Senator Chuck Allen, III scholarship fund at St. Philip's for high school seniors continuing to college, care of the St. Philip's Federal Credit Union.