People are neat!" Mayor H. Richard Borer Jr., campaigning door-to-door in West Haven, has just met a new constituent. She's lived here for five years, having emigrated from Cuba, and she likes this little section of the Allingtown neighborhood, tucked between Forest Road and the West River Memorial Park. "It's nice and quiet," she says.

Borer tells her he's running for re-election on Nov. 8. He asks if she's a U.S. citizen and, after she says yes, promises to send her a voter registration form. She thanks him. They say goodbye.

A career politician steeped in the cynical and cutthroat world of West Haven politics, Borer is nonetheless a master of the wide-eyed, geewillikers sentiment, uttered with no hint of irony. That trait, along with his boyish looks and regular-guy persona, has helped the lanky 49-year-old win re-election again and again in a town where the political factions trade loyalties as frequently as Afghan warlords, and almost as brutally.

Now, after 14 years of hopping from alliance to alliance, Borer faces his toughest challenge ever. Two of those warlords--both former Borer allies--have united against him. He lost the Democratic Party endorsement, and rather than slug his way through a primary, as he did in the last two elections, the seven-term mayor is running as a petition candidate on the A Better Future line. The city's tiny Republican Party, which might be expected to help Borer by taking at least a few anti-incumbent votes away from Democrat John Picard, changed candidates just two weeks ago and is bitterly divided. (It's technically a five-way race, with perennial candidate Curtis Jordan on the Reform Party ticket and political novice Keith Huber for the Blue Wolf Party, which he says derives from his nickname, "Wolf Head," and his favorite color.) Borer's name will appear fourth on the ballot, way down on Row D.

"I think it's going to be a close election," he says. "The other sides have all teamed up against me, even though they might not like each other."

"Uh, yeah, I do," he responds, then quickly adds, "I think I win either way. If I win, I get to continue the work I love. And if I lose, I get to take the abilities God gave me and use them in a different direction. I'm cool either way."

Sided in two shades of gray, the place is unremarkable except for the signs posted on the wooden front porch. One, with a picture of a hand brandishing a six-barrel revolver, snarls: Forget about the DOG. Beware of the OWNER. The other sign, this one hand-made, also bears a drawing of a gun and the words: Warning: I don't dial 911!

Beneath the Eagle Scout exterior lurk a sly wit and a willingness to jab back at his critics. It's a side he doesn't show as often, at least not to adversarial reporters. But that down-and-dirty toughness, combined with a knack for sizing up risks (example: nobody answers the door at the gun house), is also part of Borer's survival skills.

He has survived a lot since becoming mayor in 1991. A sampling of Borer controversies: the bribery conviction of his good friend and fellow mayor Joe Ganim of Bridgeport, a number of whose corrupt associates were also entangled in West Haven politics; a federal lawsuit by two sisters claiming Borer cut their City Hall jobs after they backed his opponent; persistent complaints about racist public schools and a brutal police force; and relentless pounding by this newspaper for scandals ranging from the petty (paying a campaign contributor's company $68,900 to put plywood walls on an existing gazebo) to the plunderous (handing millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to politically connected firms).

As early as the mid-'90s, Borer talked about stepping down as mayor and running for high sheriff--a now-defunct position that had little to do with law enforcement and everything to do with patronage politics. Now he disparages his adversary, Democratic town chairman Jim Morrissey, for resisting the reforms that eliminated the high sheriff's post and turned deputies like Morrissey into judicial marshals.

Two years ago, Borer wondered out loud why he put up with constant sniping by his enemies, complaining that he could make more money mowing lawns than he did as mayor. But he ran again that year. And he's running again this year, despite being in the most serious political trouble of his career.

His opponents say voters are tired of rising taxes and promised development projects that never happen, and that politicos are tired of the way Borer turns on cronies who cross him.

Borer offers a simpler explanation. "The veteran politicians always reject me," he says, "because I say no" when they demand jobs for their relatives or contracts for their friends.

Take the veteran politicians first. Borer's political roots go back to his youth. His father, Herman Richard Borer Sr., was Democratic warden--the equivalent of mayor--of Milford's borough of Woodmont, and young Rich managed Dad's unsuccessful run for state representative in the '70s. He also worked for his father in the family business, Cameo Ice Cream. Later, his father expanded to an ice cream distributorship called Buck's Spumoni.

As an adult, Borer Jr. launched his own political career by taking on West Haven's notorious Democratic machine boss, Harold Allen. Dubbed "the Ice Cream Man," the fresh-faced newcomer organized a citizen group to fight a neighborhood dump and its politically connected owners. He ran for mayor in 1987 and 1989, losing both times.

Then, in 1991, Borer and an ally named Wayne Talamelli toppled the Allen machine. Talamelli became the new party chairman. They were the clean team, sweeping out the corrupt old pols.

Times were tough in West Haven. City Hall was on the brink of bankruptcy and under state financial supervision. Borer's campaign literature boasts of how he turned the city's finances around.

But amid growing dissension in 2000, Jim Morrissey--who'd been part of the old Harold Allen gang--staged a revolt and took over the Democratic Town Committee, ousting Chairman Wayne. Morrissey presented his team as the reform slate. Borer, who'd stuck with Talamelli, lost control of his own party.

Not for long. In what he called a "painful" split, Borer dumped Talamelli and made peace with Morrissey in time for the 2001 election season. Talamelli, in turn, backed Picard in a primary challenge to Borer.

"I've always had an arrangement with Wayne Talamelli," Borer said then. "’I'm gonna be the mayor, and I'll run the city. You be the chairman, and you run the party.' There's not a lot of room for a political agenda [in running the city]. But that's what Wayne wanted. I've had to say no."

So the alliances swung from Richie, Wayne & John vs. Jimmy (2000) to Richie & Jimmy vs. Wayne & John (2001).The Borer-Morrissey team won the 2001 primary easily. But the team didn't last long. By 2003 Borer, Morrissey and Picard all split, running a three-way mayoral primary. (Talamelli sat it out.) Borer won with just under 41 percent of the vote. Now Talamelli and Borer are together again. Morrissey and Picard have united against them. Borer explains this rift exactly the way he explained his rift with Talamelli four years ago: "I've had to say no."

He rattles off a list of his appointments that break the old-boy mold: a white woman to run public works, a Latina personnel director, two black female police commissioners, a female deputy chief. That bugs his opponents, he says. "They very clearly want the political gang."

"I told him, ’You can't be here to make money,'" Borer says indignantly. He goes on to recount other instances in which, he says, Morrissey, Picard and Talamelli pressured him to throw jobs or contracts to people they favored.

This criticism comes from the mayor whose construction manager gets paid a percentage of every city and school-board building project--creating an incentive to drive costs up--under a contract that has never gone out to bid. This from the mayor who bought property at an inflated price from the family of a city department head, for a new police station to be built by that same construction manager--the brother of the then-police chief. This from the mayor whose administration has spent at least $9 million--much of it never accounted for--on a putative Sawmill Road development project that has been "about to happen" since 1997.

As part of that project, Borer tried to get the developer to partner with a local contractor, authorized the contractor to do demolition work that was the developer's responsibility, and signed a secret deal for the city to pick up the demolition costs. The same demolition contractorEarth Technology of North Haven, which got millions of dollars of no-bid work cleaning up contaminated soil at West Haven schoolshas been under state and federal investigation for doing free or cut-rate work at the homes of state officials who oversaw similar cleanup contracts.

One star of those scandals was Ganim, the Bridgeport mayor. Like Borer, he was first elected in 1991 to bring a city back from the fiscal precipice. (Ganim's predecessor actually tried to declare municipal bankruptcy but was blocked in court.) Like Borer, Ganim was young, personable and intelligent, a rising star in the state Democratic Party. He earned applause for cleaning up the city's finances and for building some big public projects. The two mayors socialized together. They hired some of the same contractors, collected money from some of the same campaign contributors.

Then word leaked of an FBI investigation into payoffs in Bridgeport City Hall. Guilty pleas piled up, including those of two close Ganim cronies, with all evidence pointing to the mayor as the man in the middle of the conspiracy. Observers pointed out that several of the people who pleaded guilty to Bridgeport bribery had also landed city contracts in West Haven, or had donated to Borer's campaigns.

Suddenly Borer became Mr. Clean. That's the first time he complained about Talamelli (his ally for 10 years) and Picard having their hands out for jobs and contracts. When I went to interview Borer during the 2001 primary campaign against Picard, his secretary directed me not to the mayor's office but to a creek on Blohm Street where the mayor stood waist-deep in muddy water, picking up debris.

Truth is, West Haven voters don't seem to care about ethics or corruption. Picard, who blasts City Hall for "unethical and possibly illegal" spending practices, doesn't deny that he used his positions on the sewer commission and City Council to try to get investment business for himself and his firm. He just denies there was anything wrong with that. He was only trying to help.

"They had $3 million just sitting in the sewer fund," Picard says. "I said, ’Hey, we could do better.' That's my job. All I asked was to make a presentation and put this out to bid." The same goes for his attempts to get a piece of two retirement funds. "Listen, I'm a certified financial planner. It's been my job for 10 years."

Picard said last spring that he would fill out an ethics disclosure form that's required of all city officials, but not of candidates. He has not done so.

"I could," he says, like a schoolboy trying to duck a dare without sounding chicken. "It's not even a problem." But he also says the current ethics form "has absolutely no teeth." The bottom line: "When I'm mayor, I'll sign it."

Picard also complains that while Borer did file a disclosure form, "he didn't put anything on it. He didn't put that he hired his campaign manager [Rick Fontana, not actually the campaign manager but a key operative and City Council candidate] to run homeland security" for West Haven.

When he's out campaigning, Picard says, voters don't talk about ethics. They talk about high taxes, the lack of economic development, and the need to preserve West Haven's shoreline.

Property taxes have risen each of the last five years. When you add the separate fire-district taxes, homeowners pay more than $50 per $1,000 of assessed value (compared to $42.53 per $1,000 in New Haven and lower rates in surrounding towns).

"I've been out since July, campaigning door to door, and people are just tired," Picard says. "They want someone to manage the city much better. The city's in an enormous amount of debt. The mayor doesn't believe it's a problem. We're borrowing money for everythingstreets, sidewalks. Those all [should be] part of the operating budget. Seventeen million dollars a year right now we pay, just interest on our debt. That's 10 mills."

If elected, Picard pledges a "full forensic audit" to shed light on West Haven's mysterious financial practices; a "functioning finance board"; and a full-out effort to start paying down the debt. "People want the taxes lower," he says. "I tell them we can't do that yet. We've got to stabilize the taxes first."

Take the Sawmill Road project. The city just granted an extension to its third preferred developer, which, like its predecessors, promises to bring in new stores but has yet to deliver. The city has also been talking for years about a new train station, which the state has not approved, and keeps floating rumors that United Illuminating will move its headquarters to West Haven. Picard points out that UI's current New Haven lease runs until 2011, and that the company is looking at space in several communities, not just West Haven.

No one mentions these economic issues on the bright October afternoon when I go door to door with Rich Borer. Most of his conversations with voters are brief. When people do raise substantive issues, they're much closer to home.

We arrive at a house on North Place where two dogs are barking inside the chain-link fence. "I'm skipping this one," Borer tells me with a wry grin as we stand outside the fence on the sidewalk. But the barking draws the attention of the homeowner, who comes to the door.

He goes back into the house, emerges in a pair of work boots, and comes out to show Borer what he means: a strip of grass, maybe 15 feet wide, running along the street between the curb and the outside of his fence.

Borer explains that to buy the property, the man needs to get the city to legally abandon it. He outlines the process step by step, writes the information on a campaign flyer, and hands it to the homeowner.

At another house, a man answers the door on crutches, explaining that he was in a motorcycle accident at the nearby intersection of Forest Road and Route 1. Borer describes in detail the state Department of Transportation's plans to fix that "very dangerous" intersection. As they chat, it emerges that Borer also knows that an industrial building down the block recently changed ownership after the previous owner's sudden death.

More important than the nitty-gritty of property acquisition and roadwork, though, are the personal relationships he's forgedlike at the house where he greets the owner as "Chuckie!" and knows that the man's baby granddaughter was named for her late grandmother. And those relationships hinge less on what kind of mayor Borer is than on what kind of person he's perceived to be.

That comes through in conversations with a couple of volunteers I meet at Borer campaign headquarters. It's a recently vacated storefront on Campbell Avenue, across from the West Haven Green and just down from City Hall. Filling the windows are campaign posters with slogans like Stop Politics for Profit! and Strong Women! Strong West Haven! Vote Row D.

When I stop by in the middle of a weekday afternoon, the place is quiet. So Jayne, who declines to give her last name, has a few minutes to chat about why she's giving up her free time to work for Borer's re-election.

She met the mayor in 1995, when West Haven hosted the Special Olympics. Jayne's son was a participant. Borer greeted the young man, treating him with dignity and respect despite his disabilities.

Jayne introduces me to Janice Riles, another volunteer whose t-shirt reads, Simply the Best Grandma. Riles says she met Borer before he was mayor, when he worked as a Beazley real estate agent. He sold her house in New Haven after a serious fire, and he helped Riles, her mother and her sister find homes in West Haven.

The two volunteers recite the litany of economic development proposals as though the projects were built and occupied, rather than promises that surface every election year and disappear in between.

"Sawmill Road is just about done," Riles says with evident sincerity. "The last thing that's left is the railroad." Jayne confides that "the UI has chosen West Haven."

They're true Borer believers, these two. And it's clear that their attachment to the mayor is entirely personal. He's kind to Special Olympians. He shows up for school plays and senior citizens' celebrations. Episodes that strike me as transparent political stunts, like wading in a muddy ditch to prove he's a working mayor, or saying he skipped a primary this year because he wanted to save taxpayers money, ring true for Jayne and Janice.

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