By Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor

NEW HAVEN — A former Democratic alderman is the first person in Connecticut to declare his candidacy for secretary of the state.

Gerry Garcia, a financial adviser, who was 9th Ward alderman from 1996 to 2001, promised to be “a new voice to speak on behalf of Connecticut voters and small businesses.”

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz is one of three Democrats who have put together exploratory committees for governor in 2010, an office she also contemplated in 2006.

There has been a concerted effort among Latinos in the Democratic Party to put forward candidates for the state’s constitutional offices.

“It is time Connecticut’s Hispanic community broke through the glass ceiling and we had our first Latino constitutional officer. Gerry will be that person,” said Alderwoman Migdalia Castro, D-16.

Garcia has promised to work to make Connecticut an early voting state, which would allow citizens to send in a paper ballot during a limited period leading up to Election Day. Ballots are now available only to those who will be out of town on Election Day.

Garcia, 38, who attended city public schools and earned his undergraduate and master’s in business from Yale University, said he would try to make voting more accessible in the state and would build on reforms instituted by Bysiewicz.

Garcia, who is of Puerto Rican and Jewish descent, headed a Puerto Rican social service organization while at Yale, as well its largest Jewish fraternity.

He worked as an assistant project director at the Anti-Defamation League in 1994. After getting his master’s degree, he moved to New York, where he was an investment banker before returning to Connecticut in 2006.

Garcia is a financial adviser with LPL Financial and a consultant on strategy matters to a number of small companies. Continued...

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Matthew Nemerson, president and CEO of the Connecticut Technology Council and former president of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement, “Gerry Garcia is exactly the kind of person you hope will decide to go into public life, not because he needs to prove anything, but because he is effective and will make Connecticut a better place because of his energy and ideas.”

Stamford Mayor Dannel P. Malloy and former state House Speaker James A. Amann, D-Milford, also have exploratory committees for governor. Bysiewcz and Malloy have made the most headway in fundraising for the 2010 election.

Mary E. O’Leary can be reached at moleary@nhregister.com or 789-5731.

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