Frank Logue

Frank Logue (August 18, 1924 - December 31, 2010) was the 25th mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, serving from 1976 to 1979.

His mother was widowed, leaving her to support five children during the depression on a kindergarten teacher's salary. Frank Logue and his three brothers all attended Yale University, where, after Pearl Harbor, they enlisted in the military reserves. Frank Logue was called to active duty in 1943, served as an infantry soldier in France, and returned to Yale, graduating in 1948, and going on to attend Yale Law School.^[1]

Logue entered politics in Trumbull, Connecticut in 1953, becoming a Democratic district leader, then a prosecutor, and then town attorney. He ran for state representative in 1960, and lost. He served in the Kennedy administration as a part-time staff person for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

At age 40 he moved his family to New Haven, where he organized and directed an institute to train community organizers and neighborhood workers in the War on Poverty. He later created and directed "National Urban Fellows",^[2] an urban leadership development program for minorities and women. He was subsequently elected to the New Haven Board of Aldermen, representing the city's 18th Ward for two two-year terms, from 1972 to 1975.^[1][3]

Bucking the New Haven Democratic party machine, he ran as a liberal reform candidate against the party's candidate, incumbent Bart Guida, in the 1975 mayoral primary and went on to win the primary and the general election. He took office as mayor on January 1, 1976. He won renomination in the September 1977 primary by a margin of 243 votes over challenger Biagio DiLieto and was re-elected to a second term in November of that year. However, he lost the primary to DiLieto in his bid for a third two-year term in 1979.^[1][4]

Frank Logue's brother Edward, a Yale Law School graduate who married the daughter of William DeVane, dean of Yale College, was an influential city planner who was Mayor Lee's right-hand man on most administrative matters.

After leaving the mayor's office, Logue was an active civic volunteer in New Haven and worked as a labor arbitrator and as a consultant to organizations including the Ford Foundation. He died in Hamden, Connecticut, on December 31, 2010.^[1][5]

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