Unlike previous municipal elections, where I was one of the candidates for Board of Aldermen, I was only able to make one of the many forums and debates that the Mayoral candidates had throughout the city. The forum that I attended was the Downtown Merchants Forum that was held at the UCONN Waterbury branch on October 20. By attending that one event I was able to clearly decide that the right decision on Election Day would be to re elect Mike Jarjura.
During this particular forum, each of the three candidates for Mayor had an opportunity to address the crowd of merchants and interested citizens for about 40 minutes. Unlike a typical debate, each candidate would be able to present their opinions for downtown on their own. It seemed to me that it was a great chance for each candidate to do their best to ensure that the message they wanted to express was accurately portrayed to those in attendance.
First at the podium was Mayor Jarjura, who seemed to focus his message on making downtown one of Waterbury’s most vibrant communities. Mayor Jarjura admitted that the downtown area would not return to the status it once held. The City of Waterbury has changed, and our vision for downtown must change with it. Instead of a restoration of downtown, Mayor Jarjura seemed to speak of the need to reinvent downtown into something new and exciting. Mayor Mike Jarjura felt that downtown should be transformed into the government and cultural center. With market rate apartments and specialty shops, this would be a place that people want to live. Mayor Jarjura also spoke of the need to recognize the importance of arts and education as an economic driver for downtown Waterbury. Overall, Mayor Jarjura’s comments focused on what had already been accomplished downtown, while recognizing that a considerable amount of work still needed to occur.
The second speaker of the evening was Commissioner O’Leary, who provided a stark contrast to the comments of Mayor Jarjura. While Mayor Jarjura’s talk was mostly positive, Commissioner O’Leary’s comments were extremely critical. During the course of his presentation Commissioner O’Leary stated that the city had abandoned downtown and complained that downtown is both underutilized and underrepresented. Commissioner O’Leary’s comments made almost no mention of the work that Main Street Waterbury has done of the past 7 years, and presented an image of downtown as a place that was completely falling apart. While Commissioner O’Leary did compliment the fact that Waterbury is the safest city in Connecticut, he also referred to downtown as “filthy” multiple times. He also made an ill-timed reference to the fact that he was grateful that all of the businesses that had closed recently in Waterbury were small businesses. While I understand that what Commissioner O’Leary was trying to say was that no one closure had decimated the city’s employment figures, the fact that he made this remark to a room full of small business owners was unfortunate. Finally, during his remarks Commissioner O’Leary compared Waterbury to Providence, RI, but stated that it was unfortunate that we didn’t have as nice a river to capitalize on. This particular comment caught me off guard after all the work that has been done over the past three years trying to get a Naugatuck River greenway built through our downtown. Overall, I found Commissioner O’Leary’s remarks very discouraging and overly critical. He spent so much time telling us what was wrong with downtown, that he never got to tell us much about what his positive vision was for the future of this great city.
The final speaker of the evening was Alderman DePillo, who has (as I mentioned before) done an admirable job keeping a positive message before the voters. Alderman DePillo also expressed an opinion that not enough has been done to market and improve downtown Waterbury, and like any good challenger spoke of how he believed he could do a better job then Mayor Jarjura. However, while Commissioner O’Leary only spoke of the negatives, Alderman DePillo offered some alternatives to the present course of action that he felt would improve downtown. Some of the concepts that Alderman DePillo put before the attendees that night were the establishment of a “legal services” district in the downtown, as well as finding incentives to help new businesses get started, though he did not mention any specifics to support these ideas. Throughout his remarks Alderman DePillo spoke of a desire to abide by the wishes of the downtown building owners and business owners. He seemed like a candidate that truly wanted the input of the taxpayers before making any decisions or changes that would affect them personally.
In the final analysis, I was impressed by both Mayor Jarjura’s understanding of the situation downtown, and of Alderman DePillo’s research in learning and meeting as many of the individual business owners as possible before the forum. I was greatly disappointed by Commissioner O’Leary’s tone and attitude at the forum, and was turned off from even considering voting for him as a result of his comments that night. While I agree that Mayor Jarjura’s tenure has been far from perfect, and sometimes I believe the Mayor should be much more proactive then he currently is, I could not find any concrete reason not to support his reelection campaign. If I had felt a change was necessary for the city of Waterbury, then I would have given my support to Alderman DePillo. However, his belief that an industrial base would return to Waterbury in this national and state-wide economic climate made me feel that he was a close second to Mayor Jarjura.
I’m sure that there are some that will disagree with my opinions and my interpretation of the events at the forum on October 20, and I would welcome any comments from those who were also at the forum. Regardless of who you support, I hope everyone gets out and votes tomorrow, and when the sun rises on November 9, we can put the campaign behind us to work for the future of Waterbury.
After all, as Sen. Edward Livingston of Louisiana said back in 1830:
We undoubtedly think differently of particular measures, and have our preferences for particular men: these, surely, cannot arrange us into any but temporary divisions, lasting no longer than while the election of the man is pending, or the debate on the measure continues.
