Phil Tripp, in a photo from his campaign’s Facebook page.
How did Ansonia go from #7 most distressed municipality in 2013 to #1 most distressed municipality in Connecticut in 2018?
My name is Phil Tripp.
I served in the military for 34 years, as President of the Board of Alderman. Now, I am running for Mayor of Ansonia. I am concerned over the news that Ansonia was just ranked the #1 most distressed municipality in Connecticut.
That’s right. Ansonia now owns the dubious rating as the most economically distressed municipality in Connecticut by the State Department of Economic Development.
I will get to work fixing problems immediately, using my background in the military, local government, and my master’s degree in business. It’s not too late. We must start by addressing the severe challenges at hand.
We spend money inefficiently, and our local economy is lagging.
Don’t take my word for it: The independent credit rating agency Standard
& Poor’s said when they recently downgraded Ansonia’s fiscal rating: “a lowered reserve position, is not offset by growth in the tax base.”
Too much waste. Wasteful lawsuits, personal feuds, poor planning, legal battles, and vitriol toward education. We are dropping the ball on the basics.
We paid the “Mayor next door” $30,000 to draft our budget. We pay someone $32,500 to take photos of the Mayor and post them on Facebook.
The Board of Aldermen eliminated that position. The Mayor brought him back.
We spent millions to “Wake-Up Wakelee.”
The idea was to make Wakelee Avenue a second Main St with added commercial potential. Then, they removed all street parking for businesses!
Now the only thing woken up on Wakelee is the peacefulness of residents dealing with all those expensive lights burning at night!
People are laughing at us. If it weren’t our money, it would be funny. It’s not funny. It’s expensive and wasteful.
We begged the state. We blamed the state. We borrowed millions.
We robbed Peter to pay Paul from the reserve fund.
However, the bill came due last year when the average homeowner saw a 10% increase in their tax bill! That kind of tax increase is as unacceptable today as it was in 2012.
We do too little to address the needs of working families.
We must invest in what makes Ansonia strong: our walkable neighborhoods, our parks, and acres of square feet of vacant space on Main Street.
We should draw upon our history, our resilience, our talented residents, and our next generation. We need non-profits bringing job training to Ansonia.
We need private sector partners to bring infrastructure to reduce the cost of living. We need to advertise the enormous real estate development potential in our downtown to regional and national developers.
We need a housing policy that does more than designate blighted buildings that have deteriorated so severely that their existence is a crime.
Let’s use the many local talented, passionate professionals ready to serve on our boards and commissions. They will contribute to our community for free!
That is smarter than paying Seymour’s first selectman to plan our budget.
I pledge that you will never question my honesty and loyalty. My integrity is not for sale. My commitment is to Ansonia first. We need real growth, honest budgets, and the vision to reverse a failing local economy.
The writer is running for Mayor of Ansonia on the Democratic line.
