With Election Day less than 24 hours away, candidates in Ansonia duked it out online, a Republican candidate raised questions about Olson Drive, Derby Dems brought in big names to support mayoral challenger Anita Dugatto, while a local GOP’er predicted a wide margin win for incumbent Tony Staffieri.
Ansonia
Mayor James Della Volpe, a Democrat, is facing the toughest re-election campaign of his 14-year reign in Ansonia. He is being challenged by David Cassetti, a Republican who owns a city construction business.
Two years ago Republicans didn’t run a candidate against Della Volpe. This year the race is so hotly contested it warranted a mention by former state GOP party leader Christopher Healy on Fox CT’s “Capitol Report,” a Sunday political talk show.
The Republicans have been hammering the Della Volpe administration on a tax hike included in this year’s budget. The Democrats have been trying to explain the complexities of municipal budgeting during a state revaluation, while portraying themselves as the pro-education party in the city.
The Democrats sent in four guest columns to the Valley Indy over the weekend, including one from Della Volpe himself and a tough piece from state Rep. Linda Gentile, a Democrat who represents Ansonia and Derby in Hartford.
Alderman Edward Adamowski, a Democrat running for re-election, wrote a column attempting to explain the city’s tax rate, which prompted a debate on the Valley Indy Facebook page.
A column from Democratic Aldermen Jerome Fainer ignited a spirited discussion online as well.
Now the question to be answered Tuesday: are the complaints from the Republicans representative of the whole city, or a noisy few?
Olson Drive Drama
Charles Stowe, a Republican Second Ward Alderman running for re-election in the city’s First Ward, said Saturday (Nov. 2) he feels “misled” about the mayor’s public pronouncements about the federally-subsidized Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive after receiving a letter sent to the city last week from an official with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
A question on Tuesday’s ballot seeks permission from the public to borrow roughly $330,000 buy Olson Drive land from HUD south of High Street — the part of the complex now being demolished.
The letter, embedded at the end of this story, is from Jennifer Gottlieb, a HUD official in Hartford.
It says the property the federally subsidized housing complex is on cannot be sold without HUD permission and that the city’s housing authority is still obligated to replace units torn down on the site with a certain number of subsidized units on the site.
The document reiterates what the Valley Indy has been reporting for months.
Click here, here, and here for previous stories.
But Stowe said Gottlieb’s letter shows the city has not been negotiating with the feds about the project.
“I was shocked when I read this,” Stowe said.
“Has the mayor been leading us to believe that we’re going to be purchasing this property with a bond and (we’re) not?” Stowe asked.
“We in Ansonia have been misled down the garden path that that place was going to be cleaned up and be no more,” Stowe added later.
Della Volpe said Stowe is misinterpreting the letter.
The letter reiterates the Olson Drive issue as it stands at the moment.
But Ansonia officials still hope to purchase the land and have enlisted at least one U.S. Senator to help HUD negotiate.
“This is nothing new,” Della Volpe said Monday (Nov. 4). “There’s been negotiations going on.”
Della Volpe said he wasn’t surprised by anything in Gottlieb’s letter.
Essentially, he is trying to go over her head with the help of the city’s federal representatives to get HUD honchos to back off requiring the city to redevelop the property.
“We’re sticking to the position that we still want it as open space. I’m trying to get our federal delegation to intercede and help us out here,” Della Volpe said.
Della Volpe said Jimmy Miller, the interim director of the housing authority, is working with an engineering firm to identify sites in the city to relocate the 48 units currently being demolished.
Once they come up with a proposal, it will be formally presented to HUD, the mayor said.
The Valley Indy left a message at Miller’s office Monday.
Derby
The race is Derby has been much calmer compared to neighboring Ansonia.
But both campaigns are extremely confident heading into Election Day.
Anita Dugatto, the Democratic challenger, entered the weekend with an endorsement from the editorial board of the Connecticut Post. The endorsement was a major surprise, as the paper endorsed Staffieri at least two times previously. Staffieri’s campaign brushed off the endorsement by saying the authors didn’t spell out the reasons to support Dugatto.
Judy Szewczyk, a Republican campaign manager, indicated the paper’s out of touch, saying the Post rarely assigns a reporter to cover Derby news.
Dugatto attended the annual Ansonia-Derby Democratic brunch Sunday. The biggest names in the Democratic Party in Connecticut attended, including Gov. Dannel Malloy along with U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy.
Then, on Monday, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who previously penned a letter urging voters to vote for Dugatto, was in Derby for a late Democratic rally.
Dugatto and her slate stood at the intersection of Main and Elizabeth streets Monday evening, waving and getting horn honks of support from passing motorists.
“We are going to work right up until 7:59 p.m. Tuesday, “ Dugatto said.
Staffieri has kept a low-media profile during this campaign. The fact he was running for re-election, in fact, came in the form of a prepared statement after he actually made his intentions known at an event.
His campaign’s strategy has been to simply govern the city and not engage with his opponent, a strategy popular with incumbents who are, traditionally, extremely difficult to knock off.
He also declined an invitation to debate his opponent.
However, the Staffieri campaign sent out a flier residents received Friday isolating and criticizing votes Dugatto cast as a member of the city’s tax board.
The Valley Indy asked Szewczyk via e‑mail whether it was fair to send out a critical mailing when Staffieri wouldn’t face Dugatto in a public debate. Szewczyk said the flier would have been sent regardless of a debate.
“We just presented facts that are part of the public record. Her votes are recorded in the tax board minutes,” Szewczyk said. “Her ideas are published in her own literature. We were nice, actually, in not pointing out how many times she voted no on innocuous items stating the reason as ‘I don’t understand this’.”
Dugatto said the flier lacked context of any kind and that her tax board decisions can’t be boiled down to a snippet of text.
“I stand by every vote I make,” Dugatto said. She brushed off the flier as a last-ditch effort to make her look bad.
The mayor and his team, like Dugatto and her counterparts, have been endlessly knocking on doors to spread their messages.
An item stressed — Derby’s last budget included a slight mill rate decrease, and it happened under the mayor’s watch, although Democrats point out it happened under a tax board where Dems hold a majority.
“Lowering the mill rate was very important, given the economy. Our stress though is that we’ve done a very good job and it would serve Derby well to bring us all back!,” Szewczyk said.
While Staffieri barely won re-election in 2011, Republicans are predicting a larger win for Staffieri this time around.
Do the Republicans expect a wide-margin win?
“Of course,” Szewczyk said.
Dugatto disagreed.
“We’re going to win,” she said Monday evening as a sedan passed by her, the driver honking the horn in support.
