There will be a contested mayor’s race in Ansonia this year.
Democratic Alderman Edward Adamowski filed paperwork Tuesday (July 7) seeking his party’s nomination to challenge Republican Mayor David Cassetti, who took office in December 2013 after defeating seven-term incumbent James Della Volpe by 700 votes.
In that election the city’s Democrats went from having a 10 – 4 majority over Republicans on the Board of Aldermen to being outnumbered 9 – 5. Attrition since the election has given the local GOP a current 10 – 4 majority of their own.
Adamowski, a longtime volunteer firefighter and also the chairman of the Democratic Town Committee, was one of four of the city’s eight incumbent Democratic Aldermen to survive the 2013 GOP revolt.
He says he’s not expecting any challenges for his party’s nod when members caucus July 23.
“I do not expect any,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be.”
The Valley Indy emailed two other prominent Democrats considering runs — former Alderman David Knapp and Tara Kolakowski, Della Volpe’s chief of staff —on Friday (July 10) asking whether they’re still considering candidacies.
Kolakowski said Friday that she has not yet made a decision about a run.
Cassetti announced in January he would seek a second term in office.
Adamowski said Friday he had been on the fence about his candidacy for months but decided to enter the race because residents deserve more fiscal transparency and a viable alternative to Cassetti.
Background
A 39-year-old Kathy Lane resident, Adamowski grew up in Ansonia and graduated from Platt Technical High School.
He currently works as an HVAC technician.
He’s also an assistant chief with the city’s volunteer fire department, in which he has served for 21 years.
He has three daughters and has coached girls softball in the past as well.
This year marks his sixth on the Board of Aldermen, representing three terms of service.
IssuesAdamowski said Friday that he’ll present a detailed platform in the coming weeks, but that economic development and fiscal transparency will be the biggest issues he raises during the campaign.
He charged the current administration with presenting a “false budgets” that created tax cuts by counting money taken from the city’s fund balance as revenue.
In the past two years the city passed budgets that counted $550,000 and $2 million, respectively, from the fund balance as revenue.
Adamowski said Cassetti’s “tax relief” is a mirage that will come crashing down if the city stays on its current course.
“The budgets are false, they’re not actual,” Adamowski said. “They took $2 million out of the reserve to fund the budget, so the (tax) decrease that everybody got is just something to keep them in (office).”
“It’s a short-term fix and there’s nothing in place long-term to alleviate it,” Adamowski said. “You just can’t sustain that for long.”
Republicans have said the fund balance had been built up too high, resulting in over-taxation.
Adamowski said he knows he has his work cut out for him, but that he’s willing to put in the legwork getting his message to voters.
“I’m going to go out and I’m going to speak to every single resident as much as I can,” he said. “I understand it’s going to be very hard to defeat somebody who lowered taxes two years in a row. I get it. But my job is going to make the residents understand how he lowered their taxes. If they still choose to vote for him after they see it in black and white, that’s how it’s going to be.”
Can He Win?
In an unscientific straw poll in the Valley Indy’s story about Cassetti announcing his re-election bid, nearly 80 percent of respondents said they’d vote for the mayor.
But Adamowski pointed to another straw poll taken three months later, when the Valley Indy reported a company owned by the mayor owes the IRS more than $100,000 in back taxes and is facing foreclosure.
In that poll, 54 percent of those taking part said Cassetti’s business dealings affected their opinions of him.
Last month the IRS filed another lien against the company totaling $110,507.17, representing unpaid taxes from June 2013 to September 2014.
Cassetti said the unpaid taxes resulted from an accountant stealing money from the company, which is now run by his son Anthony, a Fifth Ward Alderman. A police investigation is ongoing.
Asked about the issue Friday, Adamowski said Cassetti’s tax woes don’t well for his management of the city, and that residents agree with him.
“I think the poll that you took on your website answered that question for you,” he said Friday. “Last time I checked on it most of the people went on there and said that it did matter.”
But he said he doesn’t plan on making the issue a major facet of his campaign.
“I’m not going to bring that up against him,” Adamowski said.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the city, but unaffiliated voters outnumber both parties.
Cassetti Reacts
The mayor on Friday welcomed Adamowski to the race and said he’s looking forward to the campaign.
“I’m excited to have an opponent,” he said.
“As you know I’m a fighter, and I believe you need an opponent,” Cassetti, a former boxer, said.
Adamowski is a “good guy,” the mayor said, though they obviously differ in their political beliefs.
Debate?
During the 2013 campaign Cassetti and Della Volpe participated in a debate organized by the Valley Indy that drew a standing room only crowd to the high school auditorium.
Cassetti said Friday that he’d be open to another debate.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I think we’re going to need to debate.”
“He’s talking about the fund balance and how we shouldn’t have touched the money,” Cassetti said. “He doesn’t understand that that was way too high. I did investigations, I checked everything out about other towns and what their fund balances were, and we were way over. He doesn’t agree with it.”
Adamowski, however, said he would “probably not” be open to a debate with Cassetti.
He said he’ll win the election at voters’ front doors.
“To be honest with you, the people that go to these debates already got in mind who they’re voting for,” Adamowski said. “It’s not reaching the people on the fence.”
