Top Five Stories Of The Year

Here are my top five picks for stories of the year in the lower Naugatuck Valley.

The Valley Indy covers Ansonia, Derby and Seymour. That means the stories are from those towns.

On a personal note: thanks so much for supporting The Valley Indy this year — and every year since 2009.

This publication is made possible thanks to foundation grants and reader support. It is just that simple.

Our coverage will improve in 2024 — and that’s a fact.

5. Ansonia Approves $132 Million In Borrowing

Ansonia voters proved once again they are OK with borrowing large sums of money to keep the city moving forward.

In addition to re-electing Mayor David Cassetti by a wide margin, voters OK’d spending $132 million for a much-needed new middle school (before state reimbursement), fire trucks, Nolan Field improvements, road paving, repairs to the high school, expanding the city animal shelter, putting an emergency operations within 65 Main St., police cars, Tasers, long-promised police surveillance cameras, two ambulances, dump trucks, a transfer station scale, probably a kitchen sink, and much more.

From a purely political perspective, the approval of that much money – during a mayoral election cycle where the administration was attacked again for being bad with money – shows Team Cassetti’s complete dominance of the local political scene and the mayor’s staying power in the Copper City.

4. Ansonia Senior Center Opens

‘Ansonia Recharged’ is more than a Mayor David Cassetti campaign slogan. Downtown Ansonia is a much different place than it was 15 years ago, and the new senior center is a perfect example.

There are restaurants, apartments, apartments under construction, and new businesses moving in. It’s a pattern of growth that started before the COVID-19 shut downs and has continued since.

This year the city delivered on a promise that’s been in the air at least 14 years – a new senior center.

It was built within 65 Main St., an office building that had been vacant and now houses both the senior center and the police department.

While the process to acquire and repurpose the building for municipal use wasn’t perfect (read this and this) – there’s no denying it’s another win for Ansonia’s Main Street.

3. Derby Alderman Charged With Jan. 6 Crime

Derby made national news in 2023 when lifelong resident Gino DiGiovanni Jr. was charged in August for entering the U.S. Capitol Building during the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

DiGiovanni maintains he was allowed into the building by police and that he did not engage in crimes inside the Capitol.

DiGiovanni was both a candidate for mayor when he was charged and was representing Derby’s Second Wad on the Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen.

DiGiovanni, an Eagle Scout, a contractor, and head of the Derby Republican Party, did not fade into oblivion once charged.

The Republicans nominated him for mayor, and he defeated three-term incumbent Mayor Rich Dziekan in a GOP primary in September. 

DiGiovanni came in third in the general election, which saw Democrat Joseph DiMartino take the mayor’s office.

DiGiovanni has a plea hearing scheduled for Jan. 3. He now faces a single count of entering and remaining in a restricted building, down from the four charges lodged in August.

2. State Commission Now Plays A Larger Role In Derby’s Finances

Following Derby’s financial reporting problems over the last six years have been anything but easy. Turns out the story was equally difficult to follow for the financial experts serving on the state’s Municipal Finance Advisory Commission (MFAC).

Less than ideal financial tracking put Derby in front of MFAC on a voluntary basis in September 2020. The commissioners serve as an outside set of eyes, questioning long-standing problems found within Derby audits.

The commissioners – after saying they questioned the accuracy of financial data coming from Derby City Hall – voted in August to designate Derby as a ​‘tier 1’ community. The designation makes Derby appearances in front of the commission mandatory.

It happened after commissioners asked why Derby had a $3 million difference between what the city projected and what the audited results showed.

The Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen voted in November to find a financial firm to conduct a ​“forensic audit” on Derby finances. As of earlier this month, no firm had been hired.

Mayor Joseph DiMartino said getting to the bottom of what’s wrong – or right – with Derby finances is his top priority. 

The city hired an interim finance director in December – the first time the position has been filled in 16 months.

1. Derby Politics

Warning: attempted political analysis ahead.

The last two years in Derby politics would make a compelling novela.

Republican Mayor Rich Dziekan’s first two terms stood out for what wasn’t happening – nonstop political fighting. The mayor and his chief of staff, Andrew Baklik, appeared to get along with Democrats, and together weathered a financial storm they inherited.

Dziekan was re-elected for a third term by a small margin in November 2021 – and shared power with a Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen where Democrats held the majority.

The administration declared Derby’s past financial blunders a thing of the past, and Dziekan, upon election to his third term, vowed to keep Derby moving in a positive direction.

In January 2022, Dziekan hired Walter Mayhew, a veteran Derby politico and former Dziekan critic, to be his chief of staff – and the administration’s tactics changed.

Dziekan and Mayhew, backed by the city’s corporation counsel, changed the way Derby’s legislative meetings were run. 

They said the meetings had veered away from the letter of the Derby Charter, allowing the Democrats on the board to abuse the informal system by doing things like refusing to put the mayor’s issues on a meeting agenda, or sending matters to subcommittees to delay progress.

The idea that the Dziekan administration faced political hurdles wasn’t a fantasy. The opposition against Dziekan’s desire to move Derby seniors to the new Ansonia senior center was never clear, for example. But the question remains whether the administration’s response ended up hobbling itself.

The administration took control of the meeting agenda, limited public comment to only matters on the meeting agenda, eliminated subcommittees, stopped posting department reports to the city website, and then accused the school district of not being grateful for the money it received, tried to fire a finance director they had previously touted, saw the chief of staff take over the city budget after the finance director quit, called Derby Public Schools a failing district, and accused the city’s tax board chairman of ​“going rogue.”

The strong mayor tactics were similar to the pedal to the metal governing styles in Ansonia and Shelton. But those cities are essentially one-party towns at the moment led by mayors everyone loves (or at least the people who show up to vote).

There are nine sides to every story, especially in local politics, but one could argue the fighting in Derby overshadowed Dziekan administration positives such as hiring an economic development director, and actual new housing being built on Main Street after decades of pretty pictured pipe dreams from various developers.

At the same time, Dziekan, during this third term, lost the backing of elected officials who helped get him re-elected – and then the backing of his own Republican Party, whose members chose to endorse Gino DiGiovanni over the incumbent, who then lost to DiGiovanni in a Republican primary.

Everything came to a head on Nov. 7, 2023, when the public weighed in on what was happening – and handed the keys to the mayor’s office to Joseph DiMartino, a Democrat.

Democrats in Derby now control the mayor’s office, the Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen, the Derby Board of Apportionment and Taxation, and the Derby Board of Education.

There’s a lot of pressure on the new mayor and his team, especially when it comes to questions over Derby’s finances raised by the state Municipal Finance Advisory Commission.

Will it be the same old, same old? Will the Democrats remain united? Will Derby finally see the kind of new business life like we’ve seen in Ansonia and Shelton?

We’ll see what happens, but Derby’s political arc is my personal pick for the top Valley Indy story on 2023.