Danbury Mayor Lays It On the Line, City Should Have 4 Year Terms

Every Thursday Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves joins us on the I-95 Morning Show.

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This week (2/22/24) the Mayor said something that will get a lot of attention and probably some criticism but I think he's dead on. I want to make something clear, the Mayor did not enter this into conversation, I did. I'm saying this now but I also said it on our show when Dean Esposito was Mayor, when Joe Cavo was in office and when Mark Boughton was at the helm.

I think two-year mayoral terms are too short to allow for these individuals to get real work done while in City Hall. I asked Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves about this in a recent interview, this is what he had to say:

Lou: You've heard me say this before, I think a two-year term is too short for any Mayor. You need time to get your legs and get plans going, it just takes time to do things. What do you have to do to get a four-year term in Danbury, revise the charter right? How does a sitting Mayor bring that up without looking like they are being self-serving?

Mayor: "That is a good point, you've gotta have the b--- and the courage to bring it up. I'm going to be frank here, I'm going to speak like that with you guys. Sometimes you've just got to take off your Mayor hat, I know your listeners appreciate that. We did it, we tried to open up a charter revision and we're currently in that process but I'm glad you said that. You know, Dean Esposito went on the air and said he wanted to do that, in the past Mark Boughton wanted to do that and if I was on the Council when Mark Boughton wanted to do that, I would have supported him. I've said that openly before, many in my party would not agree with me but I've voted against my party many times. That is why I ran for Mayor because I can work with everybody. I do feel that the City of Danbury needs to go to four year terms, responsibly. My suggestion would be, if we were to do it, we pass it, we do it but not until the 2027 election. That means whoever runs for Mayor still has to run for Mayor two more times. That means if I were to benefit from for four years, I would have to win again in re-election and I'd have to win again after that. You bring in the whole community to talk about it but again it comes down to politics, folks who supported it last year now that a different party won, they don't support it this year. It's sad, it's comical, it is the world of politics today. We'll work through it, we'll negotiate it with folks and we'll make our case. I think it's good for the city and I think there are other things in the charter that we should revisit as well."

Lou: That is a great way to set aside the notion that your agenda is self-serving because it would not benefit you immediately. I don't understand how anybody could argue against that. We're all grown-ups here, we go through this every two years and we realize as residents that our Mayor has to go out after a year in office and start campaigning all over again. Think of how much time and attention that takes away from the work of running Danbury.

Mayor: "Other cities have moved that way, compare us to other cities or not, that is controversial sometimes but moving forward is just about efficient government and we are going to be one of the last ones that have this every couple of years because we can't come together, depending on who the party is. My suggestion is you pass it but you pass it for two elections from now."

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It's not hard to identify the problem here, everyone is a fan of four-year terms when their party is in control of City Hall and against it when it is the other party. I think it's time to just say enough with that already and do the right thing for the future.

I don't pretend to know everything about our local government but I'm clear on this one. I've had a front-row seat for the five elections and gotten to know the folks who are involved on both sides of the aisle. They put a tremendous amount of time and energy into their campaigns and that effort should be going into running Danbury.

Having an election every two years is great for my radio show but not so great for Danbury.

You can listen to our complete interview below. We also spoke about the Mayor's relationship with the Governor and Danbury's new advisory committee.

P.S. I liked it when Dean Esposito said it and I like this now, I love when these guys make statements from the heart that they know will be picked apart or written off as self-serving. It's not easy to be in charge of anything let alone a city of 80,000 people in America. Feel free to ignore my opinions everyone in my house does too.