Danbury City Hall Releases Statement on Local Pizza Controversy

I asked Danbury Mayor Joe Cavo (2/11/21) about Dave Portnoy's declaration that CT (New Haven) was the "pizza capital". I followed that up by asking him what his favorite pizza place was in the Hat City. What happened next was awkward to say the least. Cavo said:

"Danbury &  CT have great food establishments everywhere. When it comes to pizza, there are an awful lot of pizza places around, although I don't generally eat pizza because of certain health conditions that we talked about a couple of weeks ago (diabetes).

Pizza is not one of the best foods for that, so I do my best to avoid it. I don't know how I would be able to say who is the best pizza in Danbury. I'd probably have to go to some of my staff here because I think some of them are pizza people."

It's at this point in our interview, that I told the Mayor I did not like his answer. I got jumped on by my morning show partner (Ethan Carey) who defended the Mayor, citing his illness. I listed off some of my favorite Danbury spots that he could have named like: Sinapi's, Stanziato's and Nico's.

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I pressed him further for an answer, Cavo relented and chose Martino's because it was close to his house. Proximity should not be a factor in a pizza decision and it should never be the only factor.

I didn't come off looking great here because there was a suggestion in the air that I was diminishing the Mayor's diabetes, nothing could be further from the truth. I do understand he can't eat it everyday. I also know that he's got some political footwork to do when answering.

I felt the pressure too; we have sponsorship relationships in the community, I have friends with pizza places, but I gave an acceptable answer. The Mayor's answer was unacceptable for this topic.

Is Cavo starting his own pizza place? Does he choose chain pizza places over local? Is the Mayor's office unwilling to exercise transparency? We raised these questions many times on Friday's (2/12/21) Ethan and Lou Show.

How would City Hall react to my outrage? Enter this woman.

The Mayor's Public Relations Specialist Taylor O'Brien (pictured above) released this statement exclusively to the Ethan and Lou Show:

“Danbury Mayor, long-time resident, and small business supporter, Mayor Joe, enjoys frequenting local businesses in Danbury. Since stepping into this role, Mayor Joe has made it his mission to support local by ordering lunch for and with his staff from different locations each day, and he and his wife have been ordering takeout weekly at home for the same purpose since the start of this pandemic. Mayor Joe supports anyone working hard to support their staff and provide food services in Danbury, whether it’s a restaurant, café, deli or pizzeria - Mayor Joe supports them all!”

It does not even begin to answer the initial question that led us here. To his credit, Ethan Carey said that, just that after we read the statement.

We took the story deeper. It's nearly Valentine's Day after all and we asked former Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton for his reaction. We wanted to know if he were still Mayor, would he have answered? He remarked:

"No, I would say Hey Wilma, Yaba-daba-dooooo!"

That's no joke, that was his real answer. You can check the tape, everything I am referencing can be fact checked in the mater reel below.

Everything you need to know about Pizza-Gate is in the video below. We will hear Cavo duck the pizza question, Mark Boughton make excuses for him, Taylor O'Brien's statement and Ethan Carey's nose making whistling sounds into the microphone.

I'd really like to push this to the max but I can't even go any further because an illness was brought up. It's like when you hit someone with a "your mom" joke and they say their mom is dead, I have nowhere to run here.

Public perception/reaction is already getting away from me. Carolyn from Danbury used the I-95 Rock Mobile App Chat feature to send us this message:

"No, Lou, no! Do not take on the mayor! He’s a great guy. But, if you insist on it, I suppose the pizza issue is as good as any to make your stand. Thankfully we have plenty of pizza purveyors here in the Danbury area to keep it an ongoing discussion."

She's gonna let me off the hook, but I may not be so lucky with the people that come after her. Just know, I'm willing to die on this hill, the hill made of pizza and synthetic controversy.