
Danbury Mayor Reacts To Esposito’s Decision Not To Challenge in 2025
On January 19, 2025 former Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito announced that he would not challenge Roberto Alves and run for Mayor. He made the announcement in social media posts to Instagram and Facebook.

His statement read:
"After much thought, discussion, and prayer, I have decided not to run for mayor in this upcoming election. I look forward to supporting candidates who share a commitment to preserving what makes Danbury the best city in Connecticut—a place where families thrive in peace, safety, and prosperity. Our residents deserve leadership that is responsible, transparent, and truly responsive to their needs. It has been the honor of my lifetime to have served as your Mayor. I want to thank all Danburians for their support. God bless you, your family, and our great city of Danbury."
On Thursday (01/23/25) the I-95 Morning Show spoke to current Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves and we asked for his reaction to the news.
Lou: The big news came out, Dean Esposito announced that after some heavy contemplation, he will not run against you for Mayor of the City of Danbury, your thoughts?
Alves: "I just want to wish Dean all the best in the world in whatever chapters and endeavors he takes on. He's been a public servant in our city for a longtime. Most of his adult life, if not all of his adult life he's been serving the City of Danbury in one capacity or another. So I just want to wish Dean Esposito all the best to him and his family."
Lou: Is there something that you admire about him?
Alves: "I think Dean has always been loyal to those around him. Again, what I admire about him is the years of public service. It's not easy to do this, nobody does this for the pay and Dean has committed his whole life to serving the City of Danbury. Like I said, we were political rivals but we can still see each other and joke around. Last time I, I believe the last time I saw him was the Mayor's Cup where I invited him to come play in our foursome. It was me, Dean [Esposito], Mark [Boughton] and Gene [Eriquez] and we had a great time, hung out, threw a couple beers back with Dean-o there and laughed at how bad I am at golf."
Lou: With this vacancy, this void, who do you anticipate the Republicans will run against you?
Alves: "Well I'm going to keep going there everyday to make sure it's not you Lou because then we would have some problems. Listen I can't focus on that, I have to focus on the job and the race we are running. We've been doing a great job for the City of Danbury, invested in public safety, fixing our roads, addressing challenges, very real challenges with the schools. They just came out with another crazy number of what they feel they need, and it's not that I don't think they need it. We just have to be fair to our taxpayers so we know we're not going to be able to get to what they are asking for. I'm just going to sit here and keep doing the work that we're doing and getting praised for, delivering for everyone who lives in Danbury, every single resident. I hope that they see that and bring us to victory in November."
Lou: I love you to death but if you want me to believe that Taylor is not currently doing opposition research on three to four different people right now, we're going to have a problem.
Alves: "Listen, I have a great team, Taylor [O'Brien] is incredible and she's a phenomenal Chief of Staff. I want to give a shoutout to Francesca [Capodilupo], Farley [Santos], everybody else as well. We have a great campaign team and they are going to start working. Francesca has left us, working on the office side but she will still be involved with the campaign. We know how to run a campaign Lou."
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