Danbury Mayoral Candidate Roberto Alves Says His Opponent is Good at Spin

We're back at it on the I-95 Morning Show.

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We'll be doing weekly interviews with both Danbury Mayoral candidates leading up to Election Day in November. Democratic candidate Roberto Alves joined us on the Wednesday (10/04/23) edition of the show and we covered a variety of topics.

One thing stood out as we were winding the interview down, Alves offered this about Dean Esposito and the Danbury Republicans:

"The spin, one thing they are good at, I'll tell you this right now you want me to give Dean and the Republicans credit, spinning, spinning the narrative. They are good at spinning the truth." 

It was one of the final statements Alves made during the interview and the answer was likely a delayed response to an earlier question Ethan Carey asked Roberto.

Ethan Carey: Is there anything you like about Dean Esposito?

Roberto Alves: "What I like about Dean Esposito? I don't really know him well enough you know me and him have, there are moments where we have very cordial hi's and bye's. I have to say that I was at an event at a place where my mother works and he was going out of his way to go find my mother to say hi. I think me and him can both say we've given our families that kind of respect in person, he's a stand up guy when it comes to that. Listen, the little I know about Dean I don't dislike Dean, I'd have a beer with Dean. Burt just because I like somebody and have a beer with somebody doesn't mean I think they're doing their job well and can run the city" 

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We also spent a fair amount of time on the issue of debates between Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito and rival candidate Roberto Alves. The two sides are at odds over how many debates are appropriate and what constitutes a debate. We'll have to go back a bit to explain how this began.

On September 19, 2023 the Alves camp released a statement that said:

"Dean is hiding, hoping his problems will go away just like he does every day at City Hall. His refusal to engage with the public and have a dialogue about the issues exemplifies the serious issues of transparency, honesty, and accountability that plague his administration. It’s not the first time we’ve seen Dean and his GOP Supermajority avoid open dialogue with the public. If Dean is unwilling or unable to discuss the issues in public he should say so. Danbury deserves a transparent, honest mayor, willing to engage with the public and be held accountable, and that’s the kind of mayor I’ll be.”

We asked the Mayor about this on the September 22, 2023 I-95 Morning Show.

Lou Milano: Let's get right to the spaghetti and meatballs, a press release came out yesterday from Roberto Alves and I'm going to paraphrase to keep this short but he says your ducking him for a debate, is that true?

Mayor Esposito: "Absolutely not true. You know it's pretty ironic he would say that because our camps have been talking to each other. Traditionally on the Mayor's race we do two debates, one with the Chamber of Commerce and one with P.T.O. That gives everyone an opportunity to ask the questions, they call them debates but it's pretty much a question and answer scenario. So I don't know where he is coming up with that it's getting goofy a little with the political season. He's trying to get some headlines or pull some press or whatever but you know my goals are simple I'm going to stay focused on my job and when the debate comes we'll have it, I'll win it and we'll move forward." 

We asked Roberto about the debate issue again.

Lou Milano: You and the Mayor have gone back and forth about the debates, tell us about it.

Roberto Alves: "You know I listen to the show guys and when he was on and talked about debates we chuckled a bit. One thing he also said was the camp's have been in communication, the first thing we heard from anyone at all about debates was pretty much after the press release. Because we wanted to get traction on this, nothing was going and we had accepted every offer that was put in front of us. So we have one forum going on, on Friday that he has agreed to and traditionally this is one that Dean Esposito and the Danbury Republicans agree to and then say they agreed to two debates. This is a forum, this is a Board of Education forum hosted by the Citywide PTO of Danbury. It is not Dean and myself on stage answering questions and being able to counter each other for an hour or two hours. It is us on stage for about two hours usually but with every Board of Ed candidate on stage as well. We're running eight candidates each so that's 18 people on stage. If each of us, Dean and I speak for ten minutes individually, listen I'll go a little bit more, a little conservative 14 or 15 minutes each that evening, I think that is a lot because of how many people are on the stage. It's not a true debate it's something to cover and say no we accepted two, that is not a debate. The second one they traditionally say yes to is the Chamber of Commerce debate which we also said yes to. But because that will be the only true and traditional debate we did counter a bit and say, we'll say yes but it has to be free and open to the public because traditionally that is not the case it's a fundraiser for the Chamber of Commerce. I feel if you're only going to have one debate it shouldn't be a fundraiser. You know PJ {Prunty} at the Chamber did work originally to create terms that were agreeable to both sides and I absolutely agree. But Lou, there were more debates offered that they said no to and they're playing games calling them partisan when they're non-partisan organizations." 

P.S. There is the small matter of a lawsuit going on right now, take a listen to this

Below you can hear the entire Oct 4 Roberto Alves interview as it aired live on I-95

Check out the Ethan, Lou & Large Dave Podcast on Apple and Spotify