Roberto Alves Says Danbury Republican Leadership Has Been Up to Funny Business

On Thursday October 12th a Danbury Superior Court judge ruled that a group of candidates be removed from the Independent party Ballot line.

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The lawsuit was brought by Danbury Democrats led by Mayoral candidate Roberto Alves, against Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito, Town Clerk Jan Giegler and other Republican leaders. On Friday (10/13/23) CT News Junkie published an article that read:

The lawsuit, brought by Democratic mayoral candidate Roberto Alves, contends that Danbury Town Clerk Janice Giegler illegally submitted to state officials a slate of Independent Party candidates — including herself and Republican Mayor Dean Esposito — and ignored a separate slate of candidates approved by the third party at an earlier caucus meeting.

In a brief order Thursday, Danbury Superior Court Judge Maximino Medina Jr. granted a motion from Alves’ attorney asking for the Republican candidates to be struck from the Independent line on ballots for the coming general election.

On Wednesday (10/18/23), Roberto Alves joined the I-95 Morning Show and we talked about the case.

Lou: I left Friday morning but before I did I got a text from you Thursday afternoon, sort of an update. You've been in court, you and a group of folks versus Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito and a group of folks including the City Clerk, can you now speak about this?

Alves: "Yeah I can speak about it a little bit it wasn't anything against anybody, I just didn't want to come out and start saying things. The Mayor, on your program was talking about what was I doing? Saying it was frivolous that I was doing this but that was again spin because the judge ruled in our favor that the Town Clerk acted outside of her authority. I also was very proud to receive the independent party endorsement from true independents unlike the Mayor who got it from a group of Republicans that hijacked the independent party over the last quite a few elections. All we're doing is exposing to the city things they're doing wrong left and right, over payment of buildings, pretty much hijacking independent voting lines and disenfranchising voters. Now they're appealing this case that they lost, to the Supreme court and this is being done with taxpayer money and the city of Danbury is obviously the one that is funding this appeal and what are they getting out of it? What are they funding this appeal for? So, their team of Republicans that a judge already said was wrong so they can get back on the ballot line that again we all got that nomination for, it's a longer story that merits a conversation maybe offline and you can see what you can pick apart but there is so much to it especially when it comes down to the little political fights that happened to get here. You know I was so proud to receive the Democratic nomination again in July, on July 18th we had our Democratic caucus....."

Lou: Wait one second cause I'm frankly a little confused with this whole thing. What is being disputed is the Independent party endorsement? You're saying you got it, he's saying they got it?

Alves: "No the actual court case is around the Republican Town Clerk didn't have the authority to pick which slate of candidates to put on the ballot, that they were both legit supposedly and that she acted, you know she had a conflict of interest there because she is on one of them and she got direction from the Secretary of State, advice from the Secretary of State attorneys that you know you should not submit any of these and she still did, and the one is led by Dean Esposito and they were on that. We thought that she acted outside her authority to do so, so there was nothing ever frivolous about the case because we won. We won, unlike what Dean was saying earlier, we won this case and the judge's memorandum, his written statement is pretty damning against them. It doesn't bode well, I know there is a front-page article today in the News Times and I can also text the link to the court case if you really want to get buried in there, if you have some reading time. It's a 19-page memorandum from the judge and again, there are some really damming things here."

Lou: I don't want to get that deep, I just want it idiot proofed for me. Now that they ruled in your favor, what does that mean for you and what does it mean for him?

Alves: "Again, now everything is on hold because the Republicans are trying to appeal this to the Connecticut Supreme Court so it looks like they're going to do a hearing on this on Friday. What it meant was, that the Republicans, that the Town Clerk put on that independent line are all going to be removed from there, it does not mean that we're going to go on there but there will be no cross endorsement. So, they'll be the Republican line, the Democratic line and then a few candidates on the Working Families line on the ballot, that's what that means."

Lou: Is this going to hold up the vote?

Alves: "With the first case that we tried to expedite, we didn't want any of this to get to court we thought, we were hoping that the City of Danbury, that Dean would be a leader and step up, that the Town Clerk would do the right thing, they didn't so we had to take it to court. We asked for everything to be expedited so it wouldn't effect those who vote by absentee ballots, some senior citizens, those who are living out of the city by too much. We thought everything was going to get done in a timely manner, with this appeal now this is seriously delayed. Absentee ballots should have started to be mailed out October 6th, here we are in mid-October and those folks haven't had this yet. So we are looking to get this resolved as fast as possible so we can get that back out to the people but by election day when the vote happens, everything will be fine." 

Lou: I'm sorry to cut off your earlier train of thought, continue on the point that you were making.

Alves: "No I appreciate it, so we have to see how we got here and some of the funny business that the Republicans in Danbury have been doing, led by Dean. On July 18th I accepted the Democratic nomination at our event. After we were nominated, our slate of candidates signed our paperwork because you have to sign to accept that nomination and you have to date it. We dated it on that date or after. The Republicans had their nomination meeting on, I believe July 24th and after their meeting they all signed their acceptance. On August 11th was the first independent caucus where there was a group of independent voters who organized, to do this, to nominate myself and other slates because they were trying to pull this funny business where every year, every independent slot is always Republican. They get in the room and they outnumber this group of Republicans that have been doing this for years. Lou, when I say, anybody who is listening on the radio this is not a knock on anyone who is a registered Republican, we're talking about the Danbury Republican leaders. That room wasn't full of independently registered voters, it was full of Danbury Republican candidates, Danbury Republican leaders such as Dean Esposito, the Chairman of the Republican party, the Town Clerk, folks like that. Then, they saw this group of true independent voters come in and they didn't know what to do. The meeting was called and there is videos of all of this, they called the meeting to order and then when it came time for the bulk of the meeting, what did these folks do, these Danbury Republican leaders? They tried to improperly adjourn the meeting, when they saw they were outnumbered they walked out of the room, they didn't want to lose, they walked out of the room. So, the independent folks that were still there continued the meeting, at that continuation they endorsed me. After that was done and I don't believe it was that day but after the meeting, then all our slate signed that paperwork and guess what? It was dated after August 11th. Now because they were sore losers, I don't know how else to say this, they tried to recall another meeting, they tried to do this all again. This was the Dean Esposito Republicans and this was on August 21st I believe and they went through and they nominated their slate. So this is where it gets funny right? They want to talk about us hijacking but think about this kind of coordination gentlemen. When you look at, this is all court exhibits, when you look at the independent slate submitted by Dean's Republicans, you look at the signatures of their independent nomination all of them were signed, just about all of them were signed on July 24th a month before, the day of their Republican caucus. They can't even hide the fact that they've been doing this, they're so entitled that they did it on the night of their Republican caucus, a month before they signed the paperwork. The worst thing is and it's part of the court records, when they submitted that paper to the Town Clerk, at the last sheet after the last signature and their quote, unquote Independent Party Chairman signs, there is a line that says at a special meeting of the Danbury Republican Town Committee. The audacity to say that you know they're working independently where they can't even sign paperwork on different nights and really work independently. Again, this is all record, this is all stuff that came out through the court trials. These people are caught with their pants down, we're doing everything we can to show the voters of Danbury who they are and everybody will have their say come Election Day, November 7th. There is so much more and I know this is a lot to try and fit into a little ten minute segment, again I'll text you the information, this is really interesting stuff guys because it's scary that they are OK with this." 

Listen to the remainder of the segment below where Alves speaks about the Town Clerk's testimony.

You can hear the complete, unedited interview with Roberto Alves below.

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