October 30, 2009 11:07 am

The Mayoral Monologues

Yesterday afternoon there was supposed to be a mayoral debate held at the Norwalk Inn. Well, there certainly was something debatable, but it sure wasn’t a mayoral debate. You see, to have a debate really work, you have to questions that spark discussion, and fundamentally that was the problem with the mayoral debate. Then there was the glaring failure of Democratic candidate and challenger, Steve Serasis, to demonstrate that after two years on the council, after running as the Democratic candidate for Mayor, that he has some understanding of how Norwalk’s city government actually works.

Take for example, Serasis’ assertion that it seems that all the paving that Norwalk has undertaken has occurred in the last few weeks before the election. As a council member, he has in fact voted on the authorization to fund road paving for two budget cycles. He has presumably read the public works lists of which streets were proposed to be paved and on what timeline they were to be paved. Meanwhile incumbent Republican Dick Moccia, touted the $6 million funded for road paving over the last two years. But not so fast, each year, DPW director Hal Alvord makes a request for $5 million as a yearly cost for the maintenance of the roads, and doesn’t get the full amount. As a result, less roads are paved and maintained increasing the number of poor roads in the city. And therein lies the real issue. Funding choices for city services. Wouldn’t it have been nice to hear about those instead of a debate about when roads are paved?

Serasis also suggested that the Norwalk budget, was completely mismanaged, disparaging Finance Director Tom Hamilton along the way. For someone like Scott Merrel who declined to pay his property tax bill, and otherwise remains unengaged in government you could expect and understand a lack of familiarity with how the city finances are actually conducted. For a sitting council member who is supposed to be voting on city finance issues every other Tuesday, it is astounding. I’m only surprised that Moccia didn’t point out to Serasis that it is the council who authorizes the mayor when it comes to financial stuff. Maybe the Democratic party should have a requirement that any candidate running for mayor should read the city charter. It might help.

Once again in this debate, a question was wasted on whether each candidate supported a four year term or not. I guess they got rid of the question about whether each candidate supported lawn signs or not. Term limits, term length and candidate recruitment are more the bailiwick of the political parties, and with all the important issues facing Norwalk, this was a throwaway question. Serasis, for the record, thinks 2 year terms are just fine because a longer term might result in a mayor doing more damage to the city. He apparently has never considered that two consecutive terms equals four years. Moccia said that the issue should be voted on by all of Norwalk. Note that he didn’t make a case of why he, or any mayor for that matter, needed a four year term. There’s a good case, and not just for the mayor, but also for city council members, summed in two words, silly season. For the past year, every decision that the council has undertaken has been colored by this election. The problem, in micro of the same thing we see on Capitol Hill in D.C. or Hartford. For a part time job, maybe two years is just right. But for a full time job in government which by process alone moves at the pace of molasses, a two year term seems too short. But let’s see the arguments for and against that have substance. We haven’t thus far.

The debate monologues of the candidates can be summed up this way: Serasis believes Norwalk is “the armed robbery capital” of the state, and Moccia believes Norwalk is the “pearl in the Oyster.” In comic book fashion, Dr. Doom & Gloom vs. ProgressMan, and our cliffhanger will be resolved on November 3rd.

The Hour has video clips of the debate. They filmed the entire debate and streamed it live. Unfortunately they have not archived the entire debate for viewing now.

Master Cheese

I live for your blogs!! Good summation re the monologues.
Publius

Serrasis is fundamentally clueless about how City Government works.

I could go on, but he is going to get his butt kicked, so why waste any further time or energy?

Go Yankees!!!
Mikey

“Serrasis is fundamentally clueless about how City Government works” YOU MADE AN ERROR BUT I CORRECTED IT FOR YOU…Moccia is fundamentally clueless about how City Government works
Longtimer

Whether you agree with Dick Moccia’s direction for Norwalk or not, as a former councilman, former party chairman, and current Mayor, it is obvious that he knows how the city operates. A better question is if he can make Norwalk run like a small town instead of a bad city.

Mikey

Well if moccia is not clueless he sure has not proved it in 4 years.

OLD TIMER

Neither of them is clueless. A campaign is a lot of work and by now, they are both tired. Nobody, except maybe TG, expects a serious in-depth discussion of issues at one of these “debates”, so both try for good sound bytes that will resonate with voters. Sometimes that works better than others. Moccia has a four year track record to look at and like or dislike. Serasis seems like a good man, more concerned than Moccia in certain areas, less in others. We will know Tuesday night who reached the most voters. There is plenty of room for improvement, no matter who wins. Nobody is offering to reduce taxes except Merrel, and he doesn’t have a real plan for running the city on less money. A large turnout will favor Serasis. He appeals to a lot more people who do not have a good record for turning out to vote in city elections. Moccia, on the other hand, appeals to a much smaller group that always turns out to vote. The incumbent has certain advantages. Moccia gets his picture taken cutting ribbons and taking credit for projects started under previous administrations.
He had his picture in the paper celebrating the new Reed St underpass, as if it was now open to use. It isn’t, but it was a good time to be seen celebrating accomplishment, and who will check to see if it is open to use ?
turfgrrl

Oldtimer: It would be very sad to think that only I expect serious discussion of the issues at the debate. The questions were poor. Unlike the BOE debate, where the questions and the candidates rose to a serious discussion of the issues.
OLD TIMER

It would, indeed. A lot of us expected real debate. It never happened at the level of the mayoralty candidates. There are lots of reasons. Questions should have been solicited by the sponsors, days ahead of time, and carefully selected to provoke serious debate. I have my own opinion on how that would work out, and which candidate would be faster on his feet in a true debate. By the time of the last debate, both candidates were tired and Moccia was very careful not to get involved in serious debate. Serasis made charges about crime rates and Moccia could not, or did not, refute them. Was Serasis correct ? After hearing the same charges so many times, was Moccia unprepared ? I don’t know either, but if Serasis was wrong, Moccia should have responded with facts and figures instead of giving the impression he had no real answers. People are paying attention, and making judgements.
I am now inclined to think Serasis may be right about the crime issues, mostly because nobody has refuted his charges. I don’t agree with Mikey, the sky isn’t really falling, but I have to wonder why Moccia has not come up with facts and figures to refute Serasis’s charges, unless he is right, and there are no facts and figures to back up Moccia’s position.
A recent spurt in bad news, holdups and a murder and home invasions, have not helped Moccia at all.
Barnstorm

Maybe someone is afraid of Norwalk voters coming to the realization that one candidate may not be suited for the job, and the other is even LESS suited for it. People stay away from the polls in droves simply because they’re being presented with the liklihood of making either a bad choice or a stupid one. I tend to think that simply chalking it up to voter apathy is taking the easy way out. We haven’t had any decent candidates in years.
west norwalker

Is crime on the really on the rise back to 2005 levels or is it up slightly from last year. Didn’t TG post the numbers. Didn’t they come from the Advocate? How many times do we have to “correct” Serasis and “mikey” who keep saying it’s worse than it has ever been? Wake up Norwalk. The truth is out there, some people keep missing it while they are running around saying the sky is falling.
OLD TIMER

The folks talking about crime are all quoting FBI Uniform Crime Report data, released in September, but covering last year (2008). Unless they have access to more current data. Nobody can answer your question. Recent local news makes it sound like there has been a trend upward in certain kinds of crime, but the trend, both locally and nationally, had been down (last year).
Only a careful analysis of current data, compared with similar data from previous years, would answer your question and current local data, to the best of my knowlege, has not been compiled or released.
There apparently was a general decline last year in every category except aggravated (with any kind of weapon) assault where there was a considerable change up 26%. It is hard to say if that is an actual increase, a change in classification by investigating officers, or a change in classification by data entry people. Any move up, especially when the national trends are going down, is troubling and gives rise to all kinds of questions and calls for resignations.
The fact is, our police department is undermanned and has been. The actual numbers are hard to come by, but the front line patrolmen on the street are most effected. Some of the shortfall is covered by having people work overtime, extra shifts. Most of the shortfall is not covered. Are our crime clearance rates (crimes solved) below where they should be ? Are any crimes being prevented by proactive patrol techniques ? Only the top brass in the police dept. have those answers and I don’t believe they are allowed to share them with us. Crime prevention is impossible to quantify effectively. There are towns nearby that do a great job discouraging strangers cruising residential neighborhoods, in the firm belief that prevents a lot of crime, and they don’t seem to have as much crime to report.
Both Mikey and Steve Serasis have referred to that rise in assaults as a problem. The Mayor has not refuted their claims. If Serasis gets elected, he intends to make our police more effective and our residents safer. Mikey wants the first step to be a new police chief. Out of a City operating budget of 278,654,619, police patrol gets 10,848,852, less than 4%.