Candidates for Bridgeport's mayor

Written by James Passeri, Correspondent
Friday, 15 July 2011 14:30

As Bridgeport’s mayoral election advances, declared and likely candidates informed the Bridgeport News of their stance on three central issues Bridgeport faces: Local business growth, public schools and crime.

Town Committee Meetings and nominations will be between July 19-26. The primary is Sept. 13, and the general election is Nov. 8.

The declared challengers to incumbent Democratic Mayor Bill Finch are Democrats Mary-Jane Foster, John Gomes and Charles Coviello; and Independent Jeff Kohut. Rick Torres, though not declared, will likely be on the Republican ticket.

Finch’s position on the three issues will appear in this week’s edition.

Mary-Jane Foster

Mary-Jane Foster, cofounder of the Bridgeport Bluefish and executive at the University of Bridgeport, said local businesses are not getting the attention they need.

“If I were mayor, I would be knocking on every door of local businesses seeing how I could help,” she said.

Foster said that younger business owners need help with marketing, regulatory problems and tax issues. She cited Modern Plastics, a large distributor of medical- and engineering-grade plastics, which recently moved to Shelton, as an example of the city not being responsive to the needs of local businesses.

With regard to the public school system, Foster said the recent decision to turn over educational problems to the state is a clear signal that the mayor and superintendent have not been making plans for education reform.

Foster said there is growing worry over crime, and it is the mayor’s responsibility to be in touch not just with the police chief but also with the rank and file of the police force. Her administration would aim to develop a more transparent interface with the police force, she said.

Of all the difficulties Bridgeport faces, Foster’s campaign stresses effective local business growth and retention as the most important consideration because growth in local businesses would help to bring in resources for other areas.

“Our top priority is attracting and maintaining businesses,” said Foster.

John Gomes

John Gomes, former city director of CitiStat, has personally visited 550 local businesses, making note of each business, its owner, and its concerns and complaints. He said local businesses do not have any real access to city leadership or assistance.

CityStat, the accounting program he formerly directed, emphasized the same core values he is now running for: Transparency and citizen care, he said.

“We have to put people in City Hall who have a vested interest in Bridgeport,” Gomes said. “My administration will reflect the needs of citizens.” he said.

Gomes has publicly aired contempt with the rise in compensation of Bridgeport City Hall officials and said he would return all the salary increases Mayor Finch has taken from the city when he takes office.

He also plans to have top city officials take salary cuts, saying it is unconscionable for increased incomes at a time of wholesale layoffs of teachers and support staff.

Gomes said he is disappointed with the decision to turn over educational control to the state in the wake of efforts to build a better relationship between the city and the school superintendent.

“This has happened because Mayor Finch hasn’t made education the priority it should be,” he said. “He hasn’t shown the leadership we’ve needed.”

Charles Coviello

Democratic candidate Charlie Coviello said property taxes are hindering business growth. He said he dropped out of the 2007 race because he believed Finch would lower personal business property taxes downtown.

He said he was disappointed that taxes have not been reduced, and businesses have been turned away to neighborhood towns with more competitive mill rates, like Shelton.

Coviello’s campaign emphasizes restructuring infrastructure by establishing a first-rate broadband service and a more efficient energy program.

Coviello said power plants waste about 65% of energy in the form of hot water.

His proposed energy program involves taking wasted energy, in the form of hot water, and using it as a means of heat, a practice gaining popularity, and already in use in Sweden and Denmark.

Coviello said using this type of energy would attract businesses because of reduced energy expenses, the highest cost for most businesses.

He said he has been the most vocal of all candidates on the Bridgeport school system, and has been present at every Board of Education meeting for the last two years.

“The problem is not the teaching, but in the chronic substance abuse,” said Coviello.

On the high crime rate in Bridgeport, Coviello said people take their complaints out on the officers, but that the real problem is the dispatch system..

“Last year I called the police at 10 at night about a fight,” said Coviello. “I had to go outside to break it up, and the officers did not arrive till 3 in the morning.”

Jeff Kohut

Jeff Kohut, an independent candidate who served five years on the city’s Ethics Commission, said local business growth must be handled through the creation of Bridgeport-based, living-wage jobs.

Bridgeport too often does not benefit from the fruits of its own labor in his opinion. “The use of the huge, Bridgeport-based work-force has provided what amounts to a free ride for the region’s affluent municipalities,” he said.

The central mission of his campaign is to promote full-employment for all Bridgeport workers through green-alternative energy projects. He would like to see GE build a planned 1 million square-foot, $600 million solar-panel manufacturing plant in the city.

The Kohut Administration would build this plant on a 77-acre site on Boston Avenue, where an older 1.3 million square foot complex stands.

Kohut said that although crime in the city seems to have declined based on the number of total crimes, it has not decreased in any significant way. He points to an increase in lethal crimes, including eight homicides so far this year.

“It is extremely important that communities and individuals don’t relax security measures in the face of misleading, optimistic crime reports,” he said.

Rick Torres

Rick Torres, former chairman of the Republican Town Committee, said Bridgeport businesses are hindered by government.

Torres would lower taxes for incoming businesses, which in turn would generate revenues that could lower taxes for citizens and existing businesses.

“It’s a plan to free citizens from a local government that has cobbled them,” he said.

Torres also said that properties in Bridgeport have become artificially overvalued under the guise of protecting the local economy when in fact it has done the opposite. He said that allowing property values to reach a market price would solicit rational investing.

About the public school system, Torres said the administration has been incompetent, and that School Supt. John Ramos should not be given another contract.

Torres said one reason the school system is failing is because children have a hard time succeeding in government-subsidized neighborhoods.

He said that crime in Bridgeport is a result of desperate citizen being trapped in neighborhoods exposed to too much government intervention. The desperate situation that citizens have been placed in, according to Torres, pushes them to do desperate things unless they are put back to work.

His campaign focuses on turning power over to the private sector, in order to attract businesses.

“We have more assets to speak of, and people will produce so long as government does not keep them on a subsistence level,” said Torres.