the best is yet to come.

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Hello West Haven!

First let’s give a big round of applause for Sean Scanlon. Sean and I not only served together but he is someone who has always come to West Haven to support us and is doing a great job for us as a state leader. Thank you Sean

And thank you to Caleigh, our great hostess a success story as she was a student involved in STEM and went on to become a successful engineer at Sikorsky breaking barriers for women in science.

And thank you to my family for being here, especially Drew who for 20 years has been asking me not to acknowledge him and for 20 years I’ve ignored his wishes because that’s what mothers do.

And I want to acknowledge Steve our DJ also.  When he told me what song he wanted to pick for a theme song lovely day, I thought those lyrics are perfect because they say I take one look at you and I know it’s going to be okay. And it’s so true I take one look around at all of you and I know, West Haven’s going to be okay.  We are going to be okay.

We have families here tonight that span generations and newer members to our community whom we welcome all standing here on our beautiful shore line because we all want the same thing. A great quality of life for ourselves, friends and families in the community we love.  

And we will be able to do this, but it’s going to take a little, actually a lot of work.  

And tonight I’m going to briefly talk about what I believe we can do and some of my plans to get things done.

And it’s right about now that typically you kick off  a speech like this with a great leaders quote, perhaps a politician that said something profound, but when I was looking for a quote,  I just kept coming back to the a different quote, that old line Gerry carcia  by Grateful Dead. What a long strange trip it’s been.

And it’s a perfect metaphor for my personal journey that brings me full circle to this moment and everything I’ve  experienced and learned along the way which has prepared me to take on the challenges before us.  

My journey started out here growing up in West Haven and all through my young years starting getting involved in the community from muscular dystrophy to Special Olympics, too involved in volunteering, raising money for nonprofits and getting involved in the community. Something that’s a fabric of our community.

And then When I graduated from Southern CT state University, my first job was in banking as an auditor and through years I learned the foundations of any good operation, checks and balances, documentation, and effective and efficient operations, basic aspects for any business which I will be implementing in my administration.  

And banking I moved to working in local government, where I served in two municipalities a Personnel Director where I not only learned the function of every department in city government but the critical HR aspects such as hiring and retaining talented employees, overseeing training, org charts, job descriptions your basic 101 for a business which again I will bring to my administration.

During that period , I was also working towards my masters at UNH where I soon earned my degree in  communication and marketing and was hired by a  fortune 100 company where I was able to hone those skills and have applied them to every role I serve in.  Because communication needs to be key in government, and I understand that transparency in government and your tax dollars is imperative.

As for the marketing experience ….. it’s pretty simple, I need to use that experience as we rebrand and market city because  we know what an amazing city we have, but it’s time the rest of the world did too! 

Throughout these professional career chapters, I never stopped giving back to West Haven and simultaneously not only served as the PTA President but then also as a member of Board of Education. Through the interactions with our teachers our students and our I came to understand the struggles they face and in our education system and that’s why I fought recently for an additional $5m for our education system and will continue as a mayor to advocate and work with our education system to insure every child has the quality education they deserve.

And finally the most recent role as State Representative for the past 6 years I have had the great pleasure to represent west haven at the Capitol. And through all of our very difficult times these past years, I had more pride for our residents than ever as the resiliency, the commitment and have never stopped being proud of all of our residents and our resiliency.   

And while the experience I take away from the State Rep role include learning of how our state agencies work and where the funding pools are, the greatest take away that I will apply is the art of compromise. Because nothing happens in government without working across the aisle and within your own party.  The residents deserve Administration that is no nonsense and can bring people together for the sake of progress.

And some may ask and I’ve heard it myself, why am I taking this step. 

Because here’s the reality, I along with our State Delegation members are securing the funding for West Haven projects but those projects are not moving.  And they aren’t moving because we don’t have a ground game here.  Vision can only be realized if there is a strong team to bring those projects to fruition. 

Beach Street, Pedestrian Bridge, downtown.  Last week (state delegation) we got 1.2 million for Lake Street. If we don’t have a strong leaders moving that project along it’s going to sit there.

And it’s not just the funding we already got that has been stalled, it’s the literally hundreds of millions of dollars I see going to other communities because we don’t have the right requests on the table. Opportunities are slipping through our fingers because West Haven isn’t even in the conversation those requests need to come from the Chief elected official but we are not at the table. We need someone who is going to pull up a folding chair and sit at the table and say West Haven’s in the House. I know where those opportunities are that we need to capitalize on them for us.

Because sadly as surrounding towns have prospered, we have stagnated.

So how are we going to get the city moving forward, I’m going to bring in the best and the brightest for my cabinet? A Finance Director, a grants writer, a corporation counsel, and yes an Economic Development Director that has experience, contacts and delivers results as that is the only way we are going to grow our grand list. 

There is only one way to have a sustainable tax base. Grow the grand list. And there’s only one way to Grow the Grand List, Economic Development. 

That Economic Development includes:

Down town doesn’t just need a face lift it needs a major surgery. There are a number of state and federal programs that can assist towards that end and I’ll be working towards a private public partnership that changes the purpose

The HAVEN,  26 acres, etc.    private sale but need to be in the loop. Will have to follow the strict guidelines for what zoning will accept.

And let’s address the Boston post road, you can almost see a line when you enter West Haven from orange, and our section looks junky. We have businesses on that road who are clearly trying to upgrade their area, but we need to help them, we need to attract more business.

I will be seeking designation of a Bioscience Enterprise Zone the Railroad Frontage Road as because we see how New Haven brought in hundreds of millions by capitalizing on these beneficial zones.

Enterprise zones, opportunity zones, entertainment zones, there are tax benefits for these types of designations.

Beach Street, we have had a lot of focus to clean that whole area up and we now need the owners of the rest of the underdeveloped properties along that strip to meet with us and let us know the intent, because they can’t stay looking like that anymore. And we want to help so I will be meeting with the property owners to determine the intent focus on but we need the rest of the road to get on board and I will be meeting with the owners of abandon properties to determine their intent and what could be our shared vision for the area so we jump start development.

And small Businesses which play into our economic development, fund continue to sit in APRA to help them upgrade, we have to not only see what works for them, but I will make sure our businesses know of all the opportunities for grants in our State.  

So get our operations in order, help jump start a new city hall operation and get economic development going everything else we want in that quality of life falls into place:

Our education system, clean streets, public safety. Mention pension.  Provides another layer of security for the residents by retaining the officers from moving to other cities. I was adamant they maintain the pension and not convert to a 401k

Finally before I conclude, I want to address the MARB.  The Municipal Accountable Review Board. This is a legislative program that gave us $16M in funding for our bottom line to balance our budgets, pay our bills and all they asked is that we restructure how we are doing business so we don’t find ourselves in this situation again. We didn’t live up to our end of the bargain.

And as a result we have been under State oversight for 6 years. Going backwards! From teir 3 to teir 4!

We need to partner with them, take their input, build trust and confidence so that we can say “thank you now we got this” “we can run our own city now” 

But again it’s going to take a bit to get there.  We have a long road ahead of us West Haven, we’ve had a tough few years.  But we are resilient and I’m confident it will all come together and turn around.   

From the day I take office I will accept the city as it is and I will knowledge the state of the city, I will learn from historical actions both the good and the bad but we need to move on. Because this is about tomorrow, this is about our future, we can’t change the past, let’s learn from it and move forward. It’s time to change the tone to a positive one.

This is the moment we change course for the future, this is the moment we bring back our pride, this is the moment we hit our challenges straight on and fix them, and this is the moment that you get the government you deserve.

I’d like to be that person that leads us through, my place is here home and that is why I am formally announcing my candidacy for Mayor.

 Let’s this campaign going, Thank you West Haven.

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