Statement Of Mayor James L

Statement of Mayor James L. Richetelli, Jr. at Eisenhower Park, Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Good Afternoon, and thank you all for joining me here today.

I asked you to join me at Eisenhower Park because this site is indicative of how the local Democrat Party - under the leadership of their party boss Richard Smith – plays politics in Milford.

In 2007, with the help of Senator Joseph Lieberman, I secured grant funding to improve this park. The Democratic aldermen – under Mr. Smith’s leadership – strongly objected to this. They objected because it was Jim Richetelli and Joe Lieberman who made it happen.

I also have for you today a list of Milford projects submitted for 2009 ARRA “Stimulus Act” funding. Despite what Mr. Smith alleged recently, my administration continues to work hard to fund important projects in Milford. As you will see from the list (attached), Milford has requested more than $62 million in “Stimulus” funding.

As Mayor, there are better ways to spend the people’s time than by holding press conferences. But sometimes, something so troubling and false occurs that it forces one to put aside the people’s business, if for no

other reason than the fact that falsehoods sorely affect the people’s business.

Today, a local newspaper carries a front page story in which the Democrat Party boss Richard Smith and his sidekick Michael Brown make my past issue with an anti-anxiety prescription medication a campaign issue.

You know Mr. Smith. He is very smart, and very adept at saying “X” in order to imply the opposite of “X”. I don’t have enough fingers to count the times Mr. Smith has said – either to the press, or on his party’s website, or through the comment sections on newspaper websites – that he and his Democrat colleagues wish me well and would not make an issue of this past matter, about which I have been and will continue to be very open.

No matter how hard Mr. Smith and his cronies try to portray me as “addicted”, the fact is that I work hard every day to ensure that issue stays behind me. Mr. Smith fools no one when he falsely states that he supports me. While I remain committed to maintaining a healthy and productive present, Mr. Smith is hypocritically locked in his dark past.

Today’s paper finds Mr. Smith once again employing his artful craft to publicly raise this never-to-be-raised issue: Now, he alleges, I may have been “off my game” as regards my efforts to get Milford federal stimulus funds for so-called shovel-ready projects. His implication is: I was too crocked to apply. This is not true! And I strongly resent his insinuations.

My friends, what Mr. Smith says matters - even when he says something so false and ill intentioned. When Mr. Smith as party chairman dictates to Milford Democrat Aldermen that they will reduce the size of our police force, those Aldermen follow his orders and cut police staffing. When Mr. Smith dictates to Milford Democrat Aldermen that they will cut funding for the early warning system our coastal community so sorely needs, those Democrat Aldermen follow his orders and cut this critical safety program.

When he sets the tone of the election, you can be sure his partisan colleagues will follow. Let them!

I hope, however, his words and his intentions will bring about a different reaction from the good people of Milford.

I am confident they will see his reckless and impugning language for what it is. Here’s another old saying: “if it quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, and lays eggs like a duck, it’s a duck.” Mr. Smith quacks. And he’s laid a big egg here. He can imply all he wants that he is being magnanimous about my personal matters, but if he were I wouldn’t be here today. Despite his rhetoric, he very much wants to make, and has made, my personal matters a central issue of the Democrat Party’s election campaign. If this is the kind of political behavior and the people of Milford want from their leaders, then they should elect the Democrat ticket this November.

However, if they want honesty, if they want someone who means what he says and says what he means, someone with a record of accomplishment, someone who has made the hallmark of his tenure the ability to unite people, to protect Milford, to make a great city even greater - then I hope the people of Milford will re-elect me, and that they will explicitly reject Democrat Party boss Richard Smith’s disingenuous tactics.

I am not afraid to discuss any issue, including personal matters. I am not ashamed to be open. But I am ashamed of Richard Smith and his underhanded tactics to say one thing while deliberately meaning the other. It would be very refreshing if for once he would just be honest and admit what he’s doing, and what everyone else knows he is doing.

About the stimulus projects. The people of Milford should know that this is an ongoing process. I had applied for so-called shovel-ready projects through the means by which Connecticut mayors were directed, that being COG and other identified agencies of the state and federal governments.

People should know that the federal legislation justifying these stimulus expenditures was not made federal law until after my healthy return to Milford in February. Before then, after then, I and my administration had and have applied for these funds, and for any funding – whether through federal or state governments, through private industry programs, through foundations – that will improve our city and take some burden off our local taxpayers.

Following this statement, you will find a list of the things for which my administration has applied under ARRA guidelines. Again, I thank you for your kind attention today.

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