'Danbury Deserves Truth: The First 100 Days of Mayor Roberto Alves'

"Danbury Deserves the Truth: The First 100 Days of Mayor Roberto Alves"

submitted by the Danbury Republican Town Committee

May 6, 2024

On March 29th, Danbury’s freshman Democratic Mayor, Roberto Alves, penned an Op-Ed in The News- Times titled ‘ Looking to make progress in every corner of Danbury’. In it, the Mayor attempts to paint a dazzling picture highlighting a myriad of achievements that have occurred during his first 100 days in office. What the Mayor’s opinion article actually paints is a web of deceptive misrepresentations using cheap political tactics to take credit for the work of the prior Republican administration, that Alves narrowly defeated in November 2023 by only 272 votes.

As a resident and voter in the City of Danbury, it is important that you have the facts to consider, as it was Mayor Roberto Alves who promised (and continues to promise) transparency and accountability from his administration. Below, we have juxtaposed Mayor Alves' statements from his March 29th Op- Ed with verifiable facts to consider that the Mayor omitted from his article as he attempted to manufacture a list of achievements for himself. We trust that you will see for yourself that the Mayor has failed to deliver on his campaign promises thus far. On behalf of every resident and voter in the city of Danbury, we are asking Mayor Alves to govern the great city of Danbury as he promised he would.

The Mayor’s Words: “...What we must do is work to meet our schools’ needs, and address and acknowledge the fiscal cliff without additional burden to the tax payers.”

The Facts: Mayor Alves’ FY 2024 - 2025 budget underfunds the Board of Education (BOE) budget by $23,000,000. This is the most underfunded school budget in the history of our city. On top of the underfunded school budget, the Mayor goes on to state that we must address the fiscal cliff without additional burden to the tax payers. However, the Mayor’s budget raises taxes by nearly 5%. How is a 5% tax increase not an additional burden for Danbury tax payers?

The Mayor’s Words: “I’ve also signed off on major projects that already have funding such as the downtown sewer study that allows to assess and address responsible growth and development downtown, and the much-needed long overdue Danbury High School science lab upgrades.”

The Facts: The funding for the DHS Science Lab upgrade came from two sources, both under Danbury’s prior Republican administrations. Roberto Alves was opposed to both education funding measures in his previous roles as Democratic Town Committee Chairman and City Councilman but now, as mayor, takes credit for these wins that have benefited our students, teachers and community as a whole.

Science Lab Upgrade Funding Source 1: The $208 Million Educational Bond package under Mayor Dean Esposito’s administration (2022). This package had $42 million for school repairs. Danbury voters voted overwhelmingly in favor of this package, with 86% of voters in favor. Mayor Alves (then Democratic Town Committee Chairman) campaigned against this bond package.

Science Lab Upgrade Funding Source 2: The $62 Million Borrowing package under the Boughton administration. This measure overwhelmingly passed on bipartisan lines in the City Council, with 18-2 vote in favor. One of the two votes against this funding was Mayor Roberto Alves (then a City Councilman).

The Mayor’s Words: “We’ve been on the move since December looking to make progress in every corner of Danbury. This includes bringing more than $5.7 million in state and federal to Danbury to improve our airport, make our streets safer, clean up our brownfields, improve sidewalks, intersections, drainage and more…”

The Facts: Most of the state and federal dollars brought to Danbury was initiated under the Republican administration preceding Mayor Alves. For Mayor Alves to take personal credit for “bringing more than $5.7 million” to Danbury is beyond dishonest. Here are a just few of the grants that Mayor Alves has taken personal credit for as Mayor.

• $2,277,972 Federal Airport Improvement program Grant from the US FAA, applied for and awarded to Danbury under the prior Republican administration.
• $400,000 Safe Streets for All Action Plan Grant from the US Department of Transportation, applied for under the prior Republican administration and awarded to Danbury on Mayor Alves' 13th Day in office.
• $200,000 Brownfield Municipal Assessment Grant from the CT DECP, applied for under the prior Republican Administration and awarded to Danbury on Mayor Alves' 19th Day in office.

When the facts are considered, here is a summary of Mayor Alves' performance in his first 100 days:

• Mayor Alves proposed a budget raising taxes by 5% after campaigning to keep taxes low.
• Mayor Alves proposed the most underfunded education budget in the history of Danbury.
• Mayor Alves took personal credit for inherited projects that have long been in the works and set in motion by prior administrations.
• Mayor Alves took personal credit for state and federal money obtained under prior administrations and through the hard work of the City of Danbury department heads and staff members.

We wish we could be celebrating the accomplishments of this administration but the unfortunate truth is that the Mayor, and his inexperienced administration, have failed to deliver on the promises they made to the city a few short months ago.

While the mayor continues to pat himself on the back, we invite you all to join us in paying close attention to the facts that we will continue to shine the light on as his term continues. Thus far, and much to our chagrin, Mayor Alves has not been honest, transparent, accountable or effective for the City of Danbury. We do hope he will get there at some point, as the city we love will suffer as long as the promises made by our City's leader are broken.

Danbury Republican Town Committee