Boughton declares Danbury Democrats don't have much to discuss

By Scott Benjamin

DANBURY – Nearly 18 years ago the Hat City got a new fedora.

The last time a Republican had served for more than one term as mayor of Danbury was back when the Monkees were still on NBC each Monday night.

But in 2001 Republican Mark Boughton – before anyone knew what Twitter or Big Poppa meant – defeated Democrat Chris Setaro by 127 votes and moved from a Social Studies classroom at Danbury High School to the third floor of City Hall.

He has posted a record that would be the envy of Coach K or Magic.

From 2007 through 2017, he has always captured more than 63 percent of the vote. In 2015 he ran unopposed. The last time he didn’t annex at least 63 percent was in 2005, when he defeated former Democratic Town Clerk Dean Esposito, who is now his chief of staff.

Boughton has run three times for governor, finishing somewhere on the tote board each time. He was on a ticket as the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor in 2010 that lost in a photo finish; placed second at the state convention in 2014; and then won the convention and placed second in the primary last year.

Although four of the last nine Connecticut governors had previously been municipal leaders – and the current occupant, Democrat Ned Lamont served on the Board of Selectmen in Greenwich in the late 1980s– no sitting mayor has been elected governor since Hartford’s Morgan Bulkeley in 1888.

The Democrats have a trilby hat on the rack that they think they can put a feather in come November. After all, their party held the mayor’s office for 30 of the 34 years before Boughton’s initial victory. The Democrats have about a 5,000-voter registration edge over the GOP in the city, although the largest bloc are the unaffiliated voters, which outnumber the Democrats by about 5,000.

Last fall Julie Kushner of Danbury became the first Democrat to be elected in the 24^th state Senate District since 1992.

Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report has said Democrats tend to live where there are Whole Foods supermarkets and Republicans where there are Cracker Barrel restaurants.

Danbury has a Whole Foods, but even though the city ranks first, per capita, in Connecticut in restaurants, it doesn’t have a Cracker Barrel.

Setaro – an attorney and former president of the City Council, has mounted an aggressive campaign as he seeks a rematch with Boughton 18 years later. More than 440 people attended his formal kick-off in January and he has posted impressive fund-raising figures, according to The News-Times of Danbury.

What do you think the campaign discussion will be about?

“I think it’s going to be a hard one for them,” Boughton said in an interview, noting that the most recent public survey indicated that 82 percent of the residents polled “like living in Danbury.”

He said that the city has more population and more services than when he was initially elected, but a smaller municipal government staff.

Boughton added that the city also boasts seven schools of distinction.

He has thousands of followers on Twitter and is know there as Big Poppa, a name that some Danbury High School students gave him years ago after his prediction of a Notorious B.I.G snowstorm went viral on the social media.

Boughton has said, in particular, it is an effective way to communicate with voters under age 25.

Sacred Heart University Political Science Department Chairman Gary Rose has said that part of the reason for the Democratic Blue Wave in Connecticut last year was due to voters sending a message to Republican President Donald Trump.

“That’s not going to be an issue in 2019,” Boughton said. “Local races are about local issues.”

In a 2017 profile on Danbury’s economy, CT Mirror reported that, “People describe [Boughton] as pragmatic, low-key, effective and decidedly pro-business.”

However, state Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield, whose district includes a slice of northern Danbury, recently said the city has “an odd economic dynamic.”

On the plus side, Donald Klepper-Smith, who chaired former Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s economic team, said last year that Danbury was the only metro area in Connecticut that had regained all of the jobs lost from the 2008 recessions.

Also in the positive direction, it ranks first in the state in sales tax revenue – largely due to the 33-year-old Danbury Fair Mall – and is adding population at a time when people have been leaving Connecticut for better jobs.

Yet more than half of the students in the public schools are on reduced lunch and the United Way reported last September that 31,000 households, half of the population, are hovering just above the poverty line or below that measure.

Boughton has said part of the reason for that dynamic has been the lack of good-paying middle class jobs since the recession.

“I think there are ways to [address] that, but it’s an ongoing battle,” he said.

Boughton said part of the solution is better matching the skills from the students graduating from Henry Abbott Tech, the regional technical high school in Danbury, and Naugatuck Valley Community College, which has a satellite campus in the city, with the job market.

Lamont said during last year’s campaign that across the state some jobs in the building trades and advanced manufacturing are not filled because there aren’t trained applicants.

Boughton said that even though metro Danbury has the lowest unemployment rate in the Nutmeg State, there has been some overhang from the 2008 recession.

He said some mid-career people, for example, with less than four years of college working in financial services lost their jobs and it has been difficult for them to obtain work at their previous salaries.

Pulitzer Prize-winning economics writer Steven Pearlstein, a Trinity College graduate, stated last fall in his book, “Can American Capitalism Survive?” that America’s business culture has changed over the last 30 years. He wrote that in the 1980s these corporate executives would have been laughed at among the members of their country club for accepting such excessive compensation.

“The gap continues to expand, and that’s a concern,” said Boughton. “There is no question that there is outrageous compensation.”

He added that some college presidents receive excessive compensation.

However, Boughton said, “I see some people doing wonderful things. There are companies that have already raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour and have health care for everybody.”

The mayor said he is encouraged that the Danbury Fair Mall is about to expand, but cautioned that “malls across America have to recharge themselves with the competition from Amazon.”

As is the case with other metro Danbury area elected officials, he is concerned about the impact of Lamont’s proposed toll plan and has told the governor that a reported 40 percent of the customers at the mall are from out of state.

On another subject, Boughton said his three bids for statewide office have made him a better mayor.

“What is great about running statewide is that you see what other mayors and first selectmen are doing,” he said. “I have an inquisitive mind. I think the fact that I can borrow a few ideas is helpful” for Danbury.

“You learn about what you don’t know, which is a lot,” added Boughton with a laugh.

For example, he said he learned more about lobster fishing and about how submarines are made at Electric Boat in Groton.

Boughton said that Connecticut continues to be hampered by being the Land of Steady Habits.

“Connecticut does not like change,” the mayor explained. “To have progress, we have to convince people that we have to change some of the ways we do things.”

He said that he supports Lamont’s “scale-back” of the state’s bond appropriations even though Danbury will probably be seeking reimbursement funds for school projects in about two years.

“In general, I think the era of bonding for pet projects for legislators and mayors and first selectmen is over,” he said regarding Lamont’s pledge to try to trim state bonding by $600 million a year.

State government has faced continued deficits over the last decade. There is a projected deficit of about $1.4 billion for the fiscal year that starts in July.

Boughton announced in June 2017 during his most recent gubernatorial campaign that he wanted to gradually phase out the state income tax through reductions in state spending.

Bob Stefanowski of Madison, the former business executive who petitioned his way on to the ballot and won the August primary, took a similar position and even paid economist Art Laffer – an author of the Reagan and Trump federal tax cuts – to write his package.

“Mark Boughton’s problem was that he wasn’t up on the air in January and Bob Stefanowski was,” said Boughton. “It was a very smart strategy.”

However, Rose has said that Lamont was able to garner support from some voters after he insisted there would be dire consequences if the income tax was abolished.

On a separate topic, Lamont, who was endorsed last year by the state employee collective bargaining units, received a swift rejection from them to his proposal in February when he sought additional contract concessions. The state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness reported last year that the state employees pensions were only 29 percent funded.

“By having that public conversation he’s getting broad public support,” Boughton said of Lamont’s early efforts to reduce fringe benefits.

“It’s early yet,” he added.

Boughton says at this point he’s only interested in being mayor. He’s had the job longer than anyone in Danbury and doesn’t have any further desire in occupying the coveted second-floor office at the State Capitol, the executive residence on Prospect Avenue in Hartford or have a state police officer place cones so he always would have a reserved parking space.

But maybe if he gets a 10^th term as mayor he’ll not only get awarded an additional Twitter account, but Chuck’s Steak House – where he worked as a youth - will assign him a permanent table whether he’s dining there or not.

Perhaps there will be a referendum to change the name of the recently returned 38-foot statue that was once featured at the Great Danbury State Fair from “Uncle Sam” to “Mayor Mark.” Or maybe even “Big Poppa.”