Wallingford Candidate Profile: Liu For Mayor

WALLINGFORD, CT — The 2019 municipal election is heating up in Wallingford and there are plenty of races with candidates eager to serve in elected office.

Wallingford Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

Jared Liu, 42, is running for mayor as a Democrat.

Are you running for office in Wallingford? Contact Vinnie Salzo at vincent.salzo@patch.com for information on being featured in a candidate's profile and submitting campaign announcements to Wallingford Patch.

See also: Wallingford Mayoral 2019 Election Profile: Dickinson Vs. Liu

Family:

Wallingford family: Kristin (wife), Rosie (12), Whit (10), Emmy (7), Charlie (father), Renee (mother), Todd (brother), Jeanne (sister-in-law), Kieran (nephew), Ronan (nephew), McKenna (niece)

Education:

BA, Bowdoin College

Occupation:

Yale School of Management, 4 years

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office:

None

The single most pressing issue facing our town/district is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

A key obligation of the town administration is to attract and support a thriving business community. When our businesses succeed – creating jobs, services, and the type of community where we want to live – we succeed. However, over the past three decades, the current administration has eroded the thriving economic landscape they inherited, which was the product of planning, marketing, and listening to business concerns.

Economic development is the key to Wallingford’s future. I’m proposing a plan to build the infrastructure to attract businesses we want, support the ones that are already here, and plan for the future. To do this, the Town must significantly transform the way it approaches economic development. When we don’t plan, the character of our town changes, we neglect areas like Yalesville Center and lower downtown, and we put a greater strain on traffic and parking as well as the tax base. I hope you’ll read my detailed plan for economic development.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

My vision is for a safe and healthy town that is well served by public transportation, easily accessible by car, bike, and foot, integrates with retail and outdoor destinations we desire, works with police and fire department to protect and serve, and engages neighbors to care for neighbors. My vision is of a town office with an open-door policy that listens and responds to the citizens. My vision is investment in Wallingford’s future.

Wallingford is an attractive place to live. The beauty and essence of our town have been well maintained by vigilant neighbors. Commuting options between New Haven and Hartford are now more convenient with the new train service and station, there are many houses that reflect individual design, and the town is not in debt. But it is time to stop having to fight with town government to maintain what we love about Wallingford and start having it work with us and for us.

Just think about some of the missed opportunities over the past few decades: not investing in a real community pool, misapplying Main Street grant programs so that we lose public funds and private investors walk away, letting Community Lake empty so that there’s now nowhere in Wallingford where you can picnic by the water, moving Parks & Recreation out of downtown, not accepting the state’s offer to invest in Lyman Hall, locating the new train station away from the downtown and then having no plan for development, presiding over an exodus of families and young professionals leaving town while at the same time letting Rt. 5 explode with unplanned sprawl, and so on.

List other issues that define your campaign platform:

I'm running on:

Economic Development

Education

Health, Safety, and Services

Finance

Arts & Community

Environment

Electric

Technology

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

In my career, I have worked in risk evaluation at Bank of America, investment management at Andersen, and budgeting and compliance on Capitol Hill. I found success in these jobs as a fiscal conservative identifying efficiencies that reduced expenses, a strong negotiator making deals to capitalize on forward-looking plans, and a leader inspiring the best ideas and community engagement. So, when I say that the residents of Wallingford are over-taxed, you know I have the financial experience to back this up.

The best advice ever shared with me was ...

"When you're finished changing, you're finished." – Benjamin Franklin

Campaign website:

www.jaredliu.com