Seven months ago, New London’s first ever elected mayor told the city council that he had decided not to seek a second term.
Members of the city council thought he wasn’t serious. At the time, Councilor Anthony Nolan told the The Day of New London, “At first we thought it was an April Fool’s Joke.”
Seven months later, the joke is apparently on the city council, as Mayor Daryl Finizio announced that he would, in fact, seek a second term in office.
“These plans are going to take three to five more years to complete and I feel that since I started them I should stick around to finish the job,” Finizio said during an interview Thursday.
The plans he’s talking about have to do with six ballot measures that voters approved on Election Day earlier in the week. They included a $168 million bond issue and the plan to the city’s school system the first in the state to feature only magnet schools.
In addition to wanting to shepherd New London through the new ventures, Finizio said he’s responsible for the city getting its fiscal house in order.
“I balanced the budget two years in a row and the budget that was adopted on Tuesday will be balanced this year as well,” Finizio said. "That’s three years of balanced budgets after decades of deficit spending that brought our city to the fiscal brink.”
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Just hours after Finizio made his intentions clear, he already had competition from within his own part.
Democrat Michael Passero, who has sat on the New London City Council since 2008, announced his intention to seek the city’s highest office for the second time.
Four years ago, Passero announced his plans to run for mayor but later withdrew his name from consideration.
“They’re ready for a change in leadership,” Passero said during his campaign kickoff event at Muddy Waters Cafe in downtown New London. “They’re ready for some new energy. I’ve been here my whole life. I think I have the vision, the experience and the leadership to get this done.”
Passero said he wants to bring back into the fold people who helped to improve the city over the years.
“I have a capacity to build coalitions. I have a capacity to build consensus. There’s too much talent in this city that’s been marginalized, that’s been pushed to the sidelines. It’s waiting on the sidelines; it’s waiting to get into the game. I’m prepared to get the momentum going that we had before we changed governments,” Passero said.
Finizio was quick to dismiss the notion of Passero's candidacy, saying that he’s part of the old guard of New London politicians who merely worked to stay in their positions of power rather than improve the city.
“The leadership that I think is being offered by the opposition is leadership that was in place in this city when we ran record deficits, when my opponent voted for budgets that were terribly unbalanced,” Finizio said.
Passero said he wouldn’t categorize Finizio as an enemy. After all, he was happy with his election three years ago. He said he thinks it’s time for a fresh face to run city hall.
“Quite frankly, I never felt as strong an adversarial relationship as he did because I think in many ways, he was creating it," Passero said, "and I’ve been a hundred percent behind the major initiatives that this community is supporting because it’s the community that’s supporting these efforts.”
The race for mayor of New London started in November 2014, one year before any ballots will be cast.
