Stamford Mayoral Candidates Don't Hold Back in Latest Debate

The four candidates for Stamford mayoral race squared off Monday night at the Yerwood Center in a NAACP-hosted showdown that brought the "fireworks," as Democratic candidate David Martin would call it by the end of the night. 

In a debate that again took a strong focus on diversity and the future generations of Stamford, Martin and Republican candidate Michael Fedele took pot shots at each other while unaffiliated candidates Kathleen Murphy and John Zito sought to take advantage of the heat by painting themselves as choices that wouldn't be bothered with bickering and, instead, focused on selling themselves.

"Since the Democrat and the Republican are bashing themselves, I'm Independent and my name's John Zito," Zito said in the closing moments of the debate after a heated exchange between Martin and Fedele. "Ms. Murphy's Independent too. Well, excuse me, Unaffiliated, we are. I'm not going to bash these guys.I got teased in the beginning, And I'll say it now, I'm a comedian. But, let me tell you folks, it's all got to stop. It's all got to stop. We got to work together. And that's why I'm here."

Zito frequently fell back on his self-described persona as a working man, someone who admittedly had little political experience but decided it was a benefit as he was not simply a politician, but instead had "street smarts."

Murphy, on the other hand, took the approach that her experience with Stamford's Board of Finance, her financial background working as treasurer in the town of Greenwich and her responsibilities at a "billion dollar company" in the manufacturing sector with 2,000 employees gave her exactly the right combination of exposure to running a company that she would need to see Stamford prosper. 

"I believe this city is in a very serious financial condition," Murphy said. "Quite frankly, I believe that we're headed for bankruptcy. The reason is, we're currently borrowing to pay operating expenses. [...] We're using next year's taxes to pay this year's expenses. And then if you look at the amount of debt we've had, we issued bond offer after bond offer after bond offer. We have $500 million in debt outstanding, yet look at the status of our schools, their disrepair, the roads, the potholes. Where's all this money going? What projects are really getting done? There's no prioritizing or organization. There's no accountability for what's going on."

But while Zito and Murphy sought to gain round and footing, Martin and Fedele were fine with taking jabs at each other. They traded barbs on how to handle overcrowding in schools with Martin saying a $50 million investment for a new building would be too costly and Fedele say there's no way Martin could know what a school would cost without going through the planning stages. 

Fedele would go on to call out Martin's 30 years of experience between the Board of Representatives and Board of Finance as inadequate, since Martin was in a position to have an impact already but residents have only seen increased taxes. 

"Ask yourself, are you better off today than 30 years ago," Fedele said. "Let's cut through the rhetoric about Republicans and Democrats and who's who in the zoo. These municipal elections are about parties, they're about people and their contributions to our city and I can tell you I don't only contribute to this city and my family doesn't only contribute to this city when it's an election. We contribute to this city every day."

Martin called out cronyism within the city, Fedele's alleged connections to the Tea Party, and the idea that Fedele supports developer deals that rarely benefit the city's own workers or it's citizens, who need more affordable housing. 

"The developers are getting too much of a free reign," Martin said. "With all due respect to Mr. Fedele, who calls some of the deals 'fair and balanced,' and that's a quote, they're not fair and balanced because [Stamford] is not getting the jobs. And they're getting the deals. And that's got to end. That's got to end. Somebody's got to put us first. It's time for somebody who not only says they're for affordable housing but actually has done something about it. [...] We've got an issue in City Hall. There's too much cronyism. Too much favoritism. Too much inside deals."

Jack Bryant, President of the NAACP Stamford Chapter, said, though the group could make no endorsements of political candidates, the night was about gaining an education, and allowing those attending to spread that education further. 

"We thought it was important and very crucial that we invite the candidates who are going to be making decisions about some concerns we have in the communities that we serve, to bring the debate to the community," Bryant said prior to the debate. "The other debates have been in other areas so I couldn't see why they couldn't come to our community. We've made a difference in putting people in office before and we can do it for the next Stamford mayor, so we want to make sure our concerns are answered."