Q&A With John Theriault

Education and Economic Development Key To Independent Party Candidate John Theriault's Campaign






Interview By John Murray
Photographs By Michael Asaro


Observer: John, you seem like a nice guy. Why are you doing this to yourself?

Theriault: I am a nice guy and have a lot of respect from the community. I’ve been a lifelong resident of Waterbury and I’ve worked in the town for 32 years as a teacher and a principal. I want to give back to the town and the community what they gave to me. They gave me a good living all these years. As you develop your skills and hone your talents I think it’s time to give back. There are things going on in the city that I don’t like.

Observer: Like what? What’s the number one thing you don’t like?

Theriault: I see a mayor who is a full-time developer and a part-time mayor. I see some wheeling and dealing going on with NETCO/Synagro down in the sewer plant. I see the mayor building buildings outside the city and recruiting businesses out of Waterbury. This erodes our tax base.
I see people in Waterbury struggling with their taxes and unemployment and there is no economic development plan in place.

Observer: So you are frustrated?

Theriault. Yes. I want to be part of the solution to the problem, I don’t want to be the problem itself. I want to offer some initiatives. I want to expose the issues. I have no desire to ever attack the mayor on a personal or family basis. The mayor has a lot of issues regarding the operation of city government that have to be addressed.

Observer: If we can back up for a moment and address the sewage treatment plant you mentioned. What specifically are you referring too?

Theriault: NETCO turned into Snagrow and they take the waste from the sewage plant…

Observer: Isn’t the sewage treatment plant owned by Waterbury?

Theriault: Yes, but Sinagrow takes the waste and we pay Sinagrow to burn it. Synagrow also takes a lot of liquid waste from other places and charges to process outside waste through our facility. Then they take the waste from that and burn it. The little bit of money that we get from the outside waste, then we have to pay Sinagrow to burn it. It’s a wash, but we need this to be a profit engine for the city. We don’t need to outsource this, we need to use this as part of our economic development plan.

Observer: Is that an example of the mayor not paying attention to the process? From the way you brought the subject up a minute ago you were making it seem like there were some shennanigans going on there.

Theriault: Well, take a look at EWR, that has now turned into Phoenix Soil and the mayor has not addressed that situation for ten years. When the case finally got into court the judge admonished the mayor for not bringing the court case further, and then he gave Phoenix Soil an extension for three more years. It has been documented and proven that this is a source of a lot of pollution within the city and it’s no mistake that the incidence of cancer in Waterbury has increased 300%.
The people of Waterbury are suffering and the mayor has increased the profits in his company year after year. His company bought the old Health Department Building and sold it a year later for a million dollar profit.



Observer: During Q&A interviews with the mayor in the last eight years we have probed into the subject of his private development projects several times and he doesn’t seem to recognize or acknowledge that many people in Waterbury are troubled by his actions. It’s not that he is doing anything illegal, but people wonder who is he serving – the taxpayers, or his own bottom line?

Theriault: Right. This is a big problem for me. I think the mayor is involved in insider trading. He knows about the land that becomes available before anyone else does. Look at the property in the East End that Kohl’s is on. He knew about that before anyone else and he grabbed that quick with his LLCs. Mike Jarjura should have no involvement with any real estate development while he is the mayor.
Let’s talk about things that look unfair to the public. Take the proposed land deal between the city and Norman Drubner. The mayor is a millionaire. Norman Drubner is a millionaire. Would there be a temptation to sell it to the city and then flip it back to the mayor’s LLC. I’m not saying that is going to be done, but it is possible when you have a mayor actively involved in real estate development in Waterbury.
It’s all about perception.
Norman Drubner is a millionaire and he started this forest designation for his land 25 or 30 years ago. He is not doing anything illegal, but when someone who has ¼ of an acre and a two-bedroom house in Waterbury is paying $6000 in taxes, and they see Drubner paying $700 in taxes on 133 acres, it becomes an issue of fairness. Norm did absolutely nothing wrong. He took advantage of a tax break. He is a sharp businessman, but at what point do we say that it’s time to re-evaluate the property. Maybe it should be reclassified when you put a shovel in the ground, or cut a tree.
I really do think the city should buy that property and make it part of Western Hills and make it a park. Then we should protect it by making sure that it could only be sold by approval in a citywide referendum. That would ensure the sanctity of the place and protect open space.
People all over Waterbury should be concerned about this property. It is one of the last big open space properties that we have left. We need to look at this property from the standpoint of not increasing the burden on our system of services – the schools, the fire and the police. We need to keep this land at bay, just like we needed to keep the condo development out of Town Plot. We have resurgence in condominium proposals in Waterbury and there is a profit motive here.

Observer: Are there other perception problems?

Theriault: The mayor and his partners built an office building just over the line in Middlebury and recruited businesses out of Waterbury to fill its space. That’s taking away from our tax base and increasing the mayor’s profits. He is asking the tax payers of Waterbury to “Do as I say, not as I do.”
We are struggling here in Waterbury. Our tax base is eroding and our industrial base is gone. What we have is places like Target and Bernie’s, which do provide some jobs, but we need something more substantial, and not like First Light.
(Editor’s Note – First Light is a 96-megawatt electric generator built on a Brownfield site on Washington Avenue in the South End of Waterbury)
First Light really angered me. I went up to the capitol for five days to participate in the hearings, and when I finally got a chance to speak I was asked, “Are you an expert in pollution?” and I said, “No, I was a principal and a teacher and know the kids and the community.”
A lawyer for First Light asked me if I had written any books about pollution. I said no, that I was there because I felt passionate about the location of the proposed plant in the South End because of its proximity to 18 schools. I said I was concerned. They dismissed me as a nobody. They weren’t looking for the concerns of someone community oriented; they were looking for an expert witness.
I am not an expert witness but I have compassion and concern for the people living here in this community.

Observer: Why were you opposed to First Light?

Theriault: Because of the pollution. When you walk down there and you see how dangerously close the generator is to the sidewalk, and how dangerously close the electro magnetic waves are to Duggan School, Washington School and St. Francis School. There will also be large amounts of ammonium stored onsite, which I think is dangerous.
We did convince them to burn more natural gas than low-sulfur diesel fuel.

Observer: Let’s switch gears. In some of your marketing material you have listed “Jobs, jobs, jobs,” as one of your priorities. It’s easy to say jobs, jobs, jobs, but how do we specifically get jobs here?

Theriault: We need an economic development plan. This is a thing that the mayor has openly admitted he has not invested too much time and money into. He said during his Q & A with the Observer two years ago that he sent the resources into the Health Department and the Public Works Department. I will put some money into creating an economic development plan and use some muscle to getting it done.
What the Waterbury Development Corporation (WDC) is doing right now is not enough. We need to get the partners together at the table, the community leaders and the state organizations of economic development and sit down as a task force and come up with a specific plan.

Observer: In theory the task force is already in place. WDC already has the neighborhood groups and stakeholders sitting at the table.

Theriault: There is a disconnect between the mayor’s office and WDC. Economic development needs to be run out of the mayor’s office, not out of WDC. The people need to come to the mayor.
We have to clean the Brownfields up and make them available for economic development. If you walk around and have cancer in your body you have to get rid of it so you can be healthy. The Brownfields are like tumors in the city.

Observer: The Brownfield clean-up funds are exhausted and the state is broke. How do you do that?

Theriault: We need to do it. We need to find ways to do it, even if we do it piecemeal. We need a systematic plan to attack the Brownfields and we don’t have one now. We need a plan.
Once the Brownfields are cleaned up we have to make it easier for business to come to Waterbury and stay here and achieve their business plan.
We have to clean up the Brownfields without clobbering the taxpayers in Waterbury.

Observer: How? That becomes the rub. Cleaning the Brownfields up is like putting a big worm on a hook to try and catch industry, but how do we catch the worm?

Theriault: That’s part of it. We need to clean up the Brownfields but we have big clean industrial parks now that are only half full. We have no aggressive effort right now to go out and recruit new business here. We have no marketing in national trade magazines or trade shows. There is no initiative to go out and convince business to come to Waterbury. We are a megalopolis at a crossroads that is halfway between New York City and Boston. This has to be palatable to a lot of business and industry but we have to go convince them to take a look at us.
We need to make Waterbury friendly and affordable so business can meet their goals and we can expand our tax base. If we are successfull we could actually lower taxes here. There has not been a concerted effort by this mayor to recruit new business. As mayor, you have to try to expand the tax base and the only way to do this is to develop a good sound economic development plan.
At the moment we have WDC and John Rowland at the helm, and I’m sure John is trying. It must be frustrating for John in this economy, but it’s just not enough. We need to be more aggressive and take our message out to industry and to national trade shows.
We could have had Jay Lestorti making cabinets at the old Anamet site. But he was driven out for political reasons, and when he did go bankrupt the mayor swooped in and bought his business right up. And who knew about that closing first?
The mayor.
You can’t say there isn’t some inside trading going on because these are the sorts of deals that do take place in Waterbury with this mayor.




Observer: When John Rowland was hired to be the economic czar in Waterbury he had a lot of ideas and plans and was gaining some traction, but when the global economy crashed he had to shift gears from recruiting business to retaining business in Waterbury…

Theriault: It has been very difficult, but we can still do more. Businesses have a business plan, we don’t have a plan right now. Last year the mayor and John Rowland announced they would have a plan for downtown Waterbury within a month. It’s 18 months later and we still don’t have a plan. We need a focused plan to give us a road map of where we want to go and plan how to get there.
The location of Waterbury is ideal. Sure this is a difficult market right now, but we aren’t doing enough to reach out and make something happen.
Right now we are in reaction and there isn’t very much being done at all. That has to change.
Maybe John Rowland is doing a good job keeping business here, but the mayor hasn’t done a very good job of that because he moved his own business outside the city.
No more lip service and promises. We need to write down a plan on paper, get as many partners involved as possible and begin to move forward.

Observer: Okay, take me through this scenario. You are elected mayor in November and sworn into office in December. John Theriault is now mayor, what do you do?

Theriault: You’d start off by getting all the people who were on stage at the Economic Summit last year, add a few extra people and make them partners in a task force on economic development. The task force would attempt a united effort to attract business and look for money for Brownfield clean up. We need to address the problems that businesses face in relocating here, and what are the problems with the businesses that are currently here. We need to try and look at these issues in an equitable and just way and help businesses relocate here and help businesses stay here.
Then we go out and aggressively market the town. Marketing is key.
We can explore tax incentives but they don’t have to go out seven and eight years like they do now. First Light has a tax abatement for seven years.
I believe a highly specific economic development plan is necessary and achievable. We have a commodity here that is invaluable – water. We should be aggressively seeking out water-based industry whether it is bottled water, cosmetics or circuits. Industry needs water and we have lots of it.

Observer: Are you comfortable with the players that are here now at WDC and John Rowland as economic czar?

Theriault: This has to be a bi-partisan effort. John Rowland is not the issue and I don’t want to make him an issue. He is in there trying to do the job and help Waterbury move forward. We have a lot of good people in place right now but we need more people and a broader based initiative. We need more work on the grass roots level, the smaller guys need to be invited to the table, not just the influential.

Observer: That’s what was so fascinating to me about the Economic Summit last year. The people on the stage; WDC, the Chamber, Main Street and the Mayor, all have a guaranteed paycheck every Friday. The people in the audience were almost all small business entrepreneurs, risk takers, and none of them have any guarantee of a specific paycheck on Friday. The small business owner is edgy and aggressive and wants action right now. They are impatient and irritated with the people on the stage who get paid whether they create results or not. Small business owners in Waterbury are disillusioned with the promise of plans. They are disgusted. Do you have any ideas for downtown?

Theriault: There is way too much rhetoric that goes on about downtown. We need to form the task force, come up with ideas and move forward. We don’t need any more words or promises, we need a plan. After we get a plan then we need weekly and monthly progress reports to monitor how we are doing. We have none of that now. We have no accountability.
Downtown has the potential to be a vibrant place. With UConn, the Palace and the Magnet Arts School we have a lot already in place. But the perception remains that downtown is not a safe place. That needs to be overcome right off the bat.
Observer: How do you do that?

Theriault: A police presence downtown. There are plenty of police when there is a show at the Palace Theater, but there needs to be a police presence like that all the time. We need to take vagrants and undesirable people of the streets. I’m not talking about people who have a right to be there, but the people that are walking around downtown after 11 pm doing shady things should be removed from downtown. We should be able to walk through any area of downtown without any fear of being mugged or jumped. People coming into Waterbury from Woodbury, Middlebury and Thomaston are always looking over their shoulder as they walk down the street. We need to eliminate that.

Observer: This goes back to the perception problem we have in Waterbury. The night the Palace opened five years ago Neil O’Leary had triple the number of necessary cops in and around the theater to make people feel safe. He said it was mostly show because downtown is safe. People’s fears are unjustified.

Theriault: But we need to address this through marketing and better lighting downtown. The whole downtown needs to be better lit. The area down by Diorio’s needs to be better lit and all the arteries leading off the Green. Lighting is a huge issue. And honestly we need to have cops on the beat again. Never mind the cops in the squad cars. We used to have cops walking from telephone pole to telephone pole checking in. Now they can do that by radio.
A lot of people have a negative feeling about a beat cop but they really are now just neighborhood cops. Friendly with the neighborhood, friendly with the community. Knows the neighborhood. Knows the kids. He’ll know when people are down on their luck, not arresting everybody for every little thing. He could get people off the street and get them the help they need. There is a connection and that’s where I think we need to go.
We should look into re-opening the precincts we had throughout the city and getting cops out on the beat. That’s what I would do.
Cops on bicycles is quite frankly an outmoded idea. We should put them on a small scooter, something motorized. I hate to see a cop over there on Long Hill pumping the bike up that steep incline. What kind of a waste is that? Give them a motorized scooter so they can get around the town faster. What would that really cost?
I’ve been at a few schools over the years as a principal where I was headed downtown and a bike cop asked if he could put their bike in my car and catch a ride downtown. They didn’t want to ride from Wallace Middle School.
The Waterbury Police Department has done a yeoman’s job keeping crime down.

Observer: What do you think of the firemen as first responders?

Theriault: At first I didn’t like the idea at all. Having big, huge firetrucks responding to every call seemed dangerous, but I spoke to a dispatcher who told me this is absolutely the best thing since night football. They get there right away. They are able to save lives. And now I think we should leave it alone. It’s a good thing.

Observer: The big question is whether the firemen need to take the big apparatus out on the road to respond to every call. Maybe if they had a few Ford Explorers it might make it safer.

Theriault: I agree. The Fire Department should still be the first responder, but maybe they should downsize the vehicle to something more manageable on the roads. The huge fire truck is many tons and we know what can happen going through busy intersections. At first I thought the firemen might be bogged down with a heart attack victim while someone’s house was on fire. I was wrong about that. It seems to be working well but we should tweak it a bit to get the firemen smaller vehicles.

Observer: Let’s switch gears to something near and dear to your heart – education. Can you briefly explain your background in education in Waterbury?

Theriault: I was educated as an industrial engineer. I worked for Pratt and Whitney a couple of years. Then I took the intensive program for college graduates, did my student teaching in New Haven. I started teaching in Washington School and was in eight schools over the course of my 32 years. I was kind of like Palladin going around doing problem solving.
I went from Washington School to Carrington, where I did my third, fourth and fifth year of teaching. Then I took the civil service test and became a teaching vice-principal, then I went down to Maloney and became the principal. The man who had been at Maloney, Jack Bergin, died of a brain tumor. He was a wonderful man and taught me a lot about compassion and working with kids from the inner city.
From Maloney I went to West Side Middle School where I filed a couple of court cases against the civil service system in Waterbury. It took eight years to resolve and then I went over to the Alternative School as acting principal. Then I went to Kennedy as a high school vice principal. Then I was principal at Hopeville for ten years, then to Gilmartin and then back to Washington.

Observer: You were really around the block.

Theriault: Yeah. Actually when I went to the Alternative School it was Ron Brodeur who recruited me. Ron was on the board and he approached me and I said “Why me?”
He told me that I had three things they were looking for. He said “you’re firm, you’re fair and you’re consistent.”
And that’s what kids need in terms of discipline and academics.
Observer: You were inside the Education Department for 32 years and for the past six years you’ve been on the Board of Education. How would you assess what is going on in the Waterbury school system right now?

Theriault: I really think we are really, really trying. Our central office administrators – Dr. Snead, Dr. Sequira, Ann Marie Cullinan, our department heads, our teachers and our administrators are working really hard developing initiatives that not only deal with No Child Left Behind, but with our own goals.
The demographics of the city is changing. We have a large minority population in our school system and a large population of poor. The socio-economic brackets that many students fall in, with the breakdown of the family, has led to very difficult problems.
People ask me all the time what is the #1 problem in education is. While many people might think the answer is test scores, I think it is family values. Family values are the fertilizer of what the plant is growing in. If you can achieve family values and encourage kids to stay in school, to go to school, to tell them that school is a medium and education will serve you well in your adult life, this is an important message to give to your kids.
Parents need to tell their kids that getting an education is one of the most important things they will ever do in their life. Parents need to tell kids that they will help them achieve that goal, that they will be there to support them.
I tell kids to go to their parents and ask them what one thing would they do differently if they had their lives to do over again. 99% of the kids come back and say that their mother or father would go back to school and get a trade or a college education.
Without a trade or a college education you are dead in the water. What happens is that if these kids don’t get the right education they look for the short way out and look to drugs and crime and end up in jail. Many of them will get addicted to alcohol or drugs and end up dying a premature death in prison. That is the reality.
On the other hand if you get a trade or a college education you have a key or a fishing pole and you can lose everything and you’ll be able to start all over again because you have an education. With an education you can go on vacations and have a nice style of living. You can have a house and you can take care of your family and you’ll be respected within your community.




Observer: The number one issue that Paul Vance banged on in the Democrat Primary was Mayor Jarjura’s lack of engagement with Education Department and the Board of Education. You’ve sat on the board these past six years. What’s your take on the mayor’s involvement?

Theriault: You have to remember that the mayor is the ex-officio member of the board of education. He comes and he breaks ties. This mayor hardly ever comes to our meetings. He’s not engaged in the educational process of what’s going on. When I am mayor I plan to attend as many board of education meetings as I can. I will participate. I will give direction.
I come from the perspective of a grass roots guy who has written with chalk dust on the board. I’ve been involved with kids in the classroom and in the lunchroom and with the bus duty.

Observer: You’ve lived the issue.

Theriault: I have. You used to see me out there all the time at Hopeville standing side by side with the crossing guard. I would go out there with my heavy jacket and gloves and my umbrella. I would occasionally pull up my car and let the crossing guard sit in it and warm up until a kid came. I would relieve the crossing guard in the rain so he could go inside and get a cup of coffee.
I did that because I respected the guy, but more so because I wanted to get out to that bus stop and I wanted to try and solve the problems before they came into the school. If there were problems on the bus I wanted to talk to the bus driver and the kids.
I wanted the kids to see me. I wanted to be visible, and I was.

Observer: Can the mayor and the board of education reach into a home and affect family values? How far can we reach and is this realistic?

Theriault: Definitely. We need to offer more programs that not only educate and encourage our kids, but also help parents with parenting skills. We have to get parents involved and motivated to come to the school.
First we need to make the school a friendly place, an inviting place where people can come and not feel threatened. If they speak a foreign language, if they speak Spanish, or Lithuanian or Albanian we need to have people in the school that are friendly and can translate for them.
PTAs need to be a place not for complaining but for building the school and strengthening the structure of the school. If you have a complaint about your child you should be able to go to the principal or the teacher and have a parent/teacher conference. When you go to the PTA you need to go there with a mission and a positive aim in mind.
If these kids don’t get an education and basic skills they are doomed.
Unfortunately we have many, many single parent families, but that in and of itself is not a death sentence. I’ve known many parents who have done an absolutely phenomenal job raising their kids by themselves. I did that myself. I got divorced and I was a single parent and so was my ex-wife. We did a great job raising our kids up and they are all college educated, Thank God.

Observer: Congratulations.

Theriault: Thank you. It is important that we reach out and help parents and educate them what school is all about.
During the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Truancy commissioner Stango and myself were named co-chairmen and through hard work by the group we were able to decrease the truancy rate by almost 30% in three years.
We did this by adding more truant officers, attendance counselors and social workers. We were able to get these people into the streets, into the homes, knocking on doors, being facilitators and being helpers of parents. We didn’t say we were going to put the parents in jail if they didn’t send their kids to school, we wanted to identify the pathology of the problem and see how we could help the parents.
We also initiated a program of parent liaisons in the schools. That’s one more helping hand at the school to help the parents.
One of our principals over at Walsh School has reached out to involve the neighborhood and community and that needs to be done all over the city.
We have a lot of ideas in place and we just need to intensify our efforts. I know parents know how important school is. I know that many of the parents did not have the opportunity, or luxury, of getting educated.
My parents never owned their own home. My mother had seven children. We struggled. When I went to college I paid my own way, getting four hours of sleep a night and commuted back and forth to New Haven. It was a struggle but it was something that I really wanted to do.
I was not a good student in grammar school or high school. I only woke up in my senior year because I had some teachers who patted me on the back and encouraged me. They told me I could do it. They told me I was smart. Then I looked around one day and decided that I was smart, and that I could do it.

Observer: Someone stepped in and encouraged you.

Theriault: Yes. It was very important. Mr. Picaro, Mr. Damien, and other great educators took a liking to me. But by the time I woke up and I was really behind and I had to struggle through college. It was very hard, but I did manage to get four college degrees and took advanced studies in urban education.
Once the importance of education kicks in you never really stop learning. The more I learn the more I realize how little I know. Education is a process and you learn something every day.

Observer: A few years ago I was involved in helping create a youth newspaper and we had twenty inner city kids explore the problem of truancy from their perspective. I was surprised to hear horror stories from the kids about the dress code. They were being suspended for wearing certain colored hair ties and principals were taking out rulers and measuring skirt length. The kids said the dress code was breaking the spirit of many marginal students who would get suspended, and then give up on school. What’s your take on the dress code?



Theriault: I think the dress code is totally ridiculous. We are spinning our wheels over an issue that is inconsequential. Every kid should have to come to the school neat and clean. They shouldn’t come to school with torn or revealing clothing, but we need to use common sense here. They should come to school the way they would dress as a teenager going to work. There shouldn’t be t-shirts, or anything written on a t-shirt, and I can see insisting on a shirt with a collar. But I wouldn’t care if the shirt was black, purple or orange. I don’t really care about the color as long as it doesn’t have any writing on it.
For instance we outlawed jeans, but we only outlawed blue jeans. So if you wore black jeans that was okay? That is ridiculous.
Most of the teachers follow the dress code, but some do not. When the kids see that it’s a bad reflection on the teacher and then the kids can say ”look at what you’re wearing”.
It’s a mixed message so we have sent out letters to our professional staff, our secretaries and our teachers, to obey a professional dress code.
But getting back to the students; as long as the clothing is neat and clean I don’t really have any problem with what color the shirt and pants are. If you want to have a uniform code, okay, tell the kids they have to wear a blue dress or blue pair of pants and a white shirt. That’s a uniform code.
Doing what they are doing now does cause frustration, and if we lose one student to that issue, if one student drops out, that’s one student too many.
If the dress code is that much of an issue with the students I suggest we entertain the thought of having a student representative or two attend the board meetings. They won’t be a voting member, but let them come and let them participate. Let the students have a say in the way government is run.

Observer: There is a huge disconnect between the city leaders and our youth right now. We need to get the kids involved.

Theriault: Years ago the Jaycees used to do a Youth Day in government and we had people from all over the city participate. Kids would be aldermen, the mayor, a sheriff, on the board of ed and so forth. We did this thing over the course of two or three days and at the end of the process one Holy Cross student came up to me and told me he loved the process and he had developed an interest in municipal government. He then told me he would be mayor of Waterbury one day. I said “Good luck, Joe.”
And he did become mayor of Waterbury. His name was Joe Santopietro.
These are some of the things we need to do. We need to get parents involved and we need to get the students involved. What’s the matter with having free spaghetti dinner once in a while? Inviting the whole family down for a free dinner. I used to do that at Hopeville using PTA money. It was never so crowded. It’s not a bribe, it creates an atmosphere where people can network and feel comfortable.
At Hopeville I used to do a picnic every year. Myself and the crossing guard and some of the parents would cook 800 hotdogs. They had potato chips, watermelon and ice cream. They sat on blankets, they picked up after themselves, and the parents loved it.

Observer: Where did you get the money for that?

Theriault: PTA funds. We used to sell wrapping paper and things like that. What little money I got in the principal’s advisory fund was used too. It was a huge success. We did a school dance at the end of every year. We used to have 200 kids come and a parent chaperone. Those kids were impeccably dressed. No sneakers, no jeans. We took a picture of each chaperone and their student. Sometime it was a grandmother, or a father, or a mother.
These are the things we need to go back to. The old-fashioned grass roots initiatives involving the community and having people feel like the school is a neighborhood place. Parents should see positive reasons to go to the school, not just because they have to go down because their son is suspended. My mother was standing in front of the principal three or four times a year because of something I did as a kid. I used to tell the kids sitting across from me that I know what it feels like, because I was there many times.
Until I was a senior in high school I saw no value in school. Nobody ever told me how important an education was, so every chance I get I tell the kids how important school is. Over and over and over. (Theriault pounded his fist on the table as he repeated) Over, and over and over.
Now I have the opportunity as a board of education member to tweak the direction that the board is going to go in.

Observer: If you are elected mayor are you going to be the “Education Mayor”?

Theriault: Certainly education is something I would focus on. I am compassionate and passionate about the issue. Education is 55% of the city budget and I believe there is still some fat to cut. The mayor recently cut the education budget by $3 million and we went into a backroom and we moved some things around and we found $3 million like that (Theriault snapped his fingers).
We didn’t cut a job and we didn’t cut a program. That tells me there is some fat in the education budget. We need to surgically remove the programs that are not working, and fiscally support the ones that are. Surplus money should be put back into the General Fund so taxpayers can get some relief.
We need to do a forensic audit of the board of education.

Observer: What do you mean by that?

Theriault: A forensic audit goes into much greater detail than a regular audit. It looks at who is spending the money and how they are spending the money. It goes way beyond the electronic audit of sums and balances. It gets into the nitty gritty about the way money is spent. It’s like what we did in the grants department when millions and millions of dollars were missing. Unbeknownst to the public much of those records were just recently reconstructed and the results were fluffed over.
We need a forensic audit every five years in every department in Waterbury. We need to look at Public Works, the fire, the police and everyone else. That’s the way it needs to be to give the taxpayers some relief. We need more accountability.

Observer: Talking about fiscal responsibility, you were the lone dissenting vote against the Duggan School project several years ago. You forewarned that trying to save the existing structure would lead to huge cost overruns. You were right, but what do we do now? Knock it down and build new?



Theriault: I wasn’t the only one. Dr. Snead (Superintendent of Schools, David Snead) had extensive experience in Detroit and he cautioned and warned the board not to go ahead with the renovation but to build new. But some people were enamored with the old clock tower, and with the charter oak, and there were even some members of the Independent Party that were enamored with that.
But all in all the independent Party stance was that we want a new school, whether it was renovated or new, we didn’t care as long as it was structurally safe.
I had my suspicions about the school and I looked at it. I’m not a structural engineer, but we did pay $50,000 to a structural engineering company to do a feasibility study on Duggan. They did the study and they found out the foundation wasn’t deep enough, the retaining walls in the back were shot and falling down, the bricks on the clock tower were so worn and deteriorated that a third of the clock tower might have to be torn down and custom made bricks made for it – custom made.
They came back a few weeks ago and said it was going to cost $6.5 million more to shore up the building, that it is no longer structurally sound. Well of course when you take the roof off and take the floors off and take the actual ribs off the building and the only thing standing is the walls, well, yeah, of course it’s not structurally sound.
There was nothing so bad that we couldn’t have used the oak beams, but the real travesty is that most of the damage to that building happened in the past 20 years. Many of the problems within the building are huge. We were led to believe the base of the building was concrete, but it’s made out of fieldstone and mortar and it’s chalking and cracking and is not sound. The whole underpinning of the building has to be replaced four feet at a time.
That is unconscionable to me. How could we be led down this rosy path that the building is structurally sound and capable of being renovated, when now they want an additional $6.5 million and they aren’t even telling us that is the bottom line. It could be more.



Observer: This isn’t George Washington’s birthplace. We can be emotional and sentimental about Duggan School, but at what cost, and what do we do now?

Theriault: You mentioned before about the mayor’s role in the board of education and maybe if he had attended a few more building committee and board of education meetings he would have been on top of this situation, because I certainly was.
If I were the mayor right now and this were happening right now I would take responsibility. The buck stops at my door and I’m responsible for it. This mayor won’t do that. He just wants to open up the city checkbook and go to the state and ask for $10 million more. This is not leadership.
Right now I don’t know what’s going to happen to Duggan – is it going to be a parking lot, are we going to tear it down and start over, are we going to get more money from the state to renovate it? I just don’t know.

Observer: Have you been inside the building?

Theriault: Yes, I went in and videotaped and documented the conditions inside Duggan. It was deplorable. We had things fallen down all around us. I did it not to say look at me, I’m inside Duggan, but to share the information with the citizens of Waterbury. I videotaped Duggan just like I did all the building committee meetings. Occasionally I’ll have a committee member ask me to shut the camera off so they can speak freely. I tell them no, the people have the right to know what we are saying and doing in their name. I’ve filmed 450 board of education meetings, special meetings, committee meetings in the past six years. I’ve saved the city almost $200,000 by filming these meetings for free and putting them on cable access TV. I do this because I think the board should be out in the open. When anyone asks me to shut the camera off I take personal offense at that because I am the watchdog for the taxpayer.

Observer: I have one final question for you…..

Theriault: Before you get to that I want to address the issue of the mayor and his statements that he has balanced the city budget eight years in a row. He brags about these eight balanced budgets but it’s the State Oversight Board that balanced the first five, and I would say that the mayor has balanced none.

Observer: None?

Theriault: None. It’s really the taxpayers in Waterbury that have balanced the budget, not the mayor. The mayor just puts in the numbers and balances the budget on the backs of the taxpayers. But it is the mayor who was instrumental in increasing the taxes on people by 200% to 300% during the last eight years.
And while the people of Waterbury have been struggling to pay their taxes, struggling to keep their jobs and their property, the mayor has continued to increase his business and hasn’t suffered in any of the business ventures he’s been involved in.
The people of Waterbury are suffering tremendously under this administration.

Observer: You have one minute with the voter before they go into the booth to tell them why they should vote for John Theriault for mayor. What would you say?

Theriault: You should vote for me because I have the talent, the ability, the education and the tenacity to make change happen.
I have the expertise and the business background. I have run my own small photography and video businesses for the past 22 years. I know the struggle of the businessman. I know the struggle of the educator. I know the struggle of the common man; growing up poor, striving for an education.
Why me? Because I’m going to be your full-time mayor ,not your full-time real estate developer and part-time mayor.
Why me? Because I’m as honest as the day is long. I’m not saying the mayor isn’t honest, but I’m saying I have a better way, a better vision for the city of Waterbury to rebuild its economic and educational structure, making it a better place.

Q&A With Michael Jarjura

Strong Financial Practice Centerpiece Of Incumbent Mayor Mike Jarjura's Re-election Campaign.




Interview By John Murray
Photographs By Michael Asaro


Observer: Let’s start off with the primary. Only 19% of the voters showed up, what’s up with that?

Jarjura: Well, you can look at it a couple of ways. Some people who wanted to be positive said the voters thought the mayor was doing a good job and basically stayed home because they were happy with the way things are going. The other way to look at it is general apathy. People are so involved in the economic crisis, the war in Afghanistan and the national debate about health care that they just aren’t focused in on local politics. Any way you look at it I think a 19% turnout is a disgrace.

Observer: I agree. In the 16 years I’ve had the Observer there are less and less voters every election. Everyday you pick up the Republican-American and look at the obituaries you see the people we are losing who were involved in the process.

Jarjura: We are not losing population but we are losing the involved community-minded people. We saw some districts in the primary where barely 5% of the voters showed up. One of the biggest voting districts by registration is at Maloney School and they had the smallest turnout.

Observer: That’s largely Hispanic isn’t it?

Jarjura: Yes, and we had a very poor turnout in the North End as well. The big turnout was Bunker Hill, Town Plot and the East End.

Observer: Historically the minority community has not participated in the voting process as much as the other ethnic populations in the city.

Jarjura: But they came out when they wanted. They came out for the Obama election so it shows they can come out if they want to.

Observer: If they are motivated..

Jarjura: How do we motivate them? We ran ads, we put up signs, we did phone calls and we had Hispanic candidates and African-American candidates on the ticket. What else can you do?

Observer: Out of the total registered Democrat voters you got 10% and Paul Vance got 9%. That’s too close for comfort. How were you feeling that night?

Jarjura: I got the feeling during the day with the exceedingly low turnout that it was going to be a close election. You could feel it from the early morning when we were wondering “Where is everybody?” It was a gorgeous day and I was getting concerned. I knew we had to get my voters out because those who were against me were more motivated. I also knew that the Independent Party had a separate operation going. Many of the families of Independent Party members are still registered as Democrats.
Don’t forget that most of the Independent Party started off in the Democratic Party. Not all, but most of them. They have a big cadre of relatives and they were calling them that day not to come out and vote for Mayor Jarjura, but to vote for the other side. So we had two operations going against us. When the votes came in and it was so very, very close, I wasn’t that surprised. When the first big one came in – Tinker School – we lost that significantly. But then when I saw St. Pete’s, where Vance and his mother and father were at almost all day, and we won by a clear 70 votes, which equalized Tinker.
When the vote came in from Lady of Loretto in Bunker Hill we won there by 70 or 80 votes. We tied in a bunch of places and when the machine count showed I was up by six votes I felt pretty good because I usually have a tendency to do better with the elderly; they are the ones who use absentee ballots.

Observer: How were you feeling during the back and forth during primary night?

Jarjura: While it was very tight Paul Pernerewski (majority leader on the Board of Aldermen) came up to me and said, “You know Mayor this is your best showing ever in a primary.”
And he was absolutely right. The first time we won by 14 votes in a three way primary. We lost some of our under ticket and that’s when we had DePillocrats and Jarjuracrats.
In 2005 we had the primary or primaries between myself and Karen Mulcahy. With her negative ads she did a job of portraying me…

Observer: She defined you.

Jarjura: She did define me to the voters. By the time we caught on to how bad it was it was too late to reverse and she beat me by about 300 votes. This time Paul did do a little of that, the distortions and the character assassinations, but nowhere to the degree of that of the Mulcahy camp.

Observer: Vance wasn’t as angry as she was.

Jarjura: She’s still an angry person. I bear the brunt of her anger even though I had little to do with her termination, but that’s all water under the dam.
This one we did win by 168 votes. I feel good because I have a tendency to do extremely well in general elections. I do appeal to the center, which I think is the majority of voters whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or consider yourself unaffiliated.



Observer: If you had lost the primary would you still be on the ballot in November as the Republican candidate? (Editor’s note - the Waterbury GOP did not put up their own candidate and have endorsed Mayor Jarjura)

Jarjura: I publicly announced that I would offer that back to the Republican Party because they may not to have wanted to continue with just me on their row. So I would have offered that back to them if they wanted to choose someone else or thought there was a better opportunity for themselves.

Observer: Suddenly there would be no shortage of Republican candidates for mayor.

Jarjura: You’re right. But the honorable thing would be for me to offer that back to them, and I would have done that.

Observer: Many people in Waterbury are gnashing their teeth about your cross endorsement and see it as a blatant attempt by the Democrats and Republicans to knock out the Independent Party. The Independents have been a thorn in your side for the past eight years.

Jarjura: I don’t think it’s because they are a thorn in my side, it’s that they have consistently conducted themselves to bring down the image of the city to our surrounding neighbors and to the State of Connecticut. Their level of conversation is generally negative and does not portray Waterbury in a very positive light.
If it was just the way they talked about me, that’s one thing. It’s more about the fact that they have not been good ambassadors for the city. They have not embraced any of the steps we have made from the Oversight Board and my own administration to advance the governing capability, to improve the financial practices of the city and to repair the infrastructure. They have been against just about everything we have been for. The differences between the Independent Party and myself these last eight years couldn’t be more pronounced.
It started with the move to open the Palace Theater, to open the UConn branch in downtown, to the magnet school, to the infrastructure I put forward – the neighborhood schools.

Observer: You feel they have opposed everything you have tried to implement?

Jarjura: I don’t feel that way, it’s all documented. I could bring out the records and show you their statements, which are over, and over, and over again opposed to my proposals. They forced a referendum on the neighborhood schools, and they lost that. We tried to do a couple of new firehouses and they fought that. They brought City Hall construction to gridlock.

Observer: What about the Republicans? If they were in the aldermanic seats instead of the Independents, wouldn’t they have been doing the same thing?

Jarjura: No. The first year I was in we had five Republicans, five Jarjuracrats and five DePillocrats and it was a tremendously productive time. It was because we could work with the Republicans. They had people like Joe Pisani, Billy Pizzutto, Lisa Mason, Brian Monguluzzo and Debbie Lewis. The Republicans could have really jammed us up, but they operated from what was best for the city and it was a very productive time. It was a healing time for the city.
Then the De Pillocrats created their own party for the 2003 election when they formed the Independent Party. At that point the Republicans got seriously wiped out. They didn’t have the strongest of mayoral candidates at that time.

Observer: Mark Forte?

Jarjura: Yes, it was Mark Forte. They were either left with one alderman, or none, I don’t remember. But they were seriously wiped out.

Observer: You’re saying the Independents are opposing everything you do, but some people would say it’s good for democracy to have opposition, to have that proverbial pebble in the shoe. With the Republicans wounding most of your eight years one could make a case that the Independents are acting in a similar oppositional role to you that Republicans would have. With you now at the top of the Republican ticket it seems like you and they are gambling on using your influence to knock the Independents out.

Jarjura: It’s a huge gamble on the Republicans part because you don’t really know how it’s all going to work out. Clearly the Independent Party runs a full slate and they are very formidable. John Theriault, no matter what you want to say about him, has a level of credibility. Unfortunately he has the eight-year track record of his party and his running mates that he can’t distance himself from. Clearly what they have stood for he now has to stand for. There is no way you can differentiate the two.
The Republicans are gambling because they didn’t have an individual who was a dominate force that they could bring forward at this time, so they figured let’s at least attempt to get a foot hold and then build off of that. We’ll know if that works on November 3rd.
I don’t oppose critical thought or debate, but anyone who has been an Observer of local government and some of these public access TV shows will see that the Independent Party makes it personal. The level of vitriol is so vile, so hate driven, that it is not productive or healthy.

Observer: We just interviewed John Theriault and he took some swipes at you, but they were about issues. He did not attack you personally.

Jarjura: John doesn’t represent the bulk of what he is running with. I have to judge on the track record of that party and the leadership of that party.

Observer: You said to me years before becoming mayor that you never really saw yourself in local politics because of personal attacks, rumor and innuendo. Once in office you were highly sensitive to criticism. You said it bothered your mother and your father, but it seemed to hurt you too.

Jarjura: Sure it did. I have a thick skin, but not that thick. I’ve gotten better at it now.

Observer: You really have. Theriault called Waterbury politics a blood sport. If you’re going to give a punch you’ve got to be ready to take a punch.

Jarjura: I don’t think John is used to it yet. I gave him just a little bit the other night and I’m sure he is still reeling from that. He’s been allowed to stay out of the foray. He’s been at the Board of Ed and once in a while he’ll put a toe in, and pull it out, but it’s at the leadership level – the Board of Alderman and their chairman and vice-chairmen, Larry De Pillo, Mike Telesca and some of their operatives who have really done the blood sport.
John is in it now and I think he is going to really have a hard time struggling with his under ticket and where he philosophically is at.

Observer: At some time in the future the odds are that the Republicans rebound and reclaim their minority status in Waterbury. They are a national party and have deeper historical roots in this city than the Independent Party. If and when that happens, do you see any good that has come out of Larry De Pillo and the Independent Party in Waterbury?

Jarjura: No. I can’t point to one thing that has been positive regarding their participation to date.

Observer: That’s quite a statement.

Jarjura: I really can’t point to one thing.

Observer: What about Larry De Pillo leading the fight against Chestnut Hill BioEnergy?



Jarjura: Yeah, well there are a few things personally that he has worked on, but as an organization, or a group, their track record, their actual empirical record has been absolutely horrible.

Observer: So you’d be happy if the Independent party vanished?

Jarjura: It’s not a matter of me being happy or not, it’s a matter of bringing civility back to the process. I think Waterbury is ready for that. It’s time to get away from this blood sport and this continual, never ending attack. It’s always attack, attack, attack. The election no sooner ends and it’s still there. It’s always there. It’s time to get away from that for the good of the city. For the psyche of the city this has to end.

Observer: What happened to electing a mayor to a four-year term?

Jarjura: The Independent Party worked against that, but I also think it was too soon after the Giordano scandal, and the people voted it down.

Observer: It seems like a four-year term would eliminate at least two years of the blood sport.

Jarjura: And it would provide for a much more stable government. Constantly shifting gears is not good for a corporation. It does make sense if an organization is floundering to make a change, but change for the sake of change is not good and I think that has hurt Waterbury in the past. Look at Stamford with Mayor Dan Malloy, he’s been there 16 years now. Down in New Haven Mayor DeStefano has been there for 16 years. Longer terms gives a leader time for real critical decision making without having to look over your shoulder.
Look at this last term. I wasn’t even in six months when J. Paul Vance announced he was challenging me. How crazy is that?

Observer: You have a tremendous record balancing budgets and reorganizing the systemic workings of municipal government. A criticism that remains from inside and outside your party is that, yes you’ve done a yeoman’s job of building a sailboat, but you have no idea where to sail it. Where is the goal? Where is the leadership? You’ve held things together in a very difficult time, but where is the vision?

Jarjura: That criticism is coming from people that can’t refute that the main responsibility of the mayor, of the CEO, is the financial and business management of the corporation. They know on the merits that they can’t come anywhere near my track record and the success that I have brought to the financial management of the city. So what my opponents try to do is divert attention by saying the mayor is not a visionary, the mayor doesn’t have a long-term plan. Nothing could be further from the truth. We do have a blueprint and we do have a vision. The vision is to continue to build and make Waterbury a quality, strong community and to portray that out to the world so that when economic opportunities do present themselves that people will look to Waterbury as a place they will feel comfortable to raise their families and that they feel comfortable to bring their business operations here. That’s the vision. All this other sort of lofty, very vague, we’re going to sit down with all these people and we’re going to talk about a vision…..haven’t we done that year after year after year and it sits on somebody’s shelf.
My vision is to continue to keep Waterbury financially strong and to continue to improve the infrastructure. Let’s make the schools the best they can be and continue to work off our natural assets here, like the Naugatuck River. I brought forward that Greenway project, but obviously I’ve turned it over to key people like Cathy Smith, yourself, Ron Napoli, because I know you guys can run with that. The Greenway is going to be a great destination location.
There is no silver bullet that is going to save us, we just have to continue to build on the things we have like the Palace Theater and UConn.

Observer: Flash back 18 months to the Economic Summit that was held at the Waterbury Magnet School. All the key players were there; the Waterbury Development Corporation, Main Street Waterbury, the Chamber of Commerce and you, the mayor of Waterbury. There were a lot of bold statements made that night. You stated there was an individual who was going to invest $200 million in the city, and we were promised a detailed downtown revitalization plan within 30 days. Obviously the economy took a nosedive, but downtown business people are still waiting for the plan. What happened?

Jarjura: I’m not one to make excuses, but a big proponent of making the plan was Steve Sasala, and he got sick. (Sasala was president and CEO of the Waterbury Chamber of Commerce and passed away from cancer earlier this year.) While Steve was sick Lynn Ward was filling in and John Rowland was pitching in, it was a difficult situation.
You know who has a great story to tell – it’s Main Street Waterbury. They had an event just the other day that brought 2300 people from all over New England to their BrewFest in Library Park.

Observer: They should do that every weekend.

Jarjura: I know. (Big laugh) That would be great. When the festival ended you couldn’t get inside any restaurant or bar in downtown. Business was tremendous in downtown Waterbury.

Observer: It was a unique group of people that flocked into downtown Waterbury for that event. They were young, educated and had money to spend. It goes to show that if we give people a reason to come downtown, they’ll come.

Jarjura: The other thing I took away from that Economic Summit 18 months ago was that no matter how much we agree on everything a lot of our success, or potential for success, has to do with the state and federal government and the policies that are being imposed upon us. That’s where we have to start to look to influence policy. Look at the Pratt & Whitney situation. We were all working very hard behind the scenes to try and figure something out there. Seventy-five of those people who lost their job in Cheshire live here in Waterbury. These are good paying jobs. This loss doesn’t just affect Cheshire, it hurts us too. We have to look at this on a macro-level. People can come up with all these grandiose ideas, but until we get the state humming again you are not going to get the flow into Waterbury and Bridgeport.
We are poised and ready for good things, and we are able to accommodate people, but right now they are going to Singapore. They are not going down the street.

Observer: The history of the economy is a roller coaster. It’s going to come back.

Jarjura: And when it does come back we have properties ready to be developed, we have skilled workers, we’ve got good institutions and we have good infrastructure. That’s why I say we are poised to really move forward when the economy rebounds.

Observer: Waterbury has had an alarmingly high unemployment rate for the past nine years. I heard you on WATR radio one morning saying that it’s hard to compare Waterbury to Simsbury or West Hartford because the demographics and education levels are so different. But when you compare Waterbury to Bridgeport or New Haven…

Jarjura: We are on par with Hartford. It’s nothing to brag about. Part of the problem is that Waterbury has the highest rate of teenage, unwed pregnancies. It’s the highest rate of any municipality in the state. It’s staggering. Young babies having babies, they aren’t even out of high school yet. These girls aren’t going to be readily employable, quickly. This is adding to the unemployment numbers.
Another problem is that many people in Waterbury have a less regard for education than people out in the suburbs. People are not staying and taking advantage of an excellent school system. Employment skills are absolutely necessary.
There are opportunities for people to work but some of these jobs aren’t in the city, but in the region. The key is that you have to be able to do the job or they are going to hire someone else.
We do need more jobs here, but we also need some people to take more responsibility for their life. They need to focus more on education and realize life isn’t about going out and having a good time every night and engaging in premature sexual activity. These kids have to realize that they have to take care of themselves one day.

Observer: The truancy problem in the city was so bad that you formed a Blue Ribbon Commission to address the issue. Forty percent of the students entering 9th grade were not graduating four years later. The commission has been tackling this issue by reaching out into the community and trying to engage the parents.

Jarjura: You have to. When we were growing up our parents took our education very seriously. They were on you, or here came the strap. Today you don’t see that same sort of seriousness about education and parents don’t fight for their kids to stay in school. This is absolutely the wrong attitude to have.

Observer: The one issue that Paul Vance continued to pound on in the primary was that Mayor Jarjura was disengaged from the educational process in Waterbury. He said you seldom attended Board of Education meetings and that you paid little attention to education. What is your philosophy as mayor in dealing with the school system?

Jarjura: My job is to secure the necessary resources so that our professionals either here at Central Office, or the ones running the schools; the principals, the vice-principals and the teachers have all the tools they need to take their training and deliver it to the students in their care.
I don’t go to a lot of board meetings because the work I have to do isn’t at the board level where they are talking about curriculum and what teachers are going to be assigned where. My job is to work with the most senior staff; the superintendent and the assistant superintendents to deal with the larger issues of education - the mandates, the special education requirements, the physical facilities, the text books and to make sure we provide a safe and healthy environment.
I work here with them at this level and if necessary – if requested – I will attend the board meeting and give my input if there is an issue they are struggling with.

Observer: What’s your take on Duggan School?

Jarjura: This is an issue John Theriault is trying to dump in my lap. There is now a problem with a tremendous amount of overruns because a decision was made by the Board of Education, by the school board building committee, in concert with the neighborhood groups over there, to try and save a portion of the original Duggan School building. I think these people did their best, they did due diligence in making that decision.
Unfortunately when there was some selective demolition work done they found out there was a much bigger subterranean situation than they had thought. There may be a contractor or consultant held responsible for the mistake later down the road. We’d have to have the lawyers look at that.
Now we have John Theriault trying to lay this issue at my feet. He has called it the $10 million albatross around my neck, but it was the Board of Education that approved the effort to renovate Duggan School. They choose to renovate instead of knocking it down and building new. They voted 9 to 1.

Observer: And John Theriault was the one.




Jarjura: Yes, he was. John voted against it, but it was the building committee that controlled the process from soup to nuts. I originally went out and got the bonding and fought for the three neighborhood schools. I got it through the Board of Aldermen with the necessary 10 votes. I worked with Laura Nesta, who at the time was the minority leader, and she was very vocal in wanting to keep the historical section of Duggan School. I needed her vote at the time to get it through the Board of Aldermen and we had to compromise and agreed on three pre-K through 8th grade neighborhood schools.
The Independents then took it to referendum and tried to have the neighborhood school project defeated, but we won. After all that is said and done, it is the building committee and the Board of Education that chooses the sites, that chooses the team that manages the construction and chooses the architects and engineers. Unless there is something amiss that they need me for, they choose the colors, the window design…

Observer: Who decides what to do now?

Jarjura: Now there is a problem. Now Central Office comes to see me because in order to solve the problem they need additional resources from the city, and additional resources from the state. The project is an 80-20 split between the state and Waterbury.
So rather than get into the blame game, or see who is trying to use the school as political one-upsmanship, which John Theriault is trying to do, I’m going to wait and see which way the Board of Education wants to go on the issue and I’m willing to support either way. (Jarjura pounded his fist on the table and said), But at the end of the day I want to know that there aren’t going to be any more surprises. This is the Board of Education’s decision and ultimately they have to tell me do we spend $6.5 million and continue the project, saving the front portion of the school, or do we abandon that and spend $10 million and do everything brand new.
If the board chooses to move forward with the renovation project then it is my job to go to the state with Dr. Snead (Superintendent of Schools) and Paul Guidone (Chief Financial Officer of Waterbury) and explain to them what happened. We would try and get their change order approval and then put my side of the money in so they can continue the construction and finish it. That’s my job.
John Theriault is really playing up this issue, but what is he saying about his running mate Ann Sweeney, or his good friend Chuck Stango? He touts them as all good people, but they were all part of the decision too. And the Democrats were too. Larry De Pillo and Mike Telesca were running around saying we had to save Duggan School. We were all in on this, and to say otherwise is disingenuous.
I am engaged in education but I understand the rules. This is why we have a superintendent and two assistant superintendents. That is their job to run education. Too often people want to have it both ways. If you go too much then you are criticized for being too involved in the details. They’ll say “Who does the mayor think he is to get involved and to interfere with our job running education?”, or the other is “Where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

Observer: If you are re-elected are you going to impanel a Charter Revision Commission?

Jarjura: We’ve been trying, but we’ve been blocked by the Independent Party. You need ten votes to get a Charter Revision Commission and even a few of the Democrats who will no longer be on the board helped block the commission. We have not had one in five years. I put one forward every year I’ve been here but it keeps getting blocked.

Observer: What do you want to tackle?

Jarjura: There is a bunch of things. There is a bunch of stuff left undone when we did the major rewrite five years ago. Not everything will get passed, but we should at least be talking about it. We should delve into charter issues.

Observer: Seniors are getting frustrated with the promised senior center at the site of the old Mattatuck Manufacturing. What’s going on out there?

Jarjura: They have a right to be aggravated. We are all aggravated with how long this has taken. From my perspective now it really is in the final leg of the race. The site is 99% cleaned up. Then according to the plan we will turn the project over to the selected contractor and part of the agreement is that he builds a 7000 square foot facility for a community/senior center. That will be about another year or year and half until completion.

Observer: Some of the seniors are asking what can we do now while we wait for the new senior center? Can’t the mayor…..

Jarjura: But there are a lot of things we are already doing. There are senior centers already operating and people are welcome to go there. They have nice activities. There is The Forever Young which operates out of the Mt. Carmel Church, we have the East End Senior Center that has a lot of activities all week long, we work closely with the Western Connecticut Area on Aging and they provide a lot of health pamphlets and assistance with the prescription programs and they are located right here in the East of Waterbury.

Observer: So the one that is coming is a Waterbury senior center instead of the ones scattered around in the neighborhoods right now?

Jarjura: Yes. It’s for anyone who wants to come. This will be available to the whole community and we’ll have to decide on its programmatic needs as we go along. It could be line dancing or a place for the community to gather. It’s located right on the bus line. We never said we were going to close the other centers. Grace Baptist has a big program, La Casa has a big one. Many of the seniors are not going to want to leave their individual centers.
There is a lot going on right now. It’s not like anybody is being denied while we wait to get the new senior center open.

Observer: The community response has been incredibly positive to the proposed Naugatuck River Greenway Project. The only opposition has come from a Republican-American editorial that said we are wasting money building the Greenway before the mixmaster construction is finished. What’s your take on that criticism?

Jarjura: The people working on the Greenway project, Alta, have met with Department of Transportation people. Alta is fully aware of what the state’s plans are, and what their alternative plans are. All that has been adjusted accordingly. That’s my understanding. I don’t think we have to wait.
If you read today’s paper there is an article about a state project to improve I-84. The project is supposed to have already begun and now there are reports it’s no where on the radar screen and could take another four years to begin. This is a simple project compared to rebuilding the entire mixmaster exchange. We can’t wait for the mixmaster. Whatever we do with the Greenway they will adjust around us, or we will adjust around them.

Observer: Have you seen an issue or project that has elicited as much positive support as the Greenway?

Jarjura: The Greenway has excited the community like nothing I have ever seen before. The only thing I can compare it to, and that was on a much smaller scale, was Kevin Zak and his river race. People that never get excited about anything came out to the river race and were really excited. The Greenway is on a much larger scale.

Observer: That river race had a lot to do with launching the Greenway project. Many of the political people needed to support the Greenway – yourself included – paddled down the river and discovered what an amazing asset we had right under our noses.



Jarjura: The energy from that race was transferred over to the Greenway. It’s all been positive.

Observer: Right now we have enough money to plan a route, design the Greenway and maybe put a few shovels in the ground. Where does the rest of the money come from?

Jarjura: That’s my job. I’m out there banging the drums, lobbying, talking to Senator Dodd and Senator Lieberman. We just got another million, so we need another $10 million. That’s my job to find it.

Observer: Speaking of Dodd, that’s who you were equated to in today’s editorial in the Republican-American…

Jarjura: In the last year they have blamed Dodd for everything wrong in the world. I think they even blamed him for the plane landing in the Hudson River. Anything that happens they blame Chris Dodd. The newspaper lost it’s credibility years ago, at least the editorial page has. They have gotten more bizarre than ever.

Observer: Mike Asaro and I were talking on the way over here about the near universal opposition to the trash to energy plant proposed at the old Anamet site. Everybody was against it. The mayor, the board of alderman, the entire state delegation, the neighborhood groups, the Chamber of Commerce and Main Street Waterbury. Everybody was against it except the Republican-American newspaper who wrote a scathing editorial about Waterbury going bananas because we were turning away business. They were completely out of touch with the community they cover. How do you process editorials like that, or the one in today’s paper challenging your ethics and comparing you to Chris Dodd?

Jarjura: The editorial today is so far divorced from reality and fact that I don’t know where to begin to talk about it. (Jarjura laughs) When you read the editorial I am confused. Do we live in the same world? What scandal are they talking about?
The editorial states that the people of Waterbury deserve to know the full extent of the scandal. What are they talking about? There is no scandal.
The issue is whether city employees can do private work for people who supervise them. We’ve been exploring the issue for months and we’re waiting for the Board of Alderman to address the situation. They are the ones that can legislate – I can’t.
This issue brings out what is my biggest disagreement with John Theriault. John tends to engage in a sort of Joe McCarthyism (McCarthyism is used to describe reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents. It was coined after Senator Joe McCarthy who smeared political opponents in the 1950s).
John will attach himself to an issue and portray it as something nefarious (flagrantly wicked). When we look into it and peel the onion back we find out that there is nothing there. This is not good or healthy politics.
John made a big deal about school janitors getting overtime while the schools were open for public use because the school board wants them open for theatrical events and sporting events. If those school buildings are open from early morning to late in the evening there has to be someone there to be responsible for the building. And that is the maintenance and janitorial staff.
John takes great umbrage at someone challenging his integrity, but he has no problem calling people names who clean the toilets, wash the floors, wash the windows, rake the grass and he had no problem challenging their integrity. After the facts were revealed there was nothing there.
There was nothing inappropriate going on under the laws, If John Theriault had a problem with the policy then he should have addressed it at the Board of Education. He’s been on the board for six years and the board sets the contracts. Why didn’t he try to fix the problem? But to make these people look like crooks, like they were doing something wrong, like they were stealing from the taxpayers without a scintilla (tiny particle) of evidence, this is what Joe McCarthy used to do back in the 1950s.

Observer: You’ve called this time of year “silly season”.

Jarjura: No, I call that dangerous. I call that the height of being irresponsible from someone who is supposed to be an enlightened man. I call it disgusting because these people can’t fight for themselves, but I can fight for them.

Observer: You have one minute with a voter before they enter the booth, Tell them why they should vote for you.

Jarjura: I’m very proud of the fact that while ot6her communities are srtruggling and have serious budget deficits that we have not had to lay anyone off and our tax rate has remained exactly the same as it was last year. There has been no tax increase. We have not curtailed city services one bit. The budget is balanced. We’ve had tremendous news with the bond rating upgrade to the A level. I don’t think people understand the importance of that. That’s huge. Not only did they upgrade our bonding to the A level, they gave us a rating from good to strong in terms of financial practices. There are only two municiapalities in the state that have a strong rating - us and West Hartford. There are so positive things happening here and let’s keep them going.

Mind Of Steel

Derek Poundstone Uses Extraordinary Mental Toughness To Become Arguably The Strongest Man In The World.









Some might think that genetics and large muscles are the key to Derek Poundstone’s stunning rise to the title of America’s Strongest Man.

They would be wrong.

While having a body like a Rhinoceros is important, the secret to Poundstone’s success is the strength of his mind. Everyday in the gym he tortures himself by lifting more weights, more times, than anyone else on the planet.

“I obliterate myself in training,” Poundstone said. ‘The competition is not as difficult as my workouts.”

Poundstone is a huge fan of the late long distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who was feared across the globe for his punishing style of racing.

‘He wouldn’t try and outsprint someone at the end of a five mile race,” Poundstone said. “He would set a blistering pace on the first lap and dare anyone to try and keep up with him. I love that sense of front running, it came down to “if you beat me, I’ll make you bleed’, and that’s my mind-set.”

During a recent “easy” day of training at Waterbury Fitness at 1074 Wolcott Road, Waterbury, CT, Poundstone targeted his workout to tone his arms, and sharpen his mind. “We really don’t do a lot with arms in the strong man competitions,” Poundstone said. “The important part of my training today is to strengthen my mind.”



He began his workout seated on a slightly reclined bench and lifted a 45 pound bar overhead in a reverse curl. It was only a warm-up, but he lifted the bar 100 times.

Then he lifted 65 pounds 100 times, 105 pounds 55 times, and 135 pounds 20 times. The pain of the final repetitions was etched on his face as he struggled towards his goal of self imposed agony.

“Nobody does what I do,” Poundstone said. ‘I work my muscles beyond their capacity. I’m not trying to make my muscles bigger, that’s not the issue. I’m trying to see how far I can push my body. My capability is only limited by my mind.”

Mike Amici is a frequent training partner at Waterbury Fitness and said, “Derek’s strength and intensity is inward. Some guys yell and scream when they are working out, but not Derek, his motivation is all inside.”






Poundstone is incredibly approachable in the gym and will stop and pose for a photograph, or assist other lifters with their training. Brian Richard of Wolcott was a recent training partner while Poundstone completed a sequence aptly called “Triceps of Death”. Richard has been power lifting for four years and approached Poundstone for some strongman tips 10 weeks ago.
“Derek is very knowledgeable about technique and he’s been an incredible help to me these past few months,” Richard said. “I equate it to going to Alex Rodriguez to learn how to hit a baseball.”

Although he is currently the #1 ranked strongman in the world, Poundstone takes nothing for granted. “Every day I push myself,” he said. “I’m training for the unknown guy in the mountains of West Virginia that no one knows about yet.”

Half way through each set of reverse curls Poundstone said his mind screamed at him to stop. “I’m working against human evolution,” he said. “Damaging muscles makes them grow back stronger, so I try to overwhelm my entire body with a pain I can’t express in words, but it’s a beautiful thing.”

It is the mental exercises that Poundstone endures that set him apart from other strongmen around the world. “It is the essence of my training,” he said. “The number one thing I focus on is strengthening my mind.”

It must be working, because during the last three years Derek Poundstone has exploded onto the international strongman scene and is arguably now the strongest man in the world.

Last year he came within inches of capturing the title of World’s Strongest Man, but with victory over the five-time world champion, Mariusz Pudzianowski, within his grasp, he made a shocking mistake in the final event when a 400 pound rock slipped from his hand, and he finished second.

“The loss has only increased my motivation,” Poundstone said. “I am in the best shape of my life right now.”

Poundstone is often asked whether he takes steroids to perform his amazing feats of strength, and the answer is no. He piles protein into his body like coal into a furnace. He also spends a lot of time being a goodwill ambassador for the strongman sport. Derek defines a strongman as the person “who can perform the most amount of work, in the most efficient way, in the least amount of time.”

Strongman competitions are nothing new and they have a rich and colorful history. In America, the roots of the sport can be traced back to a time when the main event of a travelling circus wasn’t the lions and elephants, it was the strongman.

“The circus freaks were really big guys who could lift big objects,” Poundstone said. “The circus was the heyday for strongmen in this country.”



While the sport has yet to gain mainstream traction in America, the strongman competitions have developed a huge following in Europe. “The strongmen in Sweden and Poland are treated like rock stars,” Poundstone said. ‘They make a really nice living just focused on being strongmen. I can’t do that in America, I have to work a full-time job to support myself.”




Iceland appears to be the historical epi-center of strongmen competitions, which were used by Vikings to determine who the strongest warrior was. “The Vikings did a lot of events with rocks,” Poundstone said. ‘Instead of throwing objects they would carry stones or press them over their heads. It’s typical guy stuff, and the common theme was - I’m stronger than you.”

Poundstone is a very large man, 6’1”, 320 pounds, but he’s considered small by strongman standards. He recently competed in a World’s Strongest Man qualifying event at the Mohegan Sun, in Uncasville, CT, and demolished the competition winning five of the six events, and placing second in the other event.

At the casino Poundstone trounced men 6’8”, 400 pounds, and some even heavier.






‘The cool thing about strongman is that you can take the biggest and strongest guy and put him under an 800 pound yoke and he can’t move it,” Poundstone said. “It’s not all about size.”



And for anyone who witnessed Derek Poundstone crush a field that had 14 of the top 16 strongmen in the world competing – one thing was crystal clear – Poundstone was the fittest man at the event.









Most strongmen are behemoths who would have trouble jogging down the driveway. Not Poundstone. “I have a unique combination of fast and slow twitch muscles,” he said. “That gives me both power and explosion. I can thank my parents for that. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Poundstone said he is not the biggest and strongest in most competitions, “but whoever is the most capable and most versatile athlete will win the title of World’s Strongest Man.”

At the competition and in almost every interview, Poundstone comes across as humble and soft spoken. He never says anything negative about an opponent because “I don’t want to give anyone extra motivation to beat me.”

At the Mohegan Sun his main competitor, Travis Ortmayer, of Texas, referred to him as Derek ‘Poundcake”. Derek smiled, said he would do his best, and then mopped the arena floor with Ortmayer. Poundstone was so dominating that he could have left the building before the final event and he still would have won.

“I get tons of motivation off other people’s comments,” he said. “ I play a psychological game. I’m not going to say I’m better than you. I’ll wear a bulky t-shirt before the competition and won’t let the other competitors see what I look like. I’m trying to change a fraction of one percent to take a little wind out of my opponents sail.”

This year Poundstone set an ambitious goal for himself. He had his eyes set on three specific competitions – like the major championships in golf and tennis. He won “The Arnold Strongman Classic” in March and was the lightest man ever to do so. He defeated 440 pound Mark Henry, a legendary American strongman, to take the title.

His next goal was the Fortissimus World Strength Challenge in Quebec on June 26th and 27th. ‘That is the most brutal competition in the world,” Poundstone said. “it’s twelve events spread out over two days and whoever wins earns the title of “Mightiest Man on the Planet.”

Days before the competition Poundstone fell ill, lost 15 pounds, and still led most of the way until finishing second to Zydrunas Savickas, a 6' 3". 385 pound strongman from Lithuania,

The final goal for 2009 is to win the World’s Strongest Man contest In Malta in early October.

“It’s almost impossible for one athlete to win all three events,” Poundstone said, “but that was my goal.”

It will be his goal again in 2010.

Poundstone lives in the Town Plot neighborhood. “Waterbury is a hard core place,” Poundstone said. “It’s extremely diverse and I love that I live in a place that had the nickname Sin City.”

Often when you are the best at anything, you become a marked man. Do people ever want to challenge the Strongest Man in America the way the quickest draw was always called out in the American West?

“The best thing is that I am a police officer,” Poundstone said. “Everyone is scared of cops.”












Some guys challenge him to arm wrestling and Poundstone turns it into a joke. “I’ll laugh and say they’ll kick my ass,” he said. “I don’t need to prove myself to anyone, I do it in competition.”

Poundstone lives in a three family home he purchased several years ago. Derek said he doesn’t go out much, and often the extent of his fun is playing Guitar Hero at home. He lives with his girlfriend, Kristin Nelson, a physical education teacher in Branford.

Poundstone and Nelson met each other through mutual friends, both of whom were police officers. Kristin is uber organized and plays many roles in Derek’s life – girlfriend/nutritionist/coach and huge supporter.




“I couldn’t do it without her,” Poundstone said, and a recent school trip Kristen went on bears this out. She was out of town for a week and Derek suddenly ran out of some of his nutritional supplements and found himself struggling to maintain the immense 6000 to 8000 caloric intake he needs a day to fuel his body.

During a recent visit to their home - after one of Derek’s absurdly challenging workouts – Kristin had a huge dinner prepared for him, and had boiled four chicken breasts prepared for the protein shakes Poundstone drinks while working at Naugatuck High School. While Derek answered questions during an Observer interview, Kristin opened a large shipment of nutritional supplements and tucked them away neatly in the cupboards.

Derek Poundstone may get all the media attention, but for anyone who understands human relations, Kristin Nelson embodies the statement “Behind every great man, there is a great woman.”

Poundstone’s childhood was scattered across the world. Derek’s father was in the Air Force and the Poundstone family spent the first ten years of Derek’s life living abroad in Spain and Italy. They returned to the U.S. when Derek was 10 years old and lived in South Dakota for six years. Derek’s parents divorced when he was 16, and when his parents moved apart, he was emotionally split in two.

Derek moved to Woodbury when he was 16 and eventually dropped out of high school to work full time, going on to manage a GNC Store in Southbury. Poundstone earned his high school diploma by attending Waterbury Adult Education in the evenings. Poundstone has competed in 30 amateur and professional strongman competitions, and at the age of 27, is entering his prime.

Some experts have speculated that the future of the sport rests on the massive shoulders of Derek Poundstone. But just a few short years ago it appeared his career was over. On October 26, 2006, two weeks before the World Championships, Derek severely injured his lumbar spine during training while attempting a 805 pound dead lift. Derek had a lumbar disc herniation and a massive spinal cord hemorrhage. Doctors told him that he would never lift again due to the severity of the injury.

Poundstone’s mental toughness drove him forward. “It still catches me sometimes when I twist,” Poundstone said. “And it really gets me when I sneeze.”

In the next few years there is a distinct possibility that Derek Poundstone will win his coveted Triple Crown, and be declared the World’s Strongest Man. It is within his grasp.



“I don’t do this for money or women,” he said. “I do this because I enjoy lifting heavy stuff. I look forward to the next workout, to the next day in the gym. I love my sport. I love knowing that I am absurdly strong. It’s a cool feeling knowing that any room you walk into you are the strongest guy. I love that.”

Billy's Law

In her tireless effort to find her missing son, Billy, Janice Smolinski uncovered systemic problems with the country’s national data banks, and the way law enforcement officers collect and process DNA samples. Congressman Chris Murphy is introducing federal legislation to correct the problem, and has named it “Billy’s Law”.


Janice Smolinski, center, watched Connecticut Congressman Chris Murphy unveil plans to upgrade the national system of the Missing and Unidentified Dead at a press conference in Hartford, CT. The legislation is being named "Billy's Law" after Smolinski's 31 year old son, Billy, who vanished five years ago.




The first time missing persons advocate Janice Smolinski met with Congressman Chris Murphy two years ago she had a difficult time reading him. They had originally agreed to meet at a coffee shop in Cheshire, but Murphy had to reschedule, and they ended up meeting inside his office in New Britain.

The meeting lasted 45 minutes and Smolinski said she did most of the talking. She told Murphy about the 40,000 unidentified human remains being stored around the country. She told him about the 160,000 missing persons in America, and the difficulty using national data bases to try and connect DNA samples from the missing to the unidentified dead.

“I threw a lot of information at him and he didn’t say too much,” Smolinski said. “When I left the office I didn’t have a good feeling. It didn’t seem like he had grasped the enormity of what I was saying to him.”

Murphy agreed.

“It was my first term in office and I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to help her,” Murphy said. But he began to study the issue by researching news articles and getting his aides to gather information.

As Murphy digested the information, Smolinski continued to seek state and federal legislation to address the national crisis. She met with Senator Joe Lieberman’s staff and Senator Chris Dodd’s. They listened, but the issue didn’t seem to resonate loud enough to act upon. Smolinski also sought to change the way Connecticut law enforcement officers responded to the report of a missing adult.

The driving force behind Smolinski’s crusade was the disappearance five years ago of her 31-year-old son, Billy. When a sluggish investigation by the Waterbury Police Department resulted in lost DNA samples and an inadequate report to the National Crime Information Center, Smolinski took the search for her son onto the Internet.

“I was stunned at what I discovered,” Smolinski said. “What we experienced in Waterbury was happening every day all across the country. Police officers have not been properly trained to collect and process DNA samples, and very few police departments knew how to use the national DNA databanks. Training was years behind the science.”

Although the Smolinskis now believe that Billy was murdered in Woodbridge, and is buried in an unknown grave in Shelton, they could not turn away from the mess they uncovered while trying to unravel his mysterious disappearance. During the past legislative session in Hartford Smolinski fought to mandate DNA training for all law enforcement officers, but with the massive state budget deficit, the bill was sidetracked and never made its way to the floor of the house for a vote.

This spring Jan and Bill Smolinski’s phone rang and they received a heads up from a national expert that federal legislation was developing from a Connecticut politician as a direct result of Jan’s lobbying.

“They couldn’t tell us who was working on the legislation,” Janice said. “And we honestly had no clue.”

It was 5th District Congressman Chris Murphy, who unbeknownst to the Smolinskis, had quietly done the homework necessary to tackle the complex issue. The Smolinskis then received a call from Linda Forman at Congressman Murphy’s office asking for specifics they would like to see in the legislation.

“We were stunned,” Smolinski said. “We have been working hard to get someone to pay attention to this issue, and this came out of the blue. We were thrilled.”


Congressman Murphy.

On August 6th Congressman Murphy held a press conference in Hartford to announce the legislation he is calling Billy’s Law. And it was clear to anyone at the press conference that Murphy is knowledgeable and passionate about closing the gaps that exist between the missing, and the unidentified dead.

Murphy explained that the federal government has two main data bases that track the missing and the unidentified remains, one operated by the Department of Justice, and one by the FBI.

“The problem is that these two data bases don’t talk to each other and only one of them is available to the public,” Murphy said. “This legislation will give family members access to all information in this country relative to missing persons and unidentified remains.”

Murphy also announced that Billy’s Law would provide $2.5 million a year in funding to improve the data bases and to insure that local, state and federal law enforcement officers know how to collect and process DNA, and input the information into the data bases.

“Billy’s Law will give families the tools and resources they need to be part of the search for their loved one,” Murphy said.
Murphy applauded the Smolinski’s efforts to find their son and said “I would not be introducing this federal legislation if it were not for the Smolinski family. They brought their case and their cause to me, and they educated me how difficult it was to sort through the disconnected data bases at the federal level.”

Congressman Murphy told the Smolinskis that he will introduce Billy’s Law when Congress reconvenes in September. The legislation has already been endorsed by the National Forensic Science Technology Center, the National Forensics Center, the Doe Network, and the Center For Hope.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Murphy said, “and we hope we can get it through Congress by the end of the year.”


Congressman Murphy speaks to the Smolinski family - Bill, Jan and Paula.

Several other developments in the Smolinksi investigation are worth noting, A front page story published about the case in the New Haven Register has led to a hot tip being called in to the Smolinski family, and they have passed the information on to their FBI agent.

Also, The Waterbury Observer has won a legal victory in a lawsuit filed against it by Madeleine Gleason, Billy Smolinski’s former girlfriend. Gleason was involved in a love triangle with Billy Smolinski and a prominent Woodbridge politician at the time of Billy’s disappearance. When the Observer published an in-depth article revealing the love triangle, and printed a photograph of Gleason - in public - tearing down a missing person poster of Billy Smolinski, she sued Janice Smolinski, Paula Bell (Billy’s sister), and the Observer for invading her privacy.

Gleason hired prominent New Haven attorney John Williams to sue the Smolinskis and the Observer in July 2006. The Observer retained the services of Attorney Mark Lee of Waterbury and Attorney Kevin Greco of Stamford. Lee and Greco filed a motion to strike the six counts filed against the Observer, and on July 20th a Superior Court judge in New Haven ruled that the charges against the newspaper were “legally insufficient”, and removed the Observer from the lawsuit. Attorney Williams has filed a notice of intention to appeal.

The suit against Janice and her daughter remains.


The following comments were made by Janice Smolinski on August 6th during a press conference held by Congressman Chris Murphy to announce legislation to address the systemic problems in the world of the missing and the unidentified dead.




Janice Smolinski addressed a press conference in early August flanked by her husband, Bill, and daughter, Paula Bell. In the back row is State Representative Selim Noujaim, Congressman Chris Murphy and State Representative Larry Butler.


Good afternoon and thank-you Congressman Murphy for having the courage to tackle the tragic disconnect in our country’s effort to find 160,000 missing people in America today. I have been asked to explain my family’s involvement in trying to reform a labyrinth of databases, police reports and DNA samples.

The answer is that my son Billy vanished five years ago, and in our efforts to find him we opened a Pandora’s Box of problems plaguing the world of the missing and the unidentified dead. Currently there are more than 40,000 unidentified human remains being stored by coroners and medical examiners around this country, and experts in the field believe many of the unidentified dead are the missing, By using DNA samples we can cross reference the two groups and connect the missing to the unidentified dead. We can name the unidentified and help bring closure to thousands of grieving families. Congressman Murphy’s legislation will help connect the dots in this national nightmare.

In our case just about anything that could go wrong in our effort to find our son went wrong. The system we encountered was broken. We have tried to change the system so no family has to endure the anguish we have lived through these past five years.

Uncertainty is a cancer that crushes the spirit of loved ones left behind, destroys marriages and tears at the tissue of family bonds. Each and every face on “THE QUILT OF HOPE” hanging behind me here today had a life and was loved. The faces you see on the quilt are missing from coast to coast, including Hawaii. I have spoken to every family member of the missing persons on the quilt and some of the squares are made from the actual clothing of the missing loved one which makes it personal to the families. Since the quilt was started a year ago, two of the missing on the quilt are now classified as a homicide, and an unsolved homicide.

Our story - and there are 160,000 other stories in America - began August 24th, 2004, when our son disappeared. The local police were slow to react to our call that something had happened to Billy. We are a very close family and immediately knew something extraordinary had occurred when Billy left his dog unfed and locked inside his house, with his truck parked oddly in the driveway. When our initial attempts to get the police to investigate Billy’s disappearance failed, we organized our own search with family and friends.

One of the many problems in this issue is that law enforcement officers across the country are slow to respond to the report of a missing adult.

That has to change.

International homicide expert Bill Hagmaier, a great leader in fighting for reform, has publicly stated that a majority of the 160,000 missing Americans aren’t just missing, they have been murdered. The quicker police respond to a report of a missing adult the better the odds of solving these violent crimes.

Reports need to be sent promptly into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), and the information of a missing person needs to be shared with medical examiners and coroners. This is not happening right now, and in rural parts of the country unidentified remains are still being cremated without gathering DNA samples first.

After reports have been filed, if the missing individual is not found, the next step is to collect DNA. A quick mouth swab from a family member will gather the DNA material needed to send to a state or federal lab that can analyze and upload that information into a national data bank.

None of this happened in our case. It took four years for the proper information to be filed with the National Crime Information Center, and the collection of DNA was incompetent. Seven separate samples were misplaced or lost by our local police department, and it wasn’t until the FBI took over the investigation that the proper reports and DNA samples were collected and filed.

When law enforcement doesn’t have the proper training to collect DNA and upload that information into national data banks the notion that we are living in a CSI society is nothing more than a television fantasy. Training has to catch up with science and technology and Congressman Murphy’s act will ensure that it does.

When law enforcement does not properly investigate a missing person the only recourse is for the family to do it themselves. In our case we had to organize search parties, bring in search dogs, hire private investigators and spend thousands of hours looking for Billy ourselves.


Billy Smolinski vanished in August 2004.

Eventually we uncovered information that led us to believe Billy had been murdered in Woodbridge and buried in Shelton. We discovered that Billy was involved in a love triangle that included a prominent politician in Woodbridge, and a school bus driver in Woodbridge.

When we tried to hang missing person flyers on telephone poles in Woodbridge I was arrested by the Woodbridge Police, a charge that was quickly dismissed.

After a local paper tried to report on the crazy twist and turns in our sons disappearance, the reporter, and my daughter and I, were all sued by the mother of the man we believe murdered Billy.

None of this would have happened if the police had responded quickly to our calls for help. Instead of help we received insensitivity and callousness. Two years after Billy disappeared a high-ranking police officer told a journalist “Billy was probably having a beer in Europe and would come home when he was ready.”

Appalled, we confronted the Waterbury Police Department, and former chief Neil O’Leary listened to our concerns, studied the issue, and ordered mandatory training for all his officers. Reform has occurred in Waterbury and in many departments around Connecticut.

In 2007 the Department of Justice created a National Missing Persons and Unidentified Persons System called NamUs, which built a bridge between the data being collected from the missing and the data collected from the unidentified dead. A critical part of Congressman Murphy’s act authorizes more funding for NamUs, and also connects NamUs with the FBI’s crime information center. These are major breakthroughs.

On a personal note, my husband Bill and I are uncomfortable in the spotlight, but events beyond our control have brought us to this day. The Help Find the Missing Act has been named Billy’s Law in honor of our son and it is our fondest hope that these changes will help bring closure and peace to thousands of families wrestling with the horror that stains every second of their lives.

America’s sense of well-being was shattered on September 11th when we tragically lost 2974 in a terrorist attack. That horror unfolded in mere hours and was seen by billions around the world. After September 11th, the need to match the missing with the unidentified dead was magnified, and the seeds were planted to create NamUs.

Today changes everything. Congressman Murphy’s effort to address this national nightmare is long overdue, and the Missing Community applauds his effort. This act is named after my son, but it’s not for him, or the Smolinski family. This act is for every American, and is the ultimate act in Homeland Security.

Into The Woods

Billy Smolinski Vanished Five Years Ago. The Cops Believe His Body Is Buried in Shelton. The Big Question Is Where?




Janice Smolinski watches as private investigator Todd Lovejoy searches through debris in a wooded area in Shelton.


Bands of electrical storms surged across Connecticut and heavy air hung oppressively across the lower Naugatuck Valley. It was a day to sit on the front porch and drink iced tea, not a day to stomp through the forest, scramble up embankments, and peer beneath rubbish looking for the body of your murdered son.

Welcome to the world of Janice and Bill Smolinski, which for the past five years has been a living nightmare as they relentlessly search for the remains of their 31-year-old son.

“We have to bring him home,” Janice Smolinski said. “We may never find out exactly what happened to him, but we aren’t going to give up until we find Billy.”


Billy Smolinski vanished in August 2004.

And the Smolinskis think they are getting close. They’ve been working with a private investigator, Todd Lovejoy, who has brought a sense of purpose to an investigation that has been more hot potato, than priority, to various law enforcement agencies involved since August 2004.

Lovejoy, a former sergeant in the Waterbury police department, left the force five years ago to launch his own business, Spyglass Investigations. Lovejoy stumbled into the case by accident two years ago while working on a separate investigation. While interviewing a witness he uncovered pertinent information that was linked to Billy’s disappearance.


Despite five years of desperation and anxiety, Janice Smolinski remains confident her son’s body will be found and she and her husband, Bill, will have closure. She is pictured here with P.I. Todd Lovejoy.

On June 14th the Smolinskis met Lovejoy in a gravel parking lot in Shelton to scout a wooded area for Billy’s remains. Lovejoy had pieced together several clues and believed there was an outside chance that Billy was buried beneath construction debris on the edge of a densely wooded forest in Shelton.

Frustrated with the pace of the federal investigation, the Smolinskis and Lovejoy decided to take action. The night before the search Janice Smolinski was optimistic – even joyful – that the search for Billy was about to come to an end. She barely slept. She and Bill attended church in the morning and met Lovejoy at noon.


Todd Lovejoy of Spyglass Investigations reads the VIN # off an abandoned car in the area the Smolinskis believe their son is buried. Lovejoy, a former sergeant in the Waterbury Police Department, has refueled the Smolinskis hope they will find their son.



Janice Smolinski watches Todd Lovejoy search through debris for her son Billy.


They climbed hills, slid down steep embankments, walked along railroad tracks, poked through piles of industrial debris and peered into dark barrels.

Three hours later the search came to an end with no Billy. “I’m not disappointed,” Janice said, “I’m on a mission. I really feel like we are very close to finding him. This spot is so isolated. It’s a great place to get rid of a body if you don’t want anyone to see you.”

While the Smolinskis have no proof that Billy was murdered five years ago, several suspects have provided detailed information about what happened that fateful night – and though the stories contradict – the end result in all the versions is the same – Billy was murdered, and his body was buried.

One suspect went so far as to lead the police to an isolated meadow in Seymour and point to the exact spot where he said he had helped bury Billy’s body. That information was used by the FBI to launch a massive dig in Seymour last August. Backhoes from the town of Seymour tore up an entire meadow, but no Billy.


An overhead view of the massive dig for Billy Smolinski in August 2008.

Other leads have pointed beneath a driveway and inside the foundation of a new house. One of the suspects was a former grave digger and there was speculation that Billy might have been buried in a cemetery in Seymour.

To date there has been more speculation than answers. No law enforcement agency is giving the Smolinskis any hope that Billy is still alive, they just don’t know where he’s buried. And all the suspects are either dead, in prison, or have a track record of substance abuse.

In the past five years the investigation has involved the Waterbury Police Department, the FBI, the Connecticut State Police, the Seymour police, and the Shelton police.

There is some confusion as to which organization is the lead investigator in the case. It started in Waterbury, was taken over by the FBI three years ago, and now involves the State Police, Seymour Police and the Shelton Police.

In a series of telephone calls the Observer tried to get an answer to the question of what law enforcement agency was in charge of the investigation.

An inquiry to the FBI resulted in an agency spokesperson leaving a message on the Observer voicemail stating that the FBI’s official policy is to not comment on ongoing investigations.

Detective Ben Trabka of the Shelton Police Department said the investigation was a multi-jurisdictional case and was very complicated. “The case has bounced around as the information has bounced around,” Trabka said. “No one agency wants to say they are the lead, but a lot of the leads point to a Shelton involvement.”

Trabka said that Waterbury was still actively involved in the case and that Waterbury police had processed a house in Seymour last autumn.

This was news to Waterbury police chief Neil O’Leary, who 90 minutes before he retired, told the Observer that he believed the FBI was the lead investigator.

“Technically we still have some standing in the case,” O’Leary said, “but if we got a tip today the first call we’d make is to the FBI. It’s their case now.”

The State Police refused the Smolinskis plea for help for two years telling the family that the case was under the jurisdiction of the Waterbury Police Department, and unless they were called in by Waterbury, they couldn’t help.

After the FBI took over the case in August 2006 it appears that the feds reached out to other police departments for assistance. Trabka said the FBI came to Shelton two years ago and that his department has been assisting ever since.

In addition, the Woodbridge Police Department is a key player in the story because they made the only arrest in the case when they pinched Janice Smolinski for hanging missing person flyers on a telephone poll too close to a public school.

It didn’t seem to matter to the Woodbridge cops that a Woodbridge school bus driver, Madeleine Gleason, had been tearing down Billy’s missing person flyers for weeks. It didn’t seem to matter to the Woodbridge police, or the Waterbury police, that Madeleine Gleason was Billy’s ex-girlfriend, and that the couple had split after Billy discovered Madeleine was having an affair with a prominent Woodbridge politician.


Madeleine Gleason

It didn’t seem to matter that Billy’s last telephone call was to the home of the Woodbridge politician telling him to “watch his back.”

Nearly two years after Billy disappeared the Deputy Assistant police chief in Waterbury told the Observer that “Billy was probably having a beer in Europe.”

The Waterbury police collected and lost five individual DNA samples from the Smolinski family, and despite impossibly strong leads, they repeatedly stated that they had nothing to investigate, that they had exhausted all leads in the investigation.

Private investigator Todd Lovejoy told the Observer that in the past five years no law enforcement organization has been to, or processed, the house he believes Billy Smolinski might have been murdered in.

It took almost five years before any police thoroughly processed Billy’s pick-up truck for forensic clues. The truck was recently combed over by the State Police Major Crime Squad, and Shelton Detective Ben Trabka said “they got some fingerprints out of the truck and they are trying to I.D. them now. They also got some DNA evidence, but they are not sure whose it is, and what significance it has.”

Trabka said that if any of the material links the suspects to the truck it will send off alarms. “There is no reason for any of the suspects to be in that truck,” Trabka said. “One theory is that after they buried him they drove his truck back home and parked it in the wrong place.”

The DNA and fingerprints can provide a direct link to the individuals who murdered and buried Billy Smolinski.

‘This case has had it’s ups and downs,” Trabka said, “but right now all the information points to this end of the valley.”

Battle Lines

Plans To Transform Anamet To Clean BioFuel Generator Meets Public Resistence. Company Has Troublesome Past.


The Anamet site has been dormant for nearly a decade.



Saverio Romanelli of the Waterbury Environmental Control Commission questioned Chestnut Hill BioFuel during its March 2009 presentation.


Old equipment decaying inside Anamet




On the surface it sounds like a terrific idea.

Chestnut Hill BioEnergy is proposing to purchase the Anamet property on South Main Street in Waterbury and transform the shuttered buildings, which have lay dormant for 9 years, into a clean energy project. The gist of the proposal is to take up to 54 truckloads of food waste a day and transform it into electricity.

The company will knock down an abandoned building along the Naugatuck River which used to generate steam and electric power for Anamet, a massive company that made metal hoses in the south end of Waterbury for 72 years, and turn a Brownfield into a taxable business that will put money in city coffers.

The plant would employ 40 to 50 people and tax revenue from the property would increase at least ten times. Sounds great, huh? Well, as usual, the devil is in the details. And upon closer inspection, some of the details don’t smell so good.

A few years ago David Goodemote – the man driving the proposal in Waterbury - was the president of Eastern Organic Resources which ran the Woodhue Composting Center in Springfield, New Jersey. The business took in 100 tons of wood chips, food waste, brush, and cardboard a day, and transformed the stew into compost they would resell to landscapers, garden centers and contractors.


David Goodemote


Food waste compacter behind a local Stop and Shop

Goodemote proclaimed his company to be environmentally friendly, but his neighbors had a different story – they called the composting center an obnoxious and destructive force in the neighborhood. The neighbors complained about a foul odor coming from the composting plant, and one neighbor, George Nicholson, worried that the foul air from Eastern Organic Resources caused respiratory infections among the racehorses on his farm.

In 2006 the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection hammered Eastern Organic with a $1.5 million fine for polluting the air and water, and committing administrative violations. Among the charges was that Eastern Organic had illegally discharged contaminated water into wetlands and a nearby brook. In an article in the August 6th, 2006 issue of the New York Times, David Goodemote said the accusations were unfair, and stated the company’s problems could be resolved by enclosing the facility and trapping the air and water inside.

Goodemote said New Jersey would not allow him the permits to do that. Frustrated, the composting plant was morphed into a solar energy farm and Goodemote set out to find a new home for his food recycling enterprise. After searching several states, and visiting sites around Connecticut, Goodemote zeroed in on the Anamet property, nestled between South Main Street and the Naugatuck River.

“New Jersey was not willing to work with us,” Goodemote said at a meeting in Waterbury recently, “but Connecticut and Massachusetts are.”

The key, according to Goodemote, is to obtain the proper permits to contain composting in an airtight process at the Anamet facility and trap all contaminated water and air inside. With the facility closed in, Goodemote said, there would be no odor problem in the South End, and no contaminated water seeping into the Naugatuck River. Mike Maynard, of Chestnut Hill BioEnergy, was also at the March meeting of the Waterbury Environmental Control Commission. Maynard said his company is not shy about talking about their “painful experience in New Jersey.”

“There are lessons learned,” he said. “We need to pay careful attention to odor control and the only way to do that is to close it in.”


Mike Maynard

Goodemote and Maynard said their problems in New Jersey arose from “political shifts” that thwarted their efforts to close in the facility. “The Connecticut DEP has been to our facility in New Jersey,” Goodemote said. “It is the largest composting facility on the East Coast. We know the key is to get our permit first.”

The Meeting
On a drizzling night in late March, Chestnut Hill BioEnergy gave a power point presentation about their Anamet site proposal to the Waterbury Environmental Control Commission. The company has been making the rounds for months trying to drum up support for their project, and opposition is beginning to stir. Neighborhood groups are e-mailing each other to muster troops to oppose the project. Members of the Waterbury Greenway Advisory Committee are paying close attention to the proposal as they plan a 7 mile multi-use trail along the Naugatuck River. Images of a multi-million dollar Greenway next to a plant processing food waste – operated by a company with a history of air and water violations - has given members pause.




The Anamet site is directly on the east bank of the Naugatuck River.



Greenway Advisory Committee Chairman Ron Napoli poses questions

After Chestnut Hill BioEnergy finished its presentation, Ron Napoli, the chairman of the Greenway Committee, rose to address the group. He said residents in the South End have had prior experience with serious odors from the city’s Waste Water Treatment Plant that had impacted their ability to enjoy their property. Napoli said that consultants studied the problem and said the odors had come from inside the plant. Napoli concluded by saying “odors could be the worst thing to happen to our Greenway project.”

Goodemote and Maynard assured Napoli that there would be no odors escaping from their composting process and that they would like to participate in the Greenway project. They would be happy to allow the Greenway a trail right through their property, they said.


Dick Scappini

Dick Scappini asked the presenters what control they had over the dozens of trucks that would deliver food waste to the plant each day. Goodemote and Maynard said they didn’t own the trucks and they would rely on independent haulers.

“I can’t say there will never be a leak,” Goodemote said. “There will be leaks and there will be a consequence to the hauler.”
The trucks will mostly haul compactors, not packers, greatly reducing spillage and leakage. Scappini wanted to know what happens when a leak occurs. Who cleans it up? What is the city’s recourse?

Goodemote said the haulers would be fined.

Close attention was paid to which route the trucks would use to get in and out of Waterbury. Goodemote said there would be no residential traffic, no impact on schools, no trucks on South Main Street, and that trucks could only operate from 6 am to 6 pm, and not at all on Sunday. The trucks would have a fairly easy entrance into the plant, but exiting proved more troublesome, with initial plans to route the trucks past the Brass Mill Mall.


Anamet's close proximity to St. Anne's Church proposed Loyola Project has raised concern.

Environmental Control Commission member Art Denze wanted to know “Why Waterbury?”, and he was concerned about building a Greenway “next to a garbage disposal.”


Steve Schrag

Steve Schrag is the head of the commission and he also wanted to know how and why Waterbury was selected for the project. Goodemote and Maynard told him that a multi agency task force and the state Department of Economic and Community Development had given the company a list of communities to consider: Hartford, Waterbury, New Haven, Bridgeport and Meriden.

“We had to be along a highway,” Goodemote said. “And we needed to be centrally located in the state’s population density. When we looked at the Anamet site we fell in love with it. We couldn’t build a site like that for less than $500 a square foot. This was far and way the best site we found. The building is impregnable. We can easily make it airtight.”

The Watchdog
Larry De Pillo has been a community activist in Waterbury for 30 years. He has been a mayoral candidate in Waterbury four times and was instrumental in forming the Independent Party in the city. To some people Larry De Pillo is an obstructionist, a man who stands up at almost every aldermanic meeting to rail against some proposal or another. To others, De Pillo is a man of integrity who challenges the political structure in Waterbury and keeps the powerful on their toes.

Whether he’s a pebble in the shoe, or a champion for the people - or both - it’s hard not to notice Larry De Pillo.


Larry De Pillo

De Pillo is strongly against the Chestnut Hill BioEnergy proposal for two reasons. “I don’t think this type of business belongs in a location where a lot of people live,” De Pillo told the Observer. “And #2, the people making this proposal are the same ones that experienced big problems in New Jersey.”

De Pillo said he called the DEP in New Jersey and was told “they had feet worth of files on the company, that they had conducted a horrendous operation and were shut down.”

When Chestnut Hill BioEnergy made an invitation only presentation to the Waterbury Board of Aldermen last year, De Pillo contacted Waterbury Mayor Mike Jarjura to see if he might gain access to the meeting. Jarjura told De Pillo he was unable to attend, and that De Pillo could go in his place. When the meeting started, Board of Education member John Theriault and Republican-American reporter Michael Puffer were denied access because they hadn’t been invited.

“That’s no way to treat an elected official and a member of the press,” De Pillo said.

As the meeting unfolded there was no mention of the company’s problems in New Jersey. De Pillo said he asked if they had any prior experience running an operation like they were proposing in Waterbury, and they said they had. De Pillo wrote the name of the operation down, and after the meeting he went home and entered the name in a Google search on the internet.

De Pillo was stunned.

He found articles in the New York Times that documented the company’s failures in New Jersey. De Pillo gathered information and produced a small booklet about the company’s only previous effort to run a food waste composting facility. Then he called Mayor Jarjura and requested a meeting.

“The Mayor was nice enough to give me his invitation so I wanted to tell him what I saw and heard,” De Pillo said. “When I showed him the booklet he was very surprised, and very concerned.”

De Pillo called the Connecticut DEP and “ripped them new backsides”, he said. “Then when I talked to the guy in charge of issuing permits he said he didn’t know who they were. Despite what the company officials say, the DEP is not onboard with their proposal.”

De Pillo accuses Chestnut Hill BioEnergy of misrepresenting Waterbury’s concerns when they are lobbying for the project in Hartford. “They are telling legislators that everyone in Waterbury is onboard with the concept,” De Pillo said. “This is a lie. Right now I don’t know anyone in Waterbury who is supporting this concept.”

And to De Pillo, this is already more than a concept. “They have a professional presentation they are taking around and it seems to be the same one they used in New Jersey to try and get their permit down there,” De Pillo said. “ New Jersey told them to go pound sand, and we should say the same thing.”

One of De PIllo’s greatest fears is that the project is never brought forward in Waterbury to gain city board approval. “This is all a horse and pony show to get approval from the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC),” De Pillo said. “This company is trying to ram this through the DPUC and the Siting Council and then it won’t matter what the DEP and Waterbury have to say about it.”

De Pillo said he is not opposed to the concept of recycling food waste into energy, he just doesn’t think the Anamet site in the place to do it, or Chestnut Hill BioEnergy the company to run it.

The Observer asked De Pillo if he were the mayor, what would he do about this situation.

“I would request a meeting with top DPUC members, top siting council members, and top members from the Clean Energy Fund. I would want to know how Chestnut Hill BioEnergy has been representing Waterbury and where they are in the process,” De Pillo said. “It is time for Mayor jarjura and the Waterbury Development Corporation to intervene before it is too late.”

WDC
The Waterbury Development Corporation (WDC) is the City of Waterbury’s official economic and community development agency, and Leo Frank is the executive director. Franks said WDC showed Chestnut Hill BioEnergy a few sites in Waterbury, but has not passed judgement on the project.

“We are a sales force showing people properties and trying to stimulate the local economy,” Frank said. “Just because we showed this company the Anamet site doesn’t mean we are a proponent for their plans. We are a proponent for Waterbury.”



Frank met with the company 18 months ago and said Chestnut Hill BioEnergy explained the problems they had experienced in New Jersey. “ I told them you can expect a fierce battle in Waterbury,” Frank said. “ The South End has had problems with high traffic proposals in dense population areas before.”

Frank had addressed the Greenway Advisory Committee a month ago and told the group that Chestnut Hill BioEnergy had no traction and was no where on the radar screen. “When I said that I didn’t know they had received a $500,000 loan from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund,” Frank said. “But right now WDC has no opinion about the proposal.”

Franks said WDC “doesn’t get too emotional. We try to stay neutral, but if the mayor wants us to get involved, we will.”

Let It Flow

Ideas Flying For Greenway Project Along The Naugatuck River In Waterbury


The Naugatuck River flows right through the center of Waterbury


Excitement during the 2nd Annual Naugatuck River Race


Hashing out plans during a greenway summit


One of the organizers of the river race, Kevin Zak, of the Naugatuck River Revival Group, addresses a pre-race gathering May 9th


An aerial map of the Naugatuck River generated lots of discussion on April 30th at Kennedy High School


During the past 50 years the spirit of Waterbury has slowly dehydrated like a grape shrivelling into a raisin. The once blustering civic spirit that forged an industrial powerhouse out of a treeless meadow has waned with economic loss, political corruption and systemic arguing.

Enter the healing power of water.

Water has the power to cleanse and nourish our souls. It also has the power to hydrate a dried raisin and make it swollen and plump again.

It was the convergence of seven streams and rivers that led the settlers to build the Mattatuck Plantation here. It was the awesome power of those rivers and streams that fired the grist mills and fueled the brass industry as the city rose to worldwide prominence. Water was the city’s biggest asset, and our ancestors acknowledged that fact when they changed the name from Mattatuck, to Waterbury. The city owns a world class water system that winds through Litchfield County, and the Water Department is the only city department that posts a profit every year.

Somewhere along the way the community lost it’s reverence for our rivers and streams and they became little more than liquid conveyor belts to move our waste and garbage south further down the Naugatuck Valley. Many city residents remember the days when the Naugatuck River was stained orange and red from industrial dyes, and the Naugatuck is one of the only documented rivers in America to actually catch fire from all the debris and pollutants clogging its arteries.

Times have changed.



The river runs clear again. The dams that blocked it for nearly 200 years are almost entirely removed, and the natural wildlife has returned. As the river healed, many area residents began a slow awakening to the extraordinary asset we had mistreated and abused for 200 years. Individuals began to kayak and paddle through Waterbury. Fisherman no longer feared eating the catch they yanked from the river. Bird watchers could see Great Blue Herons, Green Herons, and a lucky few spotted a lone Bald Eagle down in the Platts Mills section of the river.




Several years ago a small group of community minded activists sought to tap into the power of the river and build a greenway along its banks. A preliminary environmental study was completed, but the cash needed to implement the dream was shorter than a politician’s memory after election day.

The missing link was political will.

All that changed last Spring when the Naugatuck River Revival Group sponsored a six mile canoe and kayak race on the river, and had the brilliant idea to invite municipal leaders from up and down the river to compete.

What could have been a ho-hum race involving 20 experienced boaters was suddenly transformed into the event of the year when Waterbury Mayor Mike Jarjura promised to participate. State Senator Joan Hartley and aldermen Mike Telesca, Paul Pernerewski and Paul Noguira all braved the unknown to paddle from Platts Mills to Beacon Falls. Nobody knew what lay around the next bend and there was a sense of dread and excitement as 200 boats blasted off from Waterbury’s south end.



Waterbury Mayor Michael Jarjura in 2008, and some of the 250 boaters in 2009



The First Selectman of Beacon Falls, Susan Cables, participated, as did Chuck Frigon, the Town Manager in Watertown, and the mayors of Ansonia and Derby. An enormous amount of publicity was generated and photographs of a drenched Michael Jarjura crossing the finish line waving to the crowd seemed to epitomize the event. Jarjura’s canoe had flipped three times and he ruined his cell phone, but he had a blast. Other participants said the event was one of the most memorable of their life.

The importance of influential politicians in the event cannot be underestimated. The race was talked about for weeks, and then suddenly $4 million dollars was reallocated from a 2005 High Priority Federal Transportation Grant and directed towards creating a 7.1 mile greenway along the Naugatuck River.

Over the summer Mayor Jarjura formed a Greenway Advisory Committee and asked many influential community leaders to serve on it. Former mayoral candidate and long-time alderman, Ron Napoli, is the chairman of the committee. Kathleen McNamara, the community development coordinator for the Waterbury Development Corporation, is the vice-chairman. McNamara has been pushing for a greenway in the city for years and has been instrumental in nurturing the project from idea, to the cusp of reality.


Kathleen McNamara

“This is a great project,” McNamara said. “We tried it several years ago but the timing wasn’t right. Now we have tremendous momentum and great public participation. In the past ten years this is the most excited I’ve been about any project in the city.”

And while other communities up and down the Naugatuck River try to get their own greenway projects launched, Waterbury seems to be way ahead of the curve. In addition to the $4 million that now sits in the Connecticut Department of Transportation coffers for the Waterbury greenway, the city just recently applied for an additional $11.3 million in federal funding to advance the project.

But what exactly is a greenway?

In his book Greenways For America, Charles E. Little gives several possible definitions for a greenway. First, he says it is a linear open space established along either a natural corridor, such as a riverfront, stream valley, ridgeline, or overland along a railroad right of way converted to recreational use, a canal, a scenic road, or other route.

Second, Little defines a greenway as any natural or landscaped course for pedestrian or bicycle passage. Third, an open-space connector linking parks, nature reserves, cultural features, or historic sites within populated areas.

Greenways have exploded upon the national consciousness in the past 25 years, but in his book, Little credits Frederick Law Olmstead for inventing the idea of greenways. Olmstead was born in Hartford in 1822 and designed Central Park in the heart of New York City, and ironically, it was Olmstead who also designed Fulton Park in Waterbury.

In the introduction to his book, Little states greenways are “wonderfully rich and diverse - as rich and diverse as human ingenuity and topographical opportunity can make them.”

And in Waterbury the gears of imagination are just beginning to grind.



The Naugatuck River hugs Route 8 for several miles in Waterbury

While still in it’s conceptual stage, the multi-use greenway in Waterbury is imagined to provide a place for bikers, rollerbladers, walkers, and parents pushing their baby strollers up and down the Naugatuck River corridor. The greenway should provide entrance and exit points for kayaks and canoes. It should have educational components to interpret history and nature. It should have places for the community to gather to enjoy theater and concerts, and shops and restaurants to buy an ice cream or a beer.



The Mixmaster intersection of Route 8 and I-84

The Greenway Advisory Committee selected Alta Planning + Design from Saratoga Springs, NY, to plan a route for the greenway. The company was hired this Spring and their first step into the project was to conduct a community wide kick-off and brain storming session on April 30th at Kennedy High School where nearly 150 city residents showed up to participate.

Mayor Jarjura was the first to address the gathering and spent a few minutes talking about his participation in the 2nd Annual Naugatuck River Race being held May 9th, assuring everyone he would wear a helmet this time. “This project has the potential to alter the city,” Jarjura said. “Water is gold. If you have a waterway you have to do something to enhance the community.”

Alta’s Jeff Olson is managing the project in Waterbury and he has extraordinary experience planning and deigning similar projects around the country. Olson addressed the gathering at Kennedy High School and said the first thing he was there to do was listen to the community.



Jeff Olson of Alta Planning and Design



“We want to hear what ideas you have for the project,” Olson said, and then he broke the gathering into smaller splinter groups to work on various concepts and ideas. “I’ve done this all across the country and as you get started your community is way ahead of most communities,” Olson said. “You already have your mayor in a kayak and you have millions of dollars committed. This is fantastic.”




Starting a project with excellent digital maps, environmental studies in place, and a committed city administration gives Waterbury a big head start. Olson asked the gathering if they knew the meaning of the word Naugatuck, and several people knew it was an ancient Algonquian word for “Lone tree by the fishing place.”

As he spoke briefly about the greenway, Olson said “the Naugatuck River can become the unifying theme of this community”, and getting residents out walking, biking running and paddling “can have tremendous benefits on people’s health”.



Olson told the gathering of the importance of including public art in the project and shared a story about how England committed itself to a massive greenway project that included a spectacular amount of public art. In Waterbury there might be ways to connect to public art already in existence - the statues and monuments in downtown Waterbury, the Mattatuck Museum and Timexpo. The greenway can have little fingers or tentacles that shoot off into the community and neighborhoods to connect the city.




There was discussion during the night to try and link the greenway to the downtown UConn campus, to Municipal Stadium and to a proposed transportation center. Other ideas were to connect the greenway to Duggan School in Brooklyn, to the Huntington ballfields, to Fort Hill Cemetery, to neighborhood parks and special events. Another idea was to transform a car junk yard along the river into a park.

Designing a greenway from Waterbury city limits to Thomaston would be much easier than tackling the 7.1 mile stretch in Waterbury, through densely populated areas, factories, brownfields, abandoned bridges and beneath the mixmaster exchange where I-84 and Route 8 intersection. “If this were the Olympics,” Olson said. “The degree of difficulty with this project would be very high.”

From his experience, though, Olson said every greenway project is different. “Each one is an open book,” Olson said. “There are a lot of obstacles, but with innovation and creativity we can find solutions.”

There might be locations in Waterbury where the greenway will have to veer away from the river. There might be opportunities to build the greenway out over the river. In the end it will be Olson’s job to come back to the community and the Greenway Advisory Committee with options and estimated costs. “We’ll be looking for the best most workable solution,” Olson said. “Then it’s up to the community to decide what they want.”



And during the kick-off night at Kennedy High School the community was brimming with ideas. Some of the ideas were a sculpture park on the seven acres being donated to the city in the south end by Mimi Niederman, and to provide security along the entire greenway. Another idea was to create programs to teach city youngsters to ride bikes and to swim. Olson was excited about the idea to get Waterbury kids off computers and outside exercising. “The number of kids across the country who don’t know how to ride bikes and swim is alarming,” he said.


Mimi Niederman is donating seven acres of riverfront property in the South End of Waterbury





At the end of the evening Olson tried to summarize the event. “I was asked by the Waterbury Development Corporation to come and inspire the community. Instead it is me who has been inspired.” Olson said it is usually at the first meetings that individuals come up with pitch forks and rotten fruit to criticize the project, but in Waterbury there was absolutely no negativity.

“There are people out there opposed to this,” Olson said, “and we’ll hear from them.”

Or maybe not.

Waterbury has been so bogged down in bickering and a loss of civic pride, that maybe this project along the river will provide the healing this community so desperately needs. In Charles Little’s book about greenways he wrote “For a 100 years urban rivers have been relegated to the ugliest of urban functions - sewage disposal, heavy industrial sites and garbage disposal. Inevitably the river corridors became a kind of no man’s land, dividing cities, economically and socially - the poor on one side, the rich on the other.”





But, Little writes, times have changed. “The ugly functions have been replaced and when cities discover this the impulse is strong to establish a greenway project along the river front. And then a miracle happens. The river begins to join the people of the city together, rather than separate them. What was once an open wound begins to heal itself, and the city along with it.”