Boughton faces his toughest test yet
18-year incumbent’s last close election? His first, against Democrat Setaro, who’s back on the ballot
DANBURY — There are plenty of issues defining the Danbury mayor’s race: overextended schools, deteriorating roads, a downtown in need of a spark. But during Mayor Mark Boughton’s recent lunchtime stop at a local diner, some voters just wanted to talk about bears.
“A few days ago, I saw a black bear early in the morning looking under our porch and I thought, ‘he’s looking for a place to hibernate,’ ” said Faith Todd, 74. “So I called the mayor to find out who to call.”
Boughton says he relishes helping residents deal with issues, no matter how small. “Government excites me,” he said. “This is what I’m meant to do.”
An everyman in pressed khakis, the Republican mayor has led Danbury for 18 years, the longest tenure in the city’s history. During that span, Boughton has encountered some significant personal challenges, including three unsuccessful campaigns for governor, a divorce and a major health crisis.
But the 55-year-old former high school history teacher hasn’t faced a close election since his first run for mayor in 2001, when he beat Democrat Chris Setaro by 139 votes out of more than 14,000
cast.
Now Setaro is back, hoping to end Boughton’s grip on this city of about 85,000 people.
“Our city requires a new leadership and a new way,” said Setaro, 54. “We don’t have a culture of 18-year mayors … these are not lifetime jobs.”
Democrats in Danbury hold a 5,000-voter edge in registration, but, for 18 years, they have been unable to make a serious run at Boughton, or gain a majority on the city council, where Republicans hold 14 of 21 seats.
Democratic leaders insist this year will be different. Emboldened by a series of victories in last fall’s legislative races and fueled by a strong anti-Trump sentiment, party officials say they are more energized than they’ve been in years. Much of that activism is fueled by millennials, women and members of the city’s growing immigrant communities.
“There’s been a tectonic shift,” says Andrea Gartner, the chairwoman of the Democratic Town Committee. She points to three local state legislators, Sen. Julie Kushner and Reps. Kenneth Gucker and Raghib AllieBrennan — who each knocked off Republican incumbents last year — as proof.
Kushner, a liberal who unseated one of the legislature’s most conservative members, says Republicans have to contend with an enthusiasm gap this election cycle. “I’ve lived in Danbury for 26 years and I have never seen the kind of energy that we have around the municipal election today,” she said.
Setaro, an attorney specializing in worker’s compensation law, has raised more than $125,000, the first time a Democrat running for mayor in Danbury has broken the $100,000 threshold.
“There’s certainly an anti-Trump feeling among the electorate, that goes without saying,” Setaro said. “But first and foremost, people are concerned with kitchen-table issues.”
Middle-of-the-road
Boughton has a complicated relationship with Donald Trump. The mayor joked that he wrote in his dog’s name on his 2016 presidential ballot, but later recanted and said he voted for Trump.
He rejected the suggestion that the 2019 mayoral election is a referendum on Trump. Boughton was on the ballot in 2017, one year into the Trump presidency, and the mayor beat his Democratic rival by 3,000 votes.
Boughton portrays himself as a middle-of-the-road Republican who can work with Democrats. His slogan is “People over Politics” and he calls himself fiscally conservative, socially libertarian.
“I’m a Republican because my ancestors were abolitionists ,” said Boughton, who collects Lincoln memorabilia.
“There isn’t really a Republican way or a Democratic way to plow the street,” he added. “Either it’s plowed or it’s not plowed and I think the public recognizes that.”
Boughton’s brand of politics proved unsuccessful at the statewide level but he says he has no regrets. “Everybody has their place and their time, it wasn’t meant to be for me and I’m OK with that,” he said of his three failed gubernatorial runs. “I don’t have any plans to run for any other statewide office or Congress.”
To Setaro, Boughton’s quest for higher office signals restlessness with his current job.
“You run for governor once, I get it. Twice? OK. But three times? Maybe you want to do something else,” Setaro said. Being mayor of Danbury, a full-time job that pays $122,000 annually, “can’t be the thing that you do when you don’t get what you really want. The people want a mayor that wants to be the mayor and I can represent to you that I want to be the mayor.”
With its clusters of strip malls and fast food places on the outskirts, and pockets of empty storefronts downtown, Danbury resembles many struggling midsize Connecticut cities.
Yet by many measures, this city is booming, thanks at least in part to an influx of immigrants from Brazil, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, as well as transplants from New York’s Westchester County seeking lower housing costs.
Boughton is quick to rattle off the metrics: “lowest unemployment rate in the state, safest city in Connecticut. We [regained] all of our jobs from the Great Recession [and] 1,473 businesses registered … in Danbury over the last 18 months.
“We have an incredibly vibrant economy. We’re growing. That’s a good thing and we ought to celebrate that.”
Marco Costa, a construction worker and driving instructor who emigrated from Brazil 17 years ago, agrees with that assessment.
“Danbury, for a big town, is safe,” Costa said one day last week, during a midafternoon stop at Mothership on Main, a cafe and espresso bar housed in a former Art Deco gas station. “In some areas, the roads need to be fixed … but in general, I think the mayor is doing a pretty good job.”
Costa recently became a citizen and said he intends to cast his first U.S. ballot in the mayoral election.
Growing pains
Boughton’s critics say Danbury’s growth comes at a cost. The city’s public schools are overcrowded, with enrollment for this fall exceeding projections by 350 students.
“It’s great that we have a city attracting a lot of new residents,” Kushner said. “But our schools are overwhelmed and stretched to the gills. It’s almost impossible to get around during rush hour. These are things we feel the city could have planned better for.”
Bought on said the problems associated with growth “are good problems to have but they’re still problems and they need to be managed.”
He is promoting the creation of transit-oriented development districts, to encourage high-density development in walkable parts of the city. Naugatuck Valley Community College opened a campus downtown two years ago. And Metro -North recently agreed to undertake a study to determine if it’s worth reopening a rail line to shave an hour off the commute from Danbury to Grand Central Station.
“Downtown looks way better now than when I took office,” said Boughton, who lives in an apartment downtown with his dog.
But others say the city center lacks vibrancy.
“There’s no reason to come downtown now,” said Jordan Jones, general manager of Barrister’s Coffee Co., which is just off Main Street in a building beneath the community college. “There’s not a lot of businesses here … you have some opening up and trying to do their thing. We opened, the perfumerie down the road opened, but now they’re shuttering their doors. They’ve got newspaper on the windows because there’s nobody coming downtown … so it’s tough.”
A few minutes later, Jones mentioned a science fiction convention he recently attended at the Palace Theater, just steps from the coffee shop. And he spoke of the Friday night concerts on the town green.
“There are cool things going on,” he said, “there’s just not enough of them.”
Setaro was careful not to criticize Boughton directly. But he suggests the city needs a steadier, more engaged leader. “Eighteen years of our future has already passed us by,” he said.
Boughton’s own future was severely shaken two years ago, when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a lemon.
He recalled being told by his doctors, “you’ve got about two months, get your affairs in order, write a will.”
The tumor turned out to be nonmalignant and Boughton says the scans he under goes every six months show no signs of trouble. But the experience changed him.
“I’m a different person now than I was in 2001, in the sense that I appreciate people more,” he said. “I definitely think I’m more compassionate, more caring.”
Boughton has already switched careers once, from teaching to politics. If he’s thinking about a new track, he wouldn’t say.
”I completely recognize this is not a lifetime appointment,” he said. “This job belongs to the people … if they decide to send me back, I’m absolutely honored, but I get it, it’s their decision.”
“Our schools are overwhelmed and stretched to the gills. It’s almost impossible to get around during rush hour. These are things we feel the city could have planned better for.”
— State Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury