Incumbent Republican Mayor Mike Bronko (right) and Democratic candidate Bob Mezzo congratulate one another after their victories in Monday's primaries. Bronko defeated former Mayor Ron San Angelo, and Mezzo beat former state Rep. Kevin Knowles. Bronko and Mezzo will meet in the May 4 general election.
By Callum Borchers, Editor, and Paul Singley, Special to Citizen’s News
NAUGATUCK — Turns out the borough’s political town committees aren’t very good odds-makers. Republican incumbent Mayor Mike Bronko and Democrat Bob Mezzo — neither of whom was endorsed at his party’s January caucus — won their respective primaries Monday and will meet in the general election May 4.
Bronko’s victory was a veritable landslide. He claimed 62 percent of the GOP vote, defeating his predecessor, 633-393. Mezzo’s was almost equally decisive. The former deputy mayor earned 58 percent of his party’s votes for a final count of 1,090-776. Approximately 30 percent of registered voters in both parties cast their ballots.
“I’m glad we let the entire Republican party vote, and I’m very happy with the results,” Bronko said.
Bronko’s first term in office hasn’t been much of a honeymoon. The mayor presided over a tax increase on the heels of a property revaluation and watched the economic recession slow progress on the borough’s downtown revitalization project, which he supported in the 2007 mayoral election. And for the second time in Bronko’s young political career, unpaid taxes made headlines just weeks before voters went to the polls.
Despite these challenges, Bronko became the first Naugatuck mayor in 38 years to lose the town committee’s nomination but rally to win the primary.
San Angelo, who served as mayor from 2003-07 before accepting a job as a research assistant with the state Department of Information Technology, took criticism from Bronko throughout the campaign for “abandoning” the party before the last election. He did enough to patch up any hard feelings among members of the Republican Town Committee, but not enough voters were willing to overlook his departure.
“I’m surprised after 20 years of working on behalf of the town,” San Angelo said. “This comes down to me taking a state job. People were upset after I left.”
Still a member of the Naugatuck Economic Development Corporation, San Angelo said he will continue to work on behalf of the borough.
Mezzo, who has been absent from local politics since he lost to San Angelo in 2003, rode the momentum of solid debate performances to his win in the Democratic primary. At Cross Street Intermediate School and other polling locations, hearty supporters bundled up and waved signs for the 37-year-old local attorney.
Later surrounded by more than 100 people — many who donned blue “Team Mezzo” baseball caps — in his campaign headquarters on Church Street, Mezzo thanked his followers and vowed to work hard through the general election on May 4.
“I’m so happy and proud to have worked with such fantastic people who made it fun from the day we started the campaign and kept it that way through tonight,” Mezzo said. “I am grateful that the Naugatuck Democratic Party can put on a positive campaign based on the issues. This is one victory in what I hope will lead to a larger victory in May.”
He said Bronko will be a formidable opponent, and Mezzo believes he, too, will stick to the issues.
Bronko and Mezzo look to lead a community facing uphill battles over issues such as high property taxes, a downtown revitalization project, Renaissance Place, that is quickly losing momentum and six municipal unions whose contracts are set to expire.
Mezzo says he wants to reform local government and run it like a business. He wants to conduct a professional analysis of government to find ways to make it more efficient.
He also plans to create a “My First Teacher” program to allow parents the opportunity to interact with teachers and administrators, and conduct a seven-year plan to convert the high school football and soccer fields, and the three fields in the Rotary/Breen fields complex, to artificial turf by 2015.
Bronko, who never served in political office before being elected mayor in May 2007, believes he has done a good job so far. He discusses his “Mayor’s Home Work” project through which he and volunteers made upgrades at the homes of seniors, and other community-based initiatives, as his major successes.
Recently, unions representing the Visiting Nurses Association and administrators agreed to take pay freezes for a year in exchange for Bronko not laying off employees and extending their current contracts for a year. Several department heads, including Bronko, have also agreed to forgo pay increases for a year, and the police union has tentatively agreed to a one-year pay freeze.
Bronko, who earns $74,500 as mayor, not including benefits, has been criticized many times by burgesses throughout his tenure. He blames some of his blunders on freshman mistakes and says he’s learned from them.
Neither San Angelo nor Knowles plans to petition for a spot on the general election ballot. Knowles said he will take a break before thinking about his political future but did say, “I’ve been in politics since my 20s, and I’ve been in public life for 25 years. I think part of me would die if I didn’t do that.”
After the votes were tallied, workers from the Knowles camp made their way to Mezzo’s headquarters and vowed to unite the party.
“We were never divided, we just had differences of opinion,” Democratic Town Committee chairman M. Leonard Caine III said. “We had two solid candidates, and we will work together through May.”
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