Democratic candidate for Mayor Geen Thazhampallath press release,
Mayor candidate Geen Thazhampallath issued a 15-point detailed action plan today, less than one month before the party’s nomination night on July 18, that offered a roadmap, not only to his mayoral priorities, but also as a unique employment contract and performance scorecard by which the citizens of Middletown could measure his time as Mayor.
“A performance scorecard is something I learned from my time in the business world. Middletown city government is now a $200 million-dollar plus enterprise spanning every phase of life and service, and our citizens deserve a CEO that thinks, acts, communicates, leads and even gets their performance scored like it,” said Thazhampallath.
“I’m not afraid of being reviewed and being held to my pledges because I’m very confident that I am the most qualified person for the job and more importantly I have a passion and internal sense for the ideals we need to pursue to build good government and a strong binding diverse community. The ideals are equity, equality, openness and fairness, but to get there, we need a plan and a leader with the execution skills to take real action steps,” he said.
Thazhampallath, who has a law degree from the University of Connecticut, though he never practiced, has established himself as a leader in public administration in Connecticut. He has 12 years of municipal leadership experience, in two different towns, including being the former Chief Administrative Officer of the Town of Stratford, and a mayoral aide and now a department director in Middletown.
“I’ve managed people, done evaluations, held labor hearings, hired and fired people, led union contract negotiations and emergency operation centers during natural disasters and thought through municipal budgets. All these professional moments together, with my immigrant family story, make me ready for this. I’m ready. I’m confident. I know I’m going to get this done for Middletown,” he said.
Thazhampallath added, “these 15 scorecard points aren’t just nice slogans on the page, they are the real things that I plan to focus on and get done. I will be working hard for the citizens of our City but I felt they deserved a measuring stick to know if I’m doing what I said I’d do and to measure if they made a good hire on primary day September 10 and election day November 5.”
Thazhampallath’s plan includes economic efforts for the City and structural changes to City Hall that he would accomplish as Mayor. He is proposing the creation of a diverse economic team of City leaders to market Middletown with him. “I’ve always believed Middletown has great potential. Now, it’s time go from potential to kinetic energy. A team of experienced citizens working together to make the pitch for Middletown is better than one Mayor taking a top down approach. I don’t care who gets the credit, I just want to see Middletown succeed.”
Thazhampallath shared his concerns for downtown as four prominent locations are either now,
or soon, will be empty, along Main Street, including the First & Last, Citizens Bank, Subway and the Rite
Aid locations. “We have a lot of great places to be proud of in downtown but we need to guard against
complacency and the plateau effect,” Thazhampallath said.
He ranked recruiting a grocery market to the downtown area and the right added retail options to the City as pressing priorities. “The feedback from our citizens can’t be clearer. They want retail options so they don’t have to leave town to buy the things of life. Getting a market downtown is key because we want to be a walkable City. People want to walk to their gym, their market, and their restaurants. That’s great urban living.”
“Trying to add, by that I mean trying to assertively recruit, a Panera, a Trader Joe’s, a Home Goods, and other modern outlets with the right architecture, in the right retail corridors, is important to the mindset and feel of our City,” he said.
Other aspects of Thazhampallath’s employment scorecard include pledging to pursue environmental and fiscal sustainability. He pledged to incentivize local environmentally conscious ideas with small City grants and to fund a “Kids 1st” campaign focused on public education, eliminating childhood hunger and providing a support services safety net for children in Middletown. “I intend to change the mindset with which we approach City budgeting. We are going to rethink how and on what we spend money. Serving and caring for human needs will be at the core. We are going to be there for our kids, for our seniors and for all of our citizens.”
“By changing our budget mindset, from an inward City Hall focus to outward people focus, not only can we fund what we need too, but I we can actually save taxpayers some City-side dollars.” Thazhampallath is proposing manageable efficiency gains of $250,000 each year over four years and to push Wesleyan to offset some taxpayer funded services provided to the university much like Yale University provides to the City of New Haven.
“We lose some tax dollars when Wesleyan takes over a taxable property like it just recently did with the historic Post Office building on Main Street. The $25,000 dollars lost in tax revenue is $100,000 over four years and that’s a teacher, a firefighter or police officer. They are a great institution but Wesleyan needs to understand the real impact on the City and help us help them.”
Structurally, Thazhampallath’s pledged to make changes to the way City Hall operates. “I’m there and I understand the levers and the ideals of government from a unique vantage point. I can see that we are stuck in an old pattern of doing things. We need to serve people better by implementing modern digital and mobile tools to make public feedback easier to give and solutions easier to provide.”
“Four years from now, I want our citizens to be able to pull out this scorecard put down check marks next to each one and but most of all I want them to be feel and be valued throughout my time. At its core, local government needs to value its people, and always put people over policy. “Over four years we won’t agree on every decision, and that’s ok, but they need to know that every voice matters, and is valued,” he said.
He ranked recruiting a grocery market to the downtown area and the right added retail options to the City as pressing priorities. “The feedback from our citizens can’t be clearer. They want retail options so they don’t have to leave town to buy the things of life. Getting a market downtown is key because we want to be a walkable City. People want to walk to their gym, their market, and their restaurants. That’s great urban living.”
“Trying to add, by that I mean trying to assertively recruit, a Panera, a Trader Joe’s, a Home Goods, and other modern outlets with the right architecture, in the right retail corridors, is important to the mindset and feel of our City,” he said.
Other aspects of Thazhampallath’s employment scorecard include pledging to pursue environmental and fiscal sustainability. He pledged to incentivize local environmentally conscious ideas with small City grants and to fund a “Kids 1st” campaign focused on public education, eliminating childhood hunger and providing a support services safety net for children in Middletown. “I intend to change the mindset with which we approach City budgeting. We are going to rethink how and on what we spend money. Serving and caring for human needs will be at the core. We are going to be there for our kids, for our seniors and for all of our citizens.”
“By changing our budget mindset, from an inward City Hall focus to outward people focus, not only can we fund what we need too, but I we can actually save taxpayers some City-side dollars.” Thazhampallath is proposing manageable efficiency gains of $250,000 each year over four years and to push Wesleyan to offset some taxpayer funded services provided to the university much like Yale University provides to the City of New Haven.
“We lose some tax dollars when Wesleyan takes over a taxable property like it just recently did with the historic Post Office building on Main Street. The $25,000 dollars lost in tax revenue is $100,000 over four years and that’s a teacher, a firefighter or police officer. They are a great institution but Wesleyan needs to understand the real impact on the City and help us help them.”
Structurally, Thazhampallath’s pledged to make changes to the way City Hall operates. “I’m there and I understand the levers and the ideals of government from a unique vantage point. I can see that we are stuck in an old pattern of doing things. We need to serve people better by implementing modern digital and mobile tools to make public feedback easier to give and solutions easier to provide.”
“Four years from now, I want our citizens to be able to pull out this scorecard put down check marks next to each one and but most of all I want them to be feel and be valued throughout my time. At its core, local government needs to value its people, and always put people over policy. “Over four years we won’t agree on every decision, and that’s ok, but they need to know that every voice matters, and is valued,” he said.
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