Complete Text of Dan Drew's Announcement For Mayoral Race

From Dan Drew

I suppose it’s fitting that I’m here today, nearly two years to the day since I announced my 2009 candidacy. We talked a lot about the future in 2009. Today, we’re living in that future and we have not yet reached our potential.

I know you’re here because you care about where we’re going to be two years from today, because you want to see things change, because you believe that we have the ability and the willpower to make a difference.

I believe it, too. And that’s why I’m running for the office of Mayor of the City of Middletown.

I’m not a professional politician. My personal story is probably a lot like yours. I’m the great grandson of Italian and Eastern European immigrants. My wife and father are both teachers and my mother runs a small business. I’m the father of three and the oldest of five sons. I go to work each morning so Kate and I can give our children all of the opportunities we had and more.

I paid my way through UConn by working two jobs. I know what it’s like to try to make a mortgage payment while raising three kids and what it’s like to worry about job security.

I understand the struggles working families are facing everyday because they’re my struggles, too.

Nowadays, it’s easy to lose sight of these things in the din of partisan bickering.

I’m not interested in fights between Democrats and Republicans. But I will never turn away from a fight between right and wrong.

It’s not right that jobs have been created in City Hall for the politically-connected. It’s not right that one of the mayor’s key allies made $30,000 in taxpayer-funded overtime in one year. It’s not right that the mayor used taxpayer money to install a big-screen TV in his personal office.

That funny business is going to end in November. When it ends, we will change things for the better.  

City government affects your day-to-day life probably more than any other. And because of that fact, it is on this level that the most change happens. We won’t make progressive gains by waiting for Hartford or Washington. We will start working on them now and we’ll do it together.

We will re-build the city’s tattered relationship with Middletown’s schools and spend our money on educating children instead of enriching attorneys. We will grow our tax base to make the city more affordable for working families, continue purchasing open space, and improve our public transportation system through environmentally-friendly buses and light rail. We will finally develop our riverfront into an economic engine that will make us the envy of any town in the State of Connecticut. And we’ll treat people with compassion by supporting good jobs and affordable healthcare.

Sometimes people tell me that they’ve lost faith in public service, that they’re disillusioned and frustrated. But their frustrations present us with an opportunity. We have a chance to do it right. We have a chance to prove that this city really does belong to you – the people.

Let us prove that together.