NORWALK, Conn. – Norwalk Democratic mayoral candidate Vinny Mangiacopra lashed out at Mayor Richard Moccia Wednesday over the way Mangiacopra says the mayor starts his day.
What fries his bacon? Moccia’s breakfast habits.
Mangiacopra and fellow candidates Harry Rilling and Matt Miklave were in front of about 40 people at the NEON (Norwalk Economic Opportunity Now) Community Town Hall when moderator Bruce Morris asked them to name three things they would do differently from Moccia.
Mangicopra said he had found out about a month ago that Moccia meets his friends for breakfast every morning, from 9 to 11 a.m., at the Norwalk Inn.
He would never do that, he said.
“I don’t like breakfast,” he said. “That’s something that’s going to be different about me: I don’t like breakfast. Nor do I need to hang out with my buddies during the work week and have breakfast, and fill them in. One of them was a zoning commissioner. One of them was another commissioner. One of them was another commissioner over here. That’s how this city is being run right now. In this city. In 2013. People are having breakfast for two hours during the middle of the work day.”
Asked to confirm or deny that, Moccia said in an email, “My private life is just that, private. Who I have coffee with is my business.”
Rilling was more serious in his hard-boiled approach to the question.
“I wouldn’t be out there just cutting ribbons,” he said. “I would be leading by example. I would be managing by example and supervising by example. I would be holding my department heads accountable to submit reasonable budgets and to hold themselves within those budgets. … Right now, you do not have a government that listens.”
Miklave started by saying he would start day one with an economic team to build a jobs creation program and would involve large amounts of Norwalkers in establishing budget priorities.
Then he tried to settle the mayor’s hash with a promise for “accountability and civility and transparency at City Hall.”
“We’re not going to have the Police Commission violate the Open Meetings Act anymore,” he said. “We’re not going to have council members voting by secret ballot by email anymore. We’re going to comply with the law because we expect people to comply with the law. We are going to hold ourselves to that standard. Every single city employee will have to certify yearly that they have taken a one-hour course on ethics and responsibility and civility, so every single city employee is accountable to the public.”
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