Story By John Murray

   The whispers started before Election Day. If Governor Dan Malloy won re-election Neil O'Leary was going to step down as mayor of Waterbury and join the Malloy administration. We disregarded the speculation until a close political insider said it was true. "If Malloy wins, O'Leary is gone."

   A message to the citizens of Waterbury from John Murray, the Publisher and Editor of The Waterbury Observer......

   There has been a lot on my mind the past few weeks as the Waterbury Observer has risked its objectivity to champion systemic change in Waterbury municipal government. I’ve published the Observer for 21 years and the newspaper has never endorsed a political candidate for public office. It was our original intent to provide information to our readers and encourage them to vote. At various times in the past two decades we have been referred to as the Bergin Gazette, a Democrat rag, in the tank for John Rowland, too close to Phil Giordano and a Neil O’Leary mouthpiece.

                                   Commentary By John Murray

   In the past four months Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary has been successful in leveraging his influence on the local political scene to help secure $35 million dollars in state and federal aid. This November voters in Waterbury will be asked if they want to elect aldermen by district, or whether to keep the current at-large system in place. The idea of electing aldermen by district has been kicked around since 1994, and while much of the debate has been defined by ethnicity and skin color, it really is an issue of fairness and equal representation.

An artist rendition of a revitalized Freight Street with a Greenway trail on the right.

   United States Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today announced that the City of Waterbury has been selected as a recipient of a $14.4 million TIGER VI (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

                                                           By John Murray

   Ten years after his 31-year-old son vanished from Waterbury, Bill Smolinski Sr. uncorked a raw emotional speech last night during a Missing Persons Vigil held on the Naugatuck Green. When Billy Smolinski disappeared on August 24th, 2004, his family had trouble getting the Waterbury PD to take the report of a missing adult male seriously. Frustrated, the family had little choice but to search for Billy themselves. The results have been nightmarish.

Neil O’Leary, right, and Michael Gugliotti embraced on Election Day 2011 moments after O’Leary knew he’d ended Michael Jarjura’s 10-year reign as mayor of Waterbury. Gugliotti was the police chief at the time, and a close personal friend of O’Leary’s. The FBI is investigating whether the 200 Waterbury police officers that volunteered on Election Day for the O'Leary campaign were compensated, or used city assets. Both O'Leary and Gugliotti clearly state no city assets were used and the police and firemen who volunteered all took vacation days or used personal days.

                      Story and Photographs By John Murray

    For the past 18 months the FBI has been investigating a complaint about the large number of police involved in the 2011 municipal election in Waterbury. The core questions of the investigation are a) whether city employees were paid for working on Neil O’Leary’s victorious campaign, b) did the police use city vehicles or assets in the campaign, and c) were police compensated at a later date for volunteering on Election Day?

   So far lots of questions, and no answers.

   Saint Mary’s Hospital (Saint Mary’s) and Tenet Healthcare Corporation (Tenet) today announced plans for Saint Mary’s to be acquired by a subsidiary of Tenet, a leading healthcare services company which operates 79 acute care hospitals and 189 outpatient centers in 16 states. The transaction, which is subject to the execution of a definitive transaction agreement, state and federal regulatory approvals and other conditions, represents an opportunity to provide continued access to comprehensive healthcare to the Waterbury community by an organization that has been serving the community for over one hundred years.

The first inclusive multi-cultural festival in Waterbury history - The Gathering - was held in 2013, and was so successful, that it will now become an annual event, the next one being tomorrow, May 17th, from 11 am to 8 pm in downtown Waterbury. Pictured above are Brazilian samba dancers marching in the 2013 parade.

                                  Column and Photographs By John Murray

    There was one moment during The Gathering last year that will stick in my memory until my last breath. The moment was wrapped in anticipation, anxiety and exhaustion. A small group of volunteers and city employees had been planning the festival for months; recruiting ethnic groups, plotting parade routes, and dealing with insurance, electricity, and details we didn’t even know existed. When May 18th arrived we were unsure of what we had created. There were more than 40 cultural groups signed up to share their music, food and dance, but were they going to show up?