By Michael Nicastro

My apologies in advance to the late Rod Serling. But, imagine if you will a newly elected mayor and city council who in the first 45 days of their term derail a viable and important economic development project. Afterwards, the mayor, taken completely off guard (or so he claims) by the disastrous vote calls an official City Council meeting (to be held both in Chambers and Online) where a paid expert (Goman & York) in economic development will conduct a workshop to provide a third-party professional perspective on economic development for the city council and the public. 

Then imagine if you will the session begins (in person and online) with three members of the council in attendance online (along with members of the public), two council members in person (along with members of the public) and one council member absent. As the development professional delves into the content of the presentation the online portion is interrupted by an online attendee who begins to shout racial and religious epithets along with a stream of foul language all while displaying symbols of racist hate and pornography. 

Those online are stunned by what is happening and when the mayor realizes what is going on, rightfully kills the online link ending any further attendance by those online, including the aforementioned three city council members. All three of which really needed the workshop.

And finally imagine if you will that six days later (as of this writing) the episode while handed over to the proper authorities is never mentioned or addressed by the mayor. He never condemns the behavior nor does he reach out to the residents who had to tolerate the obscenities to assure them that his administration will do everything they can to prevent this from happening again. Nor does he explain how the workshop (now void of its purpose) will now be of any benefit. Instead, total silence with the exception of a Facebook post of a recording of the representative from Goman & York answering questions after the presentation.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

To be fair, this was an awful situation and the mayor did the right thing in ending the online link. He also did the right thing in promptly turning it over to the proper authorities. Time will tell whether or not this was an attack from outside the city or a local person. Either way it was disgusting.

That said, the mayor had an outstanding opportunity to show leadership and solidarity around this episode. Unfortunately he hasn’t. I’m sure we can expect the “the matter is under investigation” excuse. That’s fine, but why he can’t a make a public statement condemning what occurred (which is public knowledge) and making it clear that this form of hate won’t be tolerated in Bristol is a mystery. 

Let’s not kid ourselves, this mayor has a lot of fences to mend when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion. His choice of location for the inauguration set a disastrous tone. But for heaven’s sake show some empathy sir for those who live with these sorts of racial, religious and sexual abuses and attacks every day of their lives. Your continued silence on what happened on Saturday isn’t helping and frankly creates a whole new set of questions regarding your leadership and how you view what transpired. 

As to the presentation itself, I think it’s not difficult to understand that its efficacy, with four of the six city councilors unable to see it “live” and have the opportunity to ask questions, minimized the value. Not sure what if anything the city paid for the session but with what transpired it looks to be money wasted. 

There’s a difference between real leadership and just going through the motions. Right now we have a whole lot of the latter and very little of the former. The opportunity to show that leadership still exists but time is waning. I guess we’ll see.

Michael Nicastro is a former president of the Central Connecticut Chambers of Commerce and current chief executive officer and principal of Coppermine Advisors. He is a Democrat and has run for state senate in the 31st district. 

Editor’s note: Opposing viewpoints are welcome. Please submit to editor@bristoledition.org.