Special to the Journal
Former Mayor and current candidate for Mayor, Dan Rizzo, has submitted his formal announcement having made it through the preliminary election back on Tuesday September 19th. In his announcement he stated that he believes that he brings a strong record of public service accomplishments to his campaign from his previous term of office as Mayor. “During my prior tenure as Mayor”, Rizzo stated, “we revitalized Broadway investing nearly $9million, that we secured in state and federal funds. We built the new Hill School and the Harry Della Russo Stadium, along with three new ball fields behind St. Mary’s Church”.
Having previously served as Mayor from 2012-2015 Rizzo feels that he has a deep understanding of Revere’s unique challenges and opportunities. Rizzo’s prior tenure as Mayor was marked by his commitment to enhancing public safety in Revere. “When I served as Mayor”, Rizzo said, “we were successful in hiring 20 new police officers in three years, we provided our police department with valuable new crime fighting technology, and we increased our neighborhood police foot patrols fostering a safer environment for our city.”
Rizzo mentioned with pride his accomplishments in the area of controlled economic development resulting in increased investments and job opportunities within the city. He stated,” we encouraged the Market Basket Supermarket to locate at the Northgate Shopping Center, reenergizing Northgate, and in the process creating 600 new private sector jobs which has benefited both our residents and local businesses.”
Rizzo also noted, “ that one of the most disappointing occurrences of his administration, a number of years ago, was when City Council’s failure to approve his recommendation to implement an Apartment Building Moratorium, which would have placed rigid controls on apartment development in the City of Revere, specifically regulating the number of new apartments that could be constructed, the required number of parking spaces needed for each apartment and the impact of apartment development on the city’s school system, public safety forces, traffic congestion, and other related infrastructure impacts”. “The failure to adopt an Apartment Building Moratorium”, Rizzo stated, “has resulted in excessive uncontrolled overdevelopment and gridlocked traffic congestion on our city streets.”
With his strong leadership skills and proven dedication to Revere, Rizzo believes that he can make a major contribution to improving the City of Revere. “My vision for the City”, Rizzo said,” includes a continued investment in improving the city’s infrastructure, finding ways to finance and build senior citizen affordable housing, working with State agencies to develop workable solutions to address our city’s and our region’s catastrophic traffic problems, and accelerating a workable program to put in place a professionally managed emergency preparedness program to deal with our continuous flooding, which occurs in many areas of our community.”
Further, Rizzo stressed, “we need to work to approve the construction of a fiscally responsible new high school that both our taxpayers and rent payers can afford, and we must assign a high priority to returning the Wonderland Dog Track site as a responsible, productive economic revenue generator for our city, which will help to ensure a more prosperous future for Revere”. Rizzo concluded by saying, “I believe that my experience, my passion, and my deep connection to our community will result in a renewed hope for a vibrant future for Revere.”
