Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno appeared last Friday on WGBY’s “The State We’re In,” a weekly, 30-minute interview show based in downtown Springfield and hosted by Jim Madigan. Below is a transcript of the interview.

Jim Madigan: Hello, welcome to “The State We’re In.” I’m Jim Madigan. Our guest this week: Domenic Sarno. He has just completed, I think, about five weeks now as mayor of the City of Springfield. Mr. Mayor, congratulations; thanks for coming in. Preparing for the show, I’m thinking it’s almost 20 years ago, not quite, going into Mayor Mary Hurley’s office, and meeting this fresh-faced, young, energetic aide that—

Mayor Domenic Sarno: Thanks, Jim.

Madigan: —still young and energetic, and pretty fresh-faced—but now mayor, after not quite 20 years. I was working at Channel 40, covering City Hall, at that time. It’s been interesting to watch you move up through the ranks of the [City] Council, and now in the city top job. We congratulate you and wish you well.

Sarno: Thank you.

Madigan: The last nice thing probably anybody in the media will say to you in the next couple of years.

Sarno: Well, Jim, you’re always—it’s always a pleasure to be here at Channel 57 and “The State We’re In.” You’ve always been a very fair media person. I appreciate that. A gentleman, and a friend. And, uh—

Madigan: Too much nice stuff. That’s enough. Okay. [Laughs]

Sarno: I was here in May.

Madigan: You were, before the election. Well, let’s talk. You had jumped in, both feet hitting the ground, right from inaugural day. You have started something that I know you’ve talked about on the council, going after quality of life issues in the city. It’s something that Mayor Rudy Giuliani did in New York City. It worked very well there. Why not try it in other cities which have, and Springfield now, an ordinance team, an ordinance squad, which is with their commanding officer, I guess it’s four or five city officers—

Sarno: That’s right.

Madigan: Basically, they’re there to watch out for the things that a lot of us might complain about but kind of walk by and say, “Well, big deal”: noise issues, trash on the streets, unshoveled driveways, the little things that you say add up to making a big difference in the city. You want them taken care of.

Sarno: Yeah, this is the evolution of the quality of life flex squad. We’re trying, as it evolves, in other city departments, but specifically, the police department. And now we have a unit of four officers headed by Lieutenant Tommy Trites: Chris Hrycay, Officer [Mark] Kenney, Officer Rivera [sic; the Republican reported Officer Raphael Vega as a squad member], Officer [Keith] Fleming.

This is about the broken window theory: getting to quality of life issues that at times are nuisance type issues, that if you let them go, will escalate into negative crime activities. [See also Matthew Campbell's story on this for CBS3, following the ordinance squad around the city looking at abandoned properties that have not been properly boarded up.]

This is something, Jim, you brought up—you’re correct. I’ve been pushing this, probably, for a year and a half’s time, and there was no budgeting under the prior police administration. And under acting Commissioner Bill Fitchet [pictured]—I’ve been here about a month; he’s been here about two weeks—he’s already moved on three initiatives that saw no light of day under the prior administration.

Obviously, we have the Corey Lind [pizza deliveryman murder], God rest his soul, the food delivery initiative that we’re doing; the domestic violence front, the training that we’re doing, for females; that’s a scourge throughout the country, but it’s been especially difficult in the Springfield area.

And you should have seen the crowd down at the Basketball Hall of Fame—and I commend [President and CEO] John Doleva [pictured] for allowing us to use that—Denise Jordan and I were down there a couple Monday nights ago. Packed. And that was an initiative that we pushed under acting Commissioner Fitchet, the quality of life squad.

These have all taken place within a month’s time, within two weeks’ time, under his tenure. So I’m very proud of the frontal—that is the frontal attack—and you had mentioned that we hit the ground running. I’m really proud of my internal staff, because there was really no transition whatsoever. We walked in and hit the ground running, and I’m very proud of my staff.

Madigan: Let’s talk about—you mentioned acting Police Commissioner Fitchet. He is before the control board, if you will; he was considered before, passed over for Commissioner [Edward] Flynn, who then left, went to Milwaukee. You were at the time, way back when, you said, you know, there’s a certain something about having somebody who’s come up through the system, somebody in the system in the city, knowing that they’ve got a chance to go for the big job—didn’t happen at that point.

The man picked by the control board has left. You’ve said, “Fitchet’s my guy.” You’ve appointed him to the acting position. Certainly, you’re making clear you hope he gets the final job. You’re a little bit at odds with the control board. You didn’t like the way that was handled before—

Sarno: No.

Madigan: —and do you think it can be handled differently this time?

Sarno: Here’s the point. When acting Commissioner Fitchet was in charge, the nine months of his tenure [from late 2005 to early 2006], everybody across the board, no matter what group, no matter what institution, said he had done an excellent job. Let me tell you something here. We have many talented supervisors and rank and file police officers in the Springfield Police Department. Properly funded, we can do the job. It is imperative now that you have someone that knows the city like the back of their hand, someone that has some of that old school in them, but is also very future-oriented, whether we’re dealing with CompStat, this domestic violence type issues, forward-thinking also.

But to have someone come in from the outside—and we saw what happened when someone came in from the outside—to have a learning curve of a year to 18 months would absolutely be devastating to the City of Springfield, and to the morale of the department.

This is not something new, Jim. I’ve been out front on this well over going on two years now, or 18 months. I don’t give anybody carte blanche, either; I will not agree to the ridiculous contract that former Commissioner Flynn was okayed by the control board and former Mayor Ryan. You’re gonna have benchmarks, there’s gonna be an agenda; there’s goals that you have to meet.

Because two big issues facing the City of Springfield, and we’re going to fight hard to correct these issues, and then everything else will fall in place, in unison: is public safety, number one, dealing with the frontal attack on that issue, and the root cause issues of education, to stop, to stem the tide of poverty and negative crime activities. Two-pronged approach.

Everything else of economic development falls into place at that point in time.

Without public safety, dealing on the frontal attack, and without dealing with root cause issues, that are a little bit longer term in our educational system, I don’t care what type of grandiose plan anybody brings to the City of Springfield, it will not blossom.

Madigan: You’ve also said through the campaign, I think this goes back to City Council days as well, you’re still talking about: you want to get at least 50 more officers on the streets—

Sarno: Yeah.

Madigan: —again, an area the control board questions in terms of the finances. I’m just doing some quick, off-the-top-of-my-head numbers. It costs you somewhere in the range of $30,000 to $40,000 a year for each officer, to equip them to—[Sarno gestures] more than that?

Sarno: If you account for everything, and one-time costs, it’s probably around $70,000 to $80,000. This must—

Madigan: That includes training, I’m guessing, or—?

Sarno: This must—it has to—this must be a budget priority. Let’s face it. The paramount issue in the City of Springfield is people want their streets clean and safe. Once we get into the psyche of residents and the business community, that they feel aesthetic quality—it’s clean, that it is safe—then the sky’s the limit of where you can take the City of Springfield. Because I’m sick and tired, Jim, of people saying, “What do you expect? It’s Springfield.” From now on, it’s going to be, “Why not Springfield?” That must be, and it will be, a budget priority in the Sarno administration. I’m not going to be fiscally irresponsible, but you have to make that investment, because I think in the long term, and in the short term, it’s going to go over 100 fold in the positive activities that can happen in the City of Springfield.

Madigan: I know it’s going to start to sound like—I think it’s the last time I’m going to ask one of these you versus the control board questions—it sounds like I’m trying to pick a fight here for you—but the trash fee.

Sarno: Yes.

Madigan: Now that was certainly central to your campaign. One of the most effective TV commercials I’ve ever seen in a political campaign.

Sarno: Those are my daughters.

Madigan: [Nods] Well, your kids—your family were in it with you, you were cleaning up the neighborhood, and you said, “I’m gonna put this trash fee where it belongs,” threw it into, I guess a copy of the actual ordinance, into a garbage can, closed it up, and that really sat with people, and I think it did have some effect, and I think you’d probably agree. A key campaign promise, but it’s already bringing in money to the city, which the city desperately needs. Are you really going to be able to do that over the course of the next couple of years, and if so, how do you make up the—what, it’s four or five million dollars a year.

Sarno: Well, first of all, they’re not collecting the amount of money that they state. I always believe that people expect for their tax dollars, God forbid, police and fire, public school system, they want their streets plowed of snow, and they want their trash picked up. I don’t want to hear from suburban areas that we pay for our trash. Springfield has a multitude of good things that are going on, but we have our urban center challenges.

On the trash fee, I just didn’t like the way it was put across a couple July firsts ago, where it wasn’t even explained to the residents. It was just, they literally said, July first, you’re getting it, whether you like it or not, under the prior administration and the control board. That was wrong. Not that people would stomach it better, but you need to go out there and explain who, what, where, and why.

My whole thing here is I’m not going to be fiscally irresponsible. I continue to negotiate with the control board. This is a—the trash fee is something that I would like to alleviate, modify, or move forward. I just don’t believe in it, but I’m not going to move to the point in time where fiscal irresponsibility—I would like to—I’m trying to identify some revenue sources to do that. Police, steadfast, a budget investment has to be made, but I firmly believe that this whole trash fee scenario has to be re-looked at.

My ultimate goal is to try to alleviate the fee. But I continue to try to negotiate with the control board, something they’re going to fight me on, that there needs to be alleviating the fee, modification of the fee, there needs to be some fairness. I don’t believe in it to begin with, Jim. And I want to make sure that we continue to identify sources to make up—but they are not collecting. I think, right now, I think we’ve collected on this about $2.5 million, this is in effect for this fiscal year. But I will continue to move on issues that I feel are very, very important, and that has not gone by the wayside.

Madigan: When you say “modification,” do you mean you could live with it if it were cut in half, or if it were put to some sort of a city vote, or if the council were given some more of a vote, or—?

Sarno: We already had a city vote, and I’d like—I just don’t believe in an urban center—I know a lot of places are moving to that, but I want discussion on the issue, and move forward to, you know, identify revenue sources, how we can alleviate. There’s other aspects that I can’t say, at this point in time, how to deal with the trash—I just don’t think, the way it was put across, Jim, a couple of July firsts ago, it was very respectful to the residents. No explanation whatsoever. You’re getting it. People want to know the who, what, wheres and whys, especially when they feel it’s a double taxation type aspect. So—and you look at it, sometimes you might have a person that literally will throw one bag out a week, or two bags out every couple of weeks, to a family that’s throwing out numerous types of refuge [sic] at that point in time. So the whole thing—my—I’m steadfast; I’d like to see the thing alleviated. I get a bill; I continue to pay it. It is still the letter of the law right now. But I’m going to work hard. The control board is fighting me tooth and nail on that issue, though.

Madigan: Let’s talk about the control board. It’s something— you were, in fact, correct me on this, as City Council President, one of the original five—

Sarno: Yes.

Madigan: —when it was created, with former Mayor Ryan now. So you were there at the start, you saw as it came together. It’s totally different membership now—well, except you’re back on, as mayor. We do have now three people, basically, from the city, and two from the eastern part of the state. It seems to me, with Governor Patrick’s employees, a somewhat more simpatico group, if you will, I guess just because he’s a Democrat, and the city, even though technically non-partisan, is a Democratic city; though people complimented the folks who were there before, said they worked very hard, they were very dedicated to Springfield.

You want them gone, though, because you say it’s time for the city to stand on its own two feet. Could we, today, if by fiat of the governor, or secretary of administration and finance, said, you know what, go ahead, Mayor Sarno, we’ll give you a chance; they’re gone. Is the city ready to go its own?

Sarno: I’d love to have that opportunity. I did not run to be a member of the financial control board. I ran, and I won, to be mayor of the City of Springfield, which is a distinct honor and privilege. Look, Jim, let’s face it, they didn’t think we could win, and we did; they don’t think we can govern, and we will. I’ve always said a structured transition, moving back to local governance type aspects. I was originally on the control board, and there were some things that had to be done, that… part of, to rectify the city’s financial ship. But a lot of the initiatives I don’t agree with. A lot of them have been done balancing a budget on the backs of city employees and of the residents of the City of Springfield.

My whole emphasis, now, is on revenue generation, after we get the core, basic foundation services in place, when we speak about public safety, and schools, generating revenue. I would like to see, again, a structured transition to start to occur, and that is the only way you’re going to know if Springfield—and I believe Springfield can stand on its own two feet. We have a lot of talented individuals here in the City of Springfield. We have a lot of talented business individuals here in the City of Springfield.

You know, you go consultant, consultant, study, and study, and study—sometimes you just have to look from within, people who have stayed here through thick and thin, and have battled, and have succeeded. We need to look back at our local talent that is here. That’s extremely important.

Madigan: How do you guard against those mistakes, accidents, things that were overlooked, whatever, over, really, a decade—and, in fairness, you were on the City Council—

Sarno: That’s right.

Madigan: —and I realize being on the City Council’s not the same as being in the mayor’s office, the executive chamber, but these things got by an awful lot of smart people that led us to the spot where the city was millions in debt.

Sarno: I am all for fiscal watchdog efforts, and I’m conservative in nature when it comes to fiscally. And again, many of the—we talked about this in May—all these budgets were presented balanced, and they were all approved by the Department of Revenue, which is supposed to be red-flagging when there’s issues [sic; see David Panagore's November 2, 2007 comment on this]. People also forget, we took a multitude of heavy cuts from the state at that point in time. You also look at the Merrill Lynch issue, Jim, okay? The checks and balances. This occurred under the watch of the financial control board, and the prior—

Madigan: Let me just stop for one second—

Sarno: Yeah. Yeah.

Madigan: —and explain to folks: you’re talking about 13-plus—what, $13.9 million—

Sarno: $13.9 million.

Madigan: —invested for the city—

Sarno: That’s right.

Madigan: —as it turns out, improperly invested by Merrill Lynch.

Sarno: That’s right. That’s right.

Madigan: They put it in funds that a city should never have its funds put in. The city wasn’t properly informed. When it was, there was a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo; I guess it took a long time for people to figure it out. I’ll let you continue from there. And you are getting the money back.

Sarno: That’s right. You know, I’m more than willing to work with the control board members, and there has to be a give and take. And I am the first mayor in the city’s history that is completely dealing with a control board, that needing a give and take, doesn’t have any personnel control, and I think that’s essential, personnel control, anybody I put forth be qualified individuals.

On the Merrill Lynch issue, again, that came under the auspices of [the] financial control board, and the prior administration. Now, my point in time, the Sarno administration walking into this situation, we wanted to rectify this asap. This was an issue that engulfed my administration, and myself, hours every day. And when Merrill Lynch reached out to me, and said they wanted to talk, I said, fine. But I wasn’t settling for anything. A hundred cents on the dollar of taxpayer monies.

And when we went to Boston, Ed Pikula, my city solicitor, and I—and I really want to commend the attorney general’s office, Martha Coakley’s office, did an outstanding job—and I notified Chairman [Chris] Gabrieli of the meeting, you know, back and forth, at least a half a dozen times, in and out of that room that evening in Boston, the point was to get that money back, the $13.9 million, and that was number one.

Number two, to make sure we were able [to get back] the interest incurred, I think was about $500,000. And also, we were able to weave in there to get about $149,000 of a private counsel that was done at that point in time.

Now maybe this is where my common sense, or my street smarts, come into play.

I wasn’t leaving that room—because they said, well, we’ll address this all in the morning—well, you know, in politics, an hour’s a long time, and who knows what somebody reads in the newspaper. Told them, you start wiring that money right now.

So on the way back from Boston, as we kept getting update calls, we already had $13.4 million wired in that account. That’s step one. They never thought we’d be able to get the money back.

And the Sarno administration was able to get that money back.

Number two, the checks and balances. There’s a lot of questions there. I’ve called Joe DeNucci, the [state] auditor, to come in there. I want it all the way down, from the control board, the executive director, the former CFO, the [city] auditor, and the treasurer, to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

There’s a lot of questions there. $50 million, there’s no procurement, etcetera.

We walked into this situation, we resolved issue number one; now we move to issue number two. So, many times, I’ll say there’s a lot of good things the control board has done, and I’ve been part of that, but I do question some of the issues that have come across, that have—you know, you balance the budget, really, literally, on the backs of city employees and the residents. I’m all for fiscal watchdog aspects.

What I’m all for, also, promoting, and moving the City of Springfield forward, championing what we have. That’s important. You can’t put a price tag on the intangible, how people feel about their own city, if you successfully deal with—and we believe we will successfully deal with—the core foundation issues.

Madigan: Let’s go into that kind of ephemeral area of this city—

Sarno: That’s a good word, Jim.

Madigan: —oh, well, on public TV, we try and use the big word, as you know—

Sarno: I’ll look that up in the dictionary. [Laughs]

Madigan: [Laughs, blushes] What a city is, and what it means, and the heart and soul and the spirit of a city. A year or so ago, we had the Urban Land Institute in here. I went to their very first news conference, and these folks were just agog, you know. They said, “This is a beautiful city, you have beautiful housing stock, you have a beautiful riv—you’ve got a lot of things. Yes, you’ve got some problems, but you’ve got a lot of great stuff. Get your act together, and work together, and make”—now, you become the mayor of a city.

Sarno: That’s right.

Madigan: Now it’s on your back to make that happen. Can you do it?

Sarno: And I’m glad it’s on my back, because I’m sick and tired of studies and consultants. It’s time to get some bricks and mortar going. And I think we have a lot of projects that are ready to blossom right now, if you take it up the spine of the center of Springfield. You move from the riverfront development aspects, which we do need an environmental approach, with the river recreation. My dream—when you think of Cooperstown, New York, what do you think of, Jim?

Madigan: You think of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sarno: Okay. When you think of Springfield, Massachusetts, you should be thinking the Basketball Hall of Fame. My dream—it’s not going to be a dream—

Madigan: I think people around the country do; we just don’t hear.

Sarno: That’s right. And my thing is about, what Cooperstown has done, it’s the field of dreams, which attracts over a half a million people there, in the warm weather months, 24/7.

My dream and goal is to pursue a court of dreams, indoor/outdoor, compatible to riverfront development, the Basketball Hall of Fame. You will bring in a tremendous amount of tourism at that point in time, which means they’re going to participate, they’re going to have to spend money to eat, sleep, drink, and patronize the Springfield area.

One, as you continue to move up, my linchpin of the arts concept is 31 Elm Street and Old First Church.

Moving as far as the delving together of the arts concept and green, the same type of mentality that these individuals have, and investment, and to get bodies downtown, market-rate housing. We continue to move forward, you look at what’s soon to be the ex-federal building, getting that back, getting bodies downtown.

You move further up, and I commend Congressman [Richard] Neal for bringing home a multitude of millions of dollars, the State Street corridor project that is going on there, with the new federal courthouse that’s going to be opening up.

As we continue to move up the ramp, State Street corridor, we start to look into our neighborhoods, and tributaries that go on there. Indian Orchard, the Crane building, Union Station.

Let me tell you something that’s very important, Jim. All these meetings now, I have moved them into my office. You have an engaged administration, a mayor that wants to drive the agenda. My whole thing is about Springfield first. Springfield first. All these meetings now are occurring in my office. Our administration’s office. That we are engaged, we want to see how we can move things forward, how we can be helpful, and in tune with business retention, which we spoke about, through the Chamber [of Commerce], we’ve already started the schedule; I think we have 13 scheduled already.

I’m going out to the businesses now, whether it’s small, mom and pops, mid-size, large: what are we doing right, what are we doing wrong, how can I help you.

I’ve stepped—we’ve stepped to the ice, on the Falcons, and working with Bruce Landon. Quite successful; we’ve been on the phone, talking to area businesses and corporations, to get the season ticket packages; I’ve also stepped forward myself—

Madigan: The hockey team has said they may have to leave; they need better financial support locally.

Sarno: That’s right. And people don’t realize; we use a professional franchise like that, you’re talking about well over 40 empty dates there in the MassMutual Center. I’m utlizing this, telling businesses that they can utilize this as a marketing tool. Thank you to your customers, thank you to your employees, it’s one skate away from the NHL. It’s great family fun. Carla and the kids and I have been there three or four times this year. It really is.

And let me tell you something. You come to downtown Springfield, it is clean and safe. My next thing is to get away from the ghost town aspects of Saturdays and Sundays. Once we get it clean and safe, I have the word of individuals—downtown businesses—that they’ll be willing to start to open up again. We need to get bodies, bring safety.

So my whole concept is, what’s the next Armory? The next Armory is green, socially and environmentally type businesses. It brings belief, talent, and long-term capital investment.

The governor, Governor [Deval] Patrick, is big on these initiatives. Why can’t we make Springfield the capital of green initiatives. So that is my my next economic engine for job creation.

And what—delving into the arts, we’ve had great conversations with UMass, [interim] Chancellor [Thomas] Cole, Provost [Charlena] Seymour, who—she’s very excited, she’s the first one [now] speaking about the arts concept—bringing UMass into the Springfield picture, but not hurting the four outstanding colleges, and other colleges in the area, that bring a lot of talent, too—something different—as we move on that.

But downtown, and in—you know, with the neighborhoods—I’m looking to secure some money for business, neighborhood business area districts, and I think what they’re clamoring out for, neighborhoods, is they want some safety. And that’s my major priority with that.

Madigan: We’ve only got a couple minutes left, and of course, it would be kind of a complex question, but: I think when we saw the whole fiscal crisis come up—and this wasn’t news to you, or to anybody that really followed city government—a lot of folks were amazed when they realized two out of three of the city’s budget dollars came from elsewhere.

Sarno: [Nods] The state.

Madigan: And that’s always tough, when it’s coming in, you’re depending on another—the pipeline, and when they have trouble, the pipeline shuts down. Is there ever any hope? And obviously, the property tax is such a burden, so for people—

Sarno: It’s a regressive tax.

Madigan: Is there any hope of getting this city, or all cities, and all mayors and selectpeople concerned about this, out from under that, and into some better financial footing?—and you’ve got about two minutes.

Sarno: It’s not gonna—

Madigan: One minute.

Sarno: It’s not gonna happen overnight. We have to look at that. I think what’s huge, for me, right now is I need the extension of the [$52 million state] loan, the payback loan. Because when I’m going down to the bond rating markets, in May and June, you know, to make a 20-year payment of $1.2 to $1.6 million, instead of making balloon payments of $6.2 to $6.8 million, it really frees up a lot of accessibility to pursue the agenda that the Sarno administration is looking to pursue.

But it’s—you’re right—62, to at times, 64 percent of the city budget derives from state and local aid. And even if you get a bump on the school side, it’s almost a wash, because you have to match that money.

On the local aid side—and I appreciate the help of our talented local delegation in the legislature, and I’ve been out there a half a dozen times already—but local aid side, you really need a bump of five to six percent to try to hold the fort. We need to look at it. I know they’ve talked about generating revenue.

I know the casino issue has come up, and there’s been caveats there as far as property tax relief, too.

Madigan: I’ve gotta stop there.

Sarno: Okay.

Madigan: But we’ll get you back. That’s all the time we have for now, for Domenic Sarno. Thank you.

Sarno: My pleasure. [Reaches out to shake hands]

Madigan: See you next time on “The State We’re In.”

Sarno: Thanks.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 10:57 am and is filed under Development, Discussion, Downtown, Finance, Finance Control Board, Media, Planning and design, Public safety, Quality of life, Riverfront, Springfield, Urban Compass.