Mayoral Candidates Spar About City's Present, Future in First Debate [VIDEO]

A large crowd packed the council chambers at on Wednesday to witness the first public debate between Attleboro's two mayoral candidates: current mayor, Kevin Dumas, and his opponent, Ronald Churchill.

The debate forced both candidates to answer tough questions about the city's viability, the controversy over the and what their vision is for Attleboro if they were to be elected as mayor.

Both candidates started the debate with a clean slate, after Dumas apologized to Churchill for calling the retired Attleboro Fire Chief and Vietnam veteran's actions "cowardly." Churchill told the crowd that not all of what they read in the news is true.

In his introduction, Churchill talked about his more than four decades of service to the city as a police officer, firefighter and fire chief and his years of volunteering at , the and Big Brothers. 

"I have worked with every Mayor since Mayor Brennan to include the honorable Kevin Dumas and have an understanding of what goes on in the city," he said. "My experience in the military and fire service has given me the discipline and desire to do what is right."

During Dumas's introduction, he reminded the crowd of the major responsibilities of mayor including creating the city's budget, creation of a capital improvements plan, being a chief contract officer, chief procurement officer and contract negotiator.

"I'm proud that we have over $2 million in our stabilization/rainy day fund - the highest ever even during these difficult times," Dumas said. "I'm proud we pay for cash for projects whenever we can."

Answering Tough Questions

The candidates not only had to face tough questions from the community, but from eachother too.

Those questions generated a few suprises, including Churchill's questioning of the number of times of Warwick, RI, has won the bid for many of the city's contracts and whether there was any favoritism over the Rhode Island company versus a local contract.

"In fairness to the city, people who work in the city should have the opportunity to bid and the Mayor should reach out to those other companies," Churchill said after the debate ended. "There's a little arrogance there. Not knowing and not being involved in bids, it has appeared that (other businesses) are not in the running and have no chance."

"I can guarantee you and I can also guarantee the fact that everything has always been done on the up and up," Dumas shot back. "When those projects are put up for bid, projects that the city will use through its Community Development Block Grant funds, if we initiate the project, we go through that public procurement process."

"I can't remember off the top of my head if Scorpio's (restaurant) themselves hired Cobalt or something else was in there themselves I believe that's what they did," he added. "I believe that is what Sangrias, a new restaurant that will open in the sprin,g I believe that they are using him as well, but that is not something that goes through us."

Dumas, in turn, threw out a one, two punch when he asked what "Mayor Churchill" will do when if he had to make a policy decision to close Briggs Fire Station like "Chief Churchill" did. He then announced that the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts had endorsed him and not Churchill.

is one of the issues that Dumas has been running his campaign for re-election on because it was a promise he made to voters in the past.

"First of all, Chief Churchill closed the fire station under Judy Robbins and Mayor Shang because both of those mayors did not provide enough money to keep it open," Churchill said. "I didn't say we should, I said we needed to. You came up with the money. I think my presentation was worthwhile."

Churchill went on to say that he used the same tactic with former mayors by presenting them with the choice of meeting contractual obligations to have enough manpower or closing a station, that they too responded as Dumas did by coming up with the money to keep the station open.

Agreeing on Tappan

With both candidates providing answers under the alloted time, there was room for an additional question about what could have been done to save the from demolition.

Dumas replied by saying that he, and members of the community worked tiredlessly to try to save and move the 27-room historic mansion, but that it just could not be done because the land where the house would be moved to was privately-owned.

Churchill commended the Mayor and the community for their efforts and said that one year was not enough to save the house.

Below are some of the other questions to candidates and their responses:

Moderator: Speak about how the City can hold down water and sewer rates in the future.

Churchill: "My concern would be that over the years since 2003 to present time, in the eight years it has doubled. I understand the water and sewer rates has been taxed through a system that allows city agencies to project their costs to contribute to the water and sewer rates. I feel that in some way, in all due respect to the mayor, the money is also being used to stabilize the city's operations."

Dumas:"The city decided to go enterprise in 2001. When it did that it had to bring in enough money to fund itself. If it doesn't, general government, us as the City of Attleboro (two separate budgets), would have to be able to make up the money if it is not self sustained."

Dumas went on to say that the city analyzes what the City of Attleboro and its departments do for the water and wastewater departments.

"That is what makes up the $1.1 million that comes into general government. If the actual water and wastewater enterprise funds had to actually hire their own people to do what they do for them, it would cost significantly more. It's actually a bargain for what we do."

Moderator: How do you propose to move the Attleboro Redevelopment Authority and its business park and train station projects forward after all the controversies over the past several years?

Dumas: "We have worked diligently with the new board of the Attleboro Redevelopment Authority with Chairman Robbins and do whatever we can to go forth to do what we can to make these projects stay alive. First step in that process is to go through and take care small judgement creditors, number one. Number two will be in the next few months to go through and take care of the remaining creditors to be able to wipe the slate clean as it relates to the judgement creditors so the IBP (Industrial Business Park) can move forward."

Churchill: "I think the ARA as it stands now is really just a lot of talk. We are still in debt. At this time some we owe some $2.5 million on a mortgage. The economic downturn is related to what is going on in the country. There are no real enthusiastic customers at this time. What we need to do is get rid of the debt, stop the bleeding, sit tight and see what happens. The ARA has changed from a private organization and the city has taken it under its umbrella. I think that was a mistake. I think it should have stayed private. By paying off the debt we have now shown that we are responsible for what's going on with the ARA. Right now it's a dead horse."

Moderator: If elected what specifics steps would you take to attract businesses to the downtown area? What type of business do you foresee moving to the downtown and would you use Community Development Block Grants to achieve your goals.

Churchill: "Certainly one of the things we need to re-embrace is the Chamber of Commerce. It has to have a working relationship with the city, personalities aside. To step out into an area without all your ammunition in tact is a foolish move. Some Community Development Block Grant has attracted some business, but right now there are 22 to 23 empty stores in the downtown area business isn't coming."

Dumas: "You want to do infrastructure work, especially in some areas where there may not be a current business. One of the things we learned is to be able to go through and be one-stop shop. What I mean by that is to be able to when someone comes into city hall they contact my office or the office in the back here, the office of community devleopment and we'll go through and sit down with that person and have all the department heads sit down with them. What type of business? Small businesses. I think CDBG funds have been a great use."

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Mayor Kevin Dumas said Ronald Churchill was a coward. Dumas said Churchill's "actions were cowardly." We regret the error.