Presenter alleges former mayor kept Ansonia's mill rate artificially low; new budget "defuses the time bomb"

A presenter identified only as "Presenter" accused Ansonia's former mayor of keeping the city's mill rate artificially low and creating a "false budget" that masked shortfalls, the transcript says.

"The former mayor was keeping the mill rate artificially low and giving us a false budget, putting in revenues that weren't there," the Presenter said, adding that the administration sold assets and kept itself in office by presenting a balanced budget on paper while the city continued to run short of revenue.

The Presenter said those practices "lost millions of dollars" for the city and described the previous administration's conduct as creating a "fiscal time bomb." The presenter framed the new budget as a remedy: "Our budget defuses the time bomb and sets us on a course to fix what's going on with the city and bring prosperity back."

The transcript contains bracketed "[music]" notations that interrupt several lines of the recorded remarks; those notations appear in the original transcript and may obscure small portions of the speaker's wording. The presenter did not provide a specific dollar amount beyond saying the city "lost millions of dollars." The exact figure and supporting documentation are not specified in the transcript.

The record included no named response from the former mayor or other city officials in this excerpt, and no formal motion or vote is recorded on the matter in the provided segments. The transcript does not indicate next procedural steps or any formal investigation being initiated in this excerpt.

This account is limited to the statements in the provided transcript. The allegations reported here are those of the presenter and are not verified in the transcript; the transcript does not show corroboration, denial, or any subsequent action by city officials.